g your pardon!" said Rupert pusillanimously. Miss Fitzroy fell
back again on the tobacco pouch theory.

At this moment the glowing end of a cigar deviated from its orbit on the
deck and approached them.

"Is that you, Gunning? I thought it was your voice," said the owner of
the cigar.

"Yes, it is," said Mr. Gunning, in a tone singularly lacking in
encouragement. "Thought I saw you at dinner, but couldn't be sure."

As a matter of fact, no one could have been more thoroughly aware than
he of Captain Carteret's presence in the saloon.

"I thought so too!" said Fanny Fitz, from the darkness, "Captain
Carteret wouldn't look my way!"

Captain Carteret gave a somewhat exaggerated start of discovery, and
threw his cigar over the side. He had evidently come to stay.

"How was it I didn't see you at the Horse Show?" he said.

"The only people one ever sees there are the people one doesn't want to
see," said Fanny, "I could meet no one except the auctioneer from
Craffroe, and he always said the same thing. 'Fearful sultry, Miss
Fitzroy! Have ye a purchaser yet for your animal, Miss Fitzroy? Ye have
not! Oh, fie, fie!' It was rather funny at first, but it palled."

"I was only there one day," said Captain Carteret; "I wish I'd known you
had a horse up, I might have helped you to sell."

"Thanks! I sold all right," said Fanny Fitz magnificently. "Did rather
well too!"

"Capital!" said Captain Carteret vaguely. His acquaintance with Fanny
extended over a three-day shooting party in Kildare, and a dance given
by the detachment of his regiment at Enniscar, for which he had come
down from the depot. It was not sufficient to enlighten him as to what
it meant to her to own and sell a horse for the first time in her life.

"By-the-bye, Gunning," he went on, "you seemed to be having a lively
time in Nassau Street yesterday! My wife and I were driving in from the
polo, and we saw you in the thick of what looked like a street row. Some
one in the club afterwards told me it was a horse you had only just
bought at the Show that had come to grief. I hope it wasn't much hurt?"

There was a moment of silence--astonished, inquisitive silence on the
part of Miss Fitzroy temporary cessation of the faculty of speech on
that of Mr. Gunning. It was the moment, as he reflected afterwards, for
a clean, decisive lie, a denial of all ownership; either that, or the
instant flinging of Captain Carteret overboard.

Unfortunately for him, he d