hat wealth can buy, had
turned the fat sallow girl he remembered into this commanding young
woman, almost handsome at times indisputably handsome--in her big
authoritative way. Watching the arrogant lines of her profile against
the blue sea, he remembered, with a thrill that was sweet to his vanity,
how twice--under the dome of the Scalzi and in the streets of Genoa--he
had seen those same lines soften at his approach, turn womanly, pleading
and almost humble. That was Coral....

Suddenly she said, without turning toward him: "You've had no letters
since you've been on board."

He looked at her, surprised. "No--thank the Lord!" he laughed.

"And you haven't written one either," she continued in her hard
statistical tone.

"No," he again agreed, with the same laugh.

"That means that you really are free--"

"Free?"

He saw the cheek nearest him redden. "Really off on a holiday, I mean;
not tied down." After a pause he rejoined: "No, I'm not particularly
tied down."

"And your book?"

"Oh, my book--" He stopped and considered. He had thrust The Pageant of
Alexander into his handbag on the night of his Bight from Venice; but
since then he had never looked at it. Too many memories and illusions
were pressed between its pages; and he knew just at what page he had
felt Ellie Vanderlyn bending over him from behind, caught a whiff of her
scent, and heard her breathless "I had to thank you!"

"My book's hung up," he said impatiently, annoyed with Miss Hicks's lack
of tact. There was a girl who never put out feelers....

"Yes; I thought it was," she went on quietly, and he gave her a startled
glance. What the devil else did she think, he wondered? He had never
supposed her capable of getting far enough out of her own thick carapace
of self-sufficiency to penetrate into any one else's feelings.

"The truth is," he continued, embarrassed, "I suppose I dug away at
it rather too continuously; that's probably why I felt the need of a
change. You see I'm only a beginner."

She still continued her relentless questioning. "But later--you'll go on
with it, of course?"

"Oh, I don't know." He paused, glanced down the glittering deck, and
then out across the glittering water. "I've been dreaming dreams, you
see. I rather think I shall have to drop the book altogether, and try
to look out for a job that will pay. To indulge in my kind of literature
one must first have an assured income."

He was instantly annoyed with him