l feeling of repulsion, selected from the store he
accumulated yesterday some more suitable garments than those in which
she escaped from the wreck.

He quietly took stock of his own tattered condition, and passed a
reflective hand over the stubble on his chin. In a few days his face
would resemble a scrubbing-brush. In that mournful moment he would have
exchanged even his pipe and tobacco-box--worth untold gold--for shaving
tackle. Who can say why his thoughts took such trend? Twenty-four hours
can effect great changes in the human mind if controlling influences
are active.

Then came a sharp revulsion of feeling. His name was Robert--a menial.
He reached for his boots, and Iris heard him.

"Good morning," she cried, smiling sweetly. "I thought you would never
awake. I suppose you were very, very tired. You were lying so still
that I ventured to peep at you a long time ago."

"Thus might Titania peep at an ogre," he said.

"You didn't look a bit like an ogre. You never do. You only try to talk
like one--sometimes."

"I claim a truce until after breakfast. If my rough compliment offends
you, let me depend upon a more gentle tongue than my own--

"'Her Angel's face
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place.'

"Those lines are surely appropriate. They come from the _Faerie
Queene_."

"They are very nice, but please wash quickly. The eggs will be hard."

"Eggs!"

"Yes; I made a collection among the trees. I tasted one of a lot that
looked good. It was first-rate."

He had not the moral courage to begin the day with a rebuke. She was
irrepressible, but she really must not do these things. He smothered a
sigh in the improvised basin which was placed ready for him.

Miss Deane had prepared a capital meal. Of course the ham and biscuits
still bulked large in the bill of fare, but there were boiled eggs,
fried bananas and an elderly cocoanut. These things, supplemented by
clear cold water, were not so bad for a couple of castaways, hundreds
of miles from everywhere.

For the life of him the man could not refrain from displaying the
conversational art in which he excelled. Their talk dealt with Italy,
Egypt, India. He spoke with the ease of culture and enthusiasm. Once he
slipped into anecdote _a propos_ of the helplessness of British
soldiers in any matter outside the scope of the King's Regulations.

"I remember," he said, "seeing a cavalry subaltern a