d a strong, wise man to take care of her, and to
keep her out of the mischief into which her unfortunate
good-nature--that was the way Coxeter phrased it to himself--was so apt
to lead her.

It was just after this incident that he had again asked her to marry
him, and that she had again refused him. But it was since then that he
had become really her friend.

* * * * *

At last Mrs. Archdale turned away, or else the French boy had come to an
end of his eloquence. Perhaps she would now lean a little forward and
speak to him--the friend whom she had not seen for some weeks and whom
she had seemed so sincerely glad to see half an hour ago? But no; she
remained silent, her face full of thought.

Coxeter leant back; as a rule he never read in a train, for he was aware
that it is injurious to the eyesight to do so. But to-night he suddenly
told himself that after all he might just as well look at the English
paper he had bought at the station. He might at least see what sort of
crossing they were going to have to-night. Not that he minded for
himself. He was a good sailor and always stayed on deck whatever the
weather, but he hoped it would be smooth for Mrs. Archdale's sake. It
was so unpleasant for a lady to have a rough passage.

Again, before opening the paper, he glanced across at her. She did not
look strong; that air of delicacy, combined as it was with perfect
health--for Mrs. Archdale was never ill--was one of the things that made
her attractive to John Coxeter. When he was with a woman, he liked to
feel that he was taking care of her, and that she was more or less
dependent on his good offices. Somehow or other he always felt this
concerning Nan Archdale, and that even when she was doing something of
which he disapproved and which he would fain have prevented her doing.

Coxeter turned round so that the light should fall on the page at which
he had opened his newspaper, which, it need hardly be said, was the
_Morning Post_. Presently there came to him the murmuring of two voices,
Mrs. Archdale's clear, low utterances, and another's, guttural and full.

Ah! then he had been right; the fellow sitting there, on Nan's other
side, was a Jew: probably something financial, connected with the Stock
Exchange. Coxeter of the Treasury looked at the man he took to be a
financier with considerable contempt. Coxeter prided himself on his
knowledge of human beings,--or rather of men, for even