iority, and they went about the
business with such dignified leisure that Dr. Christobal had time to
find out, through men whom he could trust, that Elsie's small estate in
Chile contained one of the richest mines in the country. He secured a
bid of many thousands of pounds for it, and advised Mrs. Courtenay to
accept half in cash and half in shares of the exploiting company.

Hence, there was no need for Courtenay to decline a new career in the
magnificent service which Mr. Boyle once sniffed at, and Elsie became a
prominent figure in that very select circle which clusters around the
ports mostly favored by his Majesty's ships.

It was not unreasonable that Gray should go back to Chile to take
charge of Elsie's mine, nor that Mr. Boyle should become captain and
Walker chief engineer, of the _Kansas_, but there was one wholly
unexpected development which fairly took Elsie's breath away when she
heard of it.

She was with her husband in London. While passing the National Gallery
one day, she remembered the picture by Claude which deals with the
embarkation of Saint Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins. A painter
herself, Elsie had an artist's appreciation of the vanity which led
Turner to bequeath his finest canvasses to the nation with the proviso
that they should be placed cheek by jowl with those of his great rival,
the Lorrainer. So a fat fox-terrier was given in charge of a catalogue
seller, and they passed up the steps.

It was a students' day, and the galleries were crowded with embryonic
geniuses. Courtenay waxed sarcastic anent the rig of Claude's ships;
he was laughing at the careless grace with which several of the Baozan
maidens were standing in a boat just putting off from a wharf, when a
lady cried sharply:

"George, how careless of you! You are sitting on my mahl-stick."

"Sorry, my dear," said a tall thin man, rising from a camp-stool.

"Good gracious, it's Mr. Tollemache," whispered Elsie.

"Gad, so it is. Let's hail him."

Tollemache's solemn face brightened when he heard the hail. He
introduced his wife, an eminently artistic being who answered to the
name of Jennie. She at once enlisted Elsie in an argument as to
atmospheres, but Tollemache drew Courtenay aside.

"Got married when I reached home that trip," he explained. "The wife
comes here every Thursday, an' I have to carry the kit. Rather rot,
isn't it?"

"It is certainly a change from stoking the donkey-boiler, and bowli