d distrust.

Upon seeing Freya he arose from his seat. She greeted him, calling him
Karl, and passed on as though he were a mere porter. Ulysses upon
following her, surmised that the suspicious glance of the writer was
fixed upon his back.

"Is he a Pole, too?" he asked.

"Yes, a Pole.... He is a protege of the doctor's."

They entered a salon evidently furnished in great haste, with the
happy-go-lucky and individual knack of those accustomed to traveling
and improvising a dwelling place;--divans with cheap and showy
chintzes, skins of the American llama, glaring imitation-Oriental rugs,
and on the walls, prints from the periodicals between gilt moldings. On
a table were displayed their marble ornaments and silver things, a
great dressing-case with a cover of cut leather, and a few little
Neapolitan statuettes which had been bought at the last moment in order
to give a certain air of sedentary respectability to this room which
could be dismantled suddenly and whose most valuable adornments were
acquired _en route_.

Through a half-drawn portiere they descried the doctor writing in the
nearby room. She was bending over an American desk, but she saw them
immediately in a mirror which she kept always in front of her in order
to spy on all that was passing behind her.

Ulysses surmised that the imposing dame had made certain additions to
her toilette in order to receive him. A gown as close as a sheath
molded the exuberance of her figure. The narrow skirt drawn tightly
over the edge of her knees appeared like the handle of an enormous
club. Over the green sea of her dress she was wearing a spangled white
tulle draped like a shawl. The captain, in spite of his respect for
this wise lady, could not help comparing her to a well-nourished
mother-mermaid in the oceanic pasture lands.

With outstretched hands and a joyous expression on her countenance
irradiating even her glasses, she advanced toward Ferragut. Her meeting
was almost an embrace.... "My dear Captain! Such a long time since I
have seen you!..." She had heard of him frequently through her young
friend, but even so, she could not but consider it a misfortune that
the sailor had never come to see her.

She appeared to have forgotten her coldness when bidding him farewell
in Salerno and the care which she had taken to hide from him her home
address.

Neither did Ferragut recall this fact now that he was so agreeably
touched by the doctor's amiability. She ha