of something suspiciously like cholera on board my
yacht at Constantinople, and it seemed wisest to get away to sea as
soon as possible. One of the firemen--oh, he's all right now! Still I
shall send him home to England. He's a married man--the only one I have
on board. A useful fellow, but he must go. I don't choose to take the
responsibility of creating the widow and the fatherless whenever one of
my crew chances to fall sick and depart into the unknown."

Richard talked on, very evidently for the mere sake of passing the
time. And all the while those eyes, which told nothing, dwelt quietly
upon Helen de Vallorbes until she became nervously impatient of their
scrutiny. For it was not at all thus that she had pictured and
rehearsed this meeting during those days of waiting at Perugia!

"We got in last night," he continued. "But I slept on board. I heard
you had just arrived, and I did not care to run the risk of disturbing
you after your journey."

"You are very considerate," Helen remarked.

She was surprised out of all readiness of speech. This new Richard
impressed her, but she resented his manner. He took her so very much
for granted. Admiration and homage were to her as her daily bread, and
that any man should fail to offer them caused her frank amazement. It
did more. It raised in her a longing to inflict pain. He might not
admire, but at least he should not remain indifferent. Therefore she
backed a couple of steps, so as to get a good view of Richard Calmady.
And, without any disguise of her purpose, took a comprehensive and
leisurely survey of his dwarfed and mutilated figure. While so doing
she pinned on her rose-trimmed hat, and twisted the long, tulle strings
of it about her throat.

"You have altered a good deal, Richard," she said reflectively.

"Probably," he answered. "I had a good deal to learn, being a very
thin-skinned young simpleton. In part, anyhow, I have learned it. And I
do my best practically to apply my knowledge. But if I have altered,
so, happily, have not you."

"I remain a simpleton?" she inquired, her irritation finding voice.

"You cannot very well remain that which you never have been. What you
do remain is--if I may say so--victoriously yourself, unspoiled,
unmodified by contact with that singularly stupid invention, society,
true to my earliest recollections of you even----" Richard shuffled
closer to the balustrade, threw his left arm across it, grasping the
outer edge of t