smoked a pipe?"

I said I had not noticed it.

For his holiday Kinney had purchased a box of cigars of a quality more
expensive than those he can usually afford. He was smoking one of them
at the moment, and, as it grew less, had been carefully moving the gold
band with which it was encircled from the lighted end. But as he spoke
he regarded it apparently with distaste, and then dropped it overboard.

"Keep my chair," he said, rising. "I am going to my cabin to get my
pipe." I sat down and fastened my eyes upon my book; but neither did I
understand what I was reading nor see the printed page. Instead, before
my eyes, confusing and blinding me, was the lovely, radiant face of the
beautiful lady. In perplexity I looked up, and found her standing not
two feet from me. Something pulled me out of my chair. Something made me
move it toward her. I lifted my hat and backed away. But the eyes of the
lovely lady halted me.

To my perplexity, her face expressed both surprise and pleasure. It was
as though either she thought she knew me, or that I reminded her of some
man she did know. Were the latter the case, he must have been a friend,
for the way in which she looked at me was kind. And there was, besides,
the expression of surprise and as though something she saw pleased her.
Maybe it was the quickness with which I had offered my chair. Still
looking at me, she pointed to one of the sky-scrapers.

"Could you tell me," she asked, "the name of that building?" Had her
question not proved it, her voice would have told me not only that she
was a stranger, but that she was Irish. It was particularly soft, low,
and vibrant. It made the commonplace question she asked sound as though
she had sung it. I told her the name of the building, and that farther
uptown, as she would see when we moved into midstream, there was another
still taller. She listened, regarding me brightly, as though interested;
but before her I was embarrassed, and, fearing I intruded, I again made
a movement to go away. With another question she stopped me. I could see
no reason for her doing so, but it was almost as though she had asked
the question only to detain me.

"What is that odd boat," she said, "pumping water into the river?"

I explained that it was a fire-boat testing her hose-lines, and then as
we moved into the channel I gained courage, and found myself pointing
out the Statue of Liberty, Governors Island, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
The fact that