eckoning of lives."

Deep within the tarnished ormulu frame, in the hot half-light sifted
through the awning, I saw my own face propped between my hands. And I
stared back at myself with the perfect detachment of distance, rather
with curiosity than with any other feeling, except of some sympathy for
this latest representative of what for all intents and purposes was a
dynasty, continuous not in blood indeed, but in its experience, in its
training, in its conception of duty, and in the blessed simplicity of
its traditional point of view on life.

It struck me that this quietly staring man whom I was watching, both as
if he were myself and somebody else, was not exactly a lonely figure.
He had his place in a line of men whom he did not know, of whom he had
never heard; but who were fashioned by the same influences, whose souls
in relation to their humble life's work had no secrets for him.

Suddenly I perceived that there was another man in the saloon, standing
a little on one side and looking intently at me. The chief mate. His
long, red moustache determined the character of his physiognomy, which
struck me as pugnacious in (strange to say) a ghastly sort of way.

How long had he been there looking at me, appraising me in my unguarded
day-dreaming state? I would have been more disconcerted if, having the
clock set in the top of the mirror-frame right in front of me, I had not
noticed that its long hand had hardly moved at all.

I could not have been in that cabin more than two minutes altogether.
Say three. . . . So he could not have been watching me more than a mere
fraction of a minute, luckily. Still, I regretted the occurrence.

But I showed nothing of it as I rose leisurely (it had to be leisurely)
and greeted him with perfect friendliness.

There was something reluctant and at the same time attentive in his
bearing. His name was Burns. We left the cabin and went round the ship
together. His face in the full light of day appeared very pale, meagre,
even haggard. Somehow I had a delicacy as to looking too often at him;
his eyes, on the contrary, remained fairly glued on my face. They were
greenish and had an expectant expression.

He answered all my questions readily enough, but my ear seemed to catch
a tone of unwillingness. The second officer, with three or four hands,
was busy forward. The mate mentioned his name and I nodded to him in
passing. He was very young. He struck me as rather a cub.

When we re