p at me, startled, and for a second our glances held. The
next moment she was gone, and I was alone on a rain swept deck, cursing
my folly.

That night, in a white linen coat, I served dinner in the after house.
The meal was unusually gay, rendered so by the pitching of the boat and
the uncertainty of the dishes. In the general hilarity, my awkwardness
went unnoticed. Miss Lee, sitting beside Vail, devoted herself to him.
Mrs. Johns, young and blonde, tried to interest Turner, and, failing in
that, took to watching me, to my discomfiture. Mrs. Turner, with
apprehensive eyes on her husband, ate little and drank nothing.

Dinner over in the main cabin, they lounged into the chart-room--except
Mrs. Johns, who, following them to the door, closed it behind them and
came back. She held a lighted cigarette, and she stood just outside
the zone of candlelight, watching me through narrowed eyes.

"You got along very well to-night," she observed. "Are you quite
strong again?"

"Quite strong, Mrs. Johns."

"You have never done this sort of thing before, have you?"

"Butler's work? No--but it is rather simple."

"I thought perhaps you had," she said. "I seem to recall you,
vaguely--that is, I seem to remember a crowd of people, and a noise--I
dare say I did see you in a crowd somewhere. You know, you are rather
an unforgettable type."

I was nonplused as to how a butler would reply to such a statement, and
took refuge in no reply at all. As it happened, none was needed. The
ship gave a terrific roll at that moment, and I just saved the
Chartreuse as it was leaving the table. Mrs. Johns was holding to a
chair.

"Well caught," she smiled, and, taking a fresh cigarette, she bent over
a table-lamp and lighted it herself. All the time her eyes were on me,
I felt that she was studying one over her cigarette, with something in
view.

"Is it still raining?"

"Yes, Mrs. Johns."

"Will you get a wrap from Karen and bring it to me on deck? I--I want
air to-night."

The forward companionway led down into the main cabin. She moved
toward it, her pale green gown fading into the shadow. At the foot of
the steps she turned and looked back at me. I had been stupid enough,
but I knew then that she had something to say to me, something that she
would not trust to the cabin walls. I got the wrap.

She was sitting in a deck-chair when I found her, on the lee side of
the after house, a position carefully chosen, with only