latteries.

"I have lived in Mexico," he said, in order to explain his knowledge of
the language. "I made a long trip through the Philippines when I was
living in Japan."

The seas of the extreme Far East were those least frequented by
Ulysses. Only twice had he entered the Chinese and Nipponese harbors,
but he knew them sufficiently to keep up his end of the conversation
with this traveler who was displaying in his tastes a certain artistic
refinement. For half an hour, there filed through the vulgar atmosphere
of this salon, images of enormous pagodas with superimposed roofs whose
strings of bells vibrated in the breeze like an Aeolian harp, monstrous
idols--carved in gold, in bronze, or in marble-houses made of paper,
thrones of bamboo, furniture with mother-of-pearl inlay, screens with
flocks of flying storks.

The doctor disappeared, bored by a dialogue of which she could only
understand a few words. Freya, motionless, with drowsy eyes, and a knee
between her crossed hands, held herself aloof, understanding the
conversation, but without taking any part in it, as though she were
offended at the forgetfulness in which the two men were leaving her.
Finally she slipped discreetly away, responding to the call of a hand
peeping through the portieres. The doctor was preparing tea and needed
help.

The conversation continued on in no way affected by their absence.
Kaledine had abandoned the Asiatic waters in order to pass to the
Mediterranean, and there he anchored himself with admirable insistence.
Another sign of affection for Ferragut who was finding him more and
more charming in spite of his slightly glacial attitude.

He suddenly noticed that it was not as a Russian count that he was
speaking since, with brief and exact questions, he was making Ferragut
reply just as though he were undergoing an examination.

These signs of interest shown by the great traveler in the little _mare
nostrum_, and especially in the details of its western bowl which he
wished to know most minutely, pleased Ferragut greatly.

He might ask him whatever he wished. Ferragut knew mile for mile all
its shores,--Spanish, French, and Italian, the surface and also its
depths.

Perhaps because he was staying in Naples, Kaledine insisted upon
learning especially about that part of the Mediterranean enclosed
between Sardinia, southern Italy, and Sicily,--the part which the
ancients had called the Tyrrhenian Sea.... Did the captain happen to