thought of it. I'll
make my will when I'm in England this time--I ought to have done so
before."

Suddenly Coxeter leant forward. He felt the time had come when he really
must put an end to this most unseemly conversation.

"Mrs. Archdale?" he spoke loudly, insistently. She looked up, startled
at the sharpness of the tone, and the man next her, whose eyes had been
fixed on her face with so moved and doubting a look, sat back. "I want
to tell you that I've seen your inventor, and that I've promised to put
his invention before the right quarter at the Admiralty."

In a moment Nan was all eagerness. "It really is a very wonderful
thing," she said; "I'm so grateful, Mr. Coxeter. Did you go and see it
tried? _I_ did, last time I was in Paris; the man took me to a
swimming-bath on the Seine--such an odd place--and there he tested it
before me. I was really very much impressed. I do hope you will say a
word for it. I am sure they would value your opinion."

Coxeter looked at her rather grimly. "No, I didn't see it tested." To
think that she should have wasted even an hour of her time in such a
foolish manner, and in such a queer place, too! "I didn't see the use of
doing so, though of course the man was very anxious I should. I'm
afraid the thing's no good. How could it be?" He smiled superciliously,
and he saw her redden.

"How unfair that is!" she exclaimed. "How can you possibly tell whether
it's no good if you haven't seen it tried? Now I _have_ seen the thing
tried."

There was such a tone of protest in her voice that Coxeter felt called
upon to defend himself. "I daresay the thing's all right in theory," he
said quickly, "and I believe what he says about the ordinary life-belts;
it's quite true, I mean, that they drown more people than they save: but
that's only because people don't know how to put them on. This thing's a
toy--not practical at all." He spoke more irritably than he generally
allowed himself to speak, for he could see that the Jew was listening to
all that they were saying.

All at once, Mrs. Archdale actually included the sweetmeat stranger in
their conversation, and Coxeter at last found himself at her request
most unwillingly taking the absurd model out of his bag. "Of course
you've got to imagine this in a rough sea," he said sulkily, playing the
devil's advocate, "and not in a fresh water river bath."

"Well, _I_ wouldn't mind trying it in a rough sea, Mr. Coxeter." Nan
smiled as she spoke.