hy will you follow after wandering dreams
When we await you? And you can but dream
Of us, and in our image fashion them.'"

"True, most true," she murmured, while all unconsciously pride and power
mounted in her eyes.

"A wonderful poem," she conceded--nay, proclaimed--when I had done.

"But do you not see . . ." I began impulsively, then abandoned the
attempt. For how could she see, being woman, the "far-off, disastrous,
unattainable things," when she, as she so stoutly averred, had gazed
often on the stars?

She? What could she see, save what all women see--that they only are
real, and that all the rest are dreams.

"I am proud to be a daughter of Herodias," said Miss West.

"Well," I admitted lamely, "we agree. You remember it is what I told you
you were."

"I am grateful for the compliment," she said; and in those long gray eyes
of hers were limned and coloured all the satisfaction, and self-certitude
and answering complacency of power that constitute so large a part of the
seductive mystery and mastery that is possessed by woman.

CHAPTER XX

Heavens!--how I read in this fine weather. I take so little exercise
that my sleep need is very small; and there are so few interruptions,
such as life teems with on the land, that I read myself almost stupid.
Recommend me a sea-voyage any time for a man who is behind in his
reading. I am making up years of it. It is an orgy, a debauch; and I am
sure the addled sailors adjudge me the queerest creature on board.

At times, so fuzzy do I get from so much reading, that I am glad for any
diversion. When we strike the doldrums, which lie between the north-east
and the south-east trades, I shall have Wada assemble my little twenty-
two automatic rifle and try to learn how to shoot. I used to shoot, when
I was a wee lad. I can remember dragging a shot-gun around with me over
the hills. Also, I possessed an air-rifle, with which, on great
occasion, I was even able to slaughter a robin.

While the poop is quite large for promenading, the available space for
deck-chairs is limited to the awnings that stretch across from either
side of the chart-house and that are of the width of the chart-house.
This space again is restricted to one side or the other according to the
slant of the morning and afternoon sun and the freshness of the breeze.
Wherefore, Miss West's chair and mine are most frequently side by side.
Captain West has a chair, which he infre