no withering blight followed his look. Instead, the wearer of the
gaudy coat sat up suddenly and said, with a radiant smile:

"Well, did you ever! Where did _you_ come from?"

[Illustration: "Well, did you ever! Where did _you_ come from?"]

By a curious twist, his mind suddenly beheld a rolling prairie in place
of the tumbling sea, and a comely figure in khaki and brown leggings in
place of the muffled form in the hideous coat. His suspicion was
confirmed when he met the frank gaze of the bluest eyes that ever held a
challenge.

Instead of being amused, Percival was profoundly annoyed. The incident
on the train had been pretty enough in its way, but it was closed. As it
stood, it had been rather artistic and satisfying. A wild, unknown bit
of femininity dashing into his life for ten throbbing minutes, then
vanishing into the sunset, was one thing, and this very tangible young
person in clothes of the wrong cut and color, addressing him in terms of
easy familiarity, was quite another.

"I beg your pardon," he said stiffly. "Did you address me?"

Her eyes clouded.

"Why, I thought--I thought you were some one I knew. Is this your chair?"

"It is. Pray do not discommode yourself?"

"That is all right," she answered, trying to disentangle her high heels
from his rug. "I've had my nap, thank you. Think I'll go down and get a
sandwich."

Percival waited in frigid silence until she had departed; then he sank
limply into the warm nest she had just left, and closed his eyes on a
world that failed in all respects to give satisfaction.

II

A COUNTER-IRRITANT

If there is a place on earth where one meets with the present face
to face, it is on shipboard. Whether salt water and sea air act as a
narcotic on memories of the past and dreams of the future has never been
proved, but it is undeniably true that at sea time becomes a static
thing and concerns itself solely with the affairs of the moment.

During that first long afternoon Percival slept; and if the faithless
Hortense essayed to haunt his dreams, she was drowned in the profundity
of his slumber. It was not until his valet touched his arm and
respectfully submitted the information that the first gong had sounded
for dinner that he woke to the fact that the _Saluria_ was still
swinging from the trough to the summit of increasingly high waves and
that the deck was virtually deserted.

"If you are not feeling quite the thing, sir," said the valet,
so