return. The idea of your preaching! Here I am with nothing
special to do, and I like to amuse myself. Ought not that to be enough
for you?'

'But what is to be the end of it?' Dick Shand asked, very solemnly.

'How can I tell? But the absurdity is that such a man as you should talk
about the end of anything. Did you ever look before you leaped in your
life?'

'We are to be together, you know, and it won't do for us to be hampered
with that woman.'

'Won't it? Then let me tell you that, if I choose to hamper myself with
that woman, or with a whole harem of women, and am not deterred by any
consideration for myself, I certainly shall not be deterred by any
consideration for you. Do you understand me?'

'That is not being a true partner,' said Shand.

'I'm quite sure of this,--that I'm likely to be as true as you are. I'm
not aware that I have entered into any terms with you by which I have
bound myself to any special mode of living. I have left England, as I
fancy you have done also, because I desired more conventional freedom
than one can find among the folk at home. And now, on the first outset,
I am to be cautioned and threatened by you because I have made
acquaintance with a young woman. Of all the moral pastors and masters
that one might come across in the world, you, Dick Shand, appear to me
to be the most absurd. But you are so far right as this, that if my
conduct is shocking to you, you had better leave me to my wickedness.'

'You are always so d---- upsetting,' said Dick, 'that no one can speak
to you.' Then Dick turned away, and there was nothing more said about
Mrs. Smith on that occasion.

The next to try her hand was Mrs. Callander. By this time the passengers
had become familiar with the ship, and knew what they might and what
they might not do. The second-class passengers were not often found
intruding across the bar, but the first-class frequently made visits to
their friends amidships. In this way Mrs. Callander had become
acquainted with our two gold-seekers, and often found herself in
conversation with one or the other. Even Miss Green, as has been stated
before, would come and gaze upon the waves from the inferior part of the
deck.

'What a very nice voyage we are having, Mr. Caldigate,' Mrs. Callander
said one afternoon.

'Yes, indeed. It is getting a little cold now, but we shall enjoy that
after all the heat.'

'Quite so; only I suppose it will be very cold when we get quite south.
Y