dn't I tell you I'd rather listen to you than anything else? Eating
was certainly not excepted. I don't remember hearing the bugle."

"And I didn't hear it."

"I'd forgotten dinner. You had carried me so far away with you."

"And Saidee," added the girl. "Thank you for going with us."

"Thank you for taking me."

They both laughed, and as they laughed, people began streaming out on
deck. Dinner was over. The handsome Arab passed, talking with the spare,
loose-limbed English parson, whom he had fascinated. They were
discussing affairs in Morocco, and as they passed Stephen and Victoria,
the Arab did not appear to turn; yet Stephen knew that he was thinking
of them and not of what he was saying to the clergyman.

"What shall we do?" asked Victoria.

Stephen reflected for an instant. "Will you invite me to dine at your
table?" he asked.

"Maybe they'll tell us it's too late now to have anything to eat. I
don't mind for myself, but for you----"

"We'll have a better dinner than the others have had," Stephen
prophesied. "I guarantee it, if you invite me."

"Oh, do please come," she implored, like a child. "I couldn't face the
waiters alone. And you know, I feel as if you were a friend, now--though
you may laugh at that."

"It's the best compliment I ever had," said Stephen. "And--it gives me
faith in myself--which I need."

"And your star, which you're to find," the girl reminded him, as he
unrolled her from her rug.

"I wish you'd lend me a little of the light from yours, to find mine
by," he said half gaily, yet with a certain wistfulness which she
detected under the laugh.

"I will," she said quickly. "Not a little, but half."

VI

Stephen's prophecy came true. They had a better dinner than any one else
had, and enjoyed it as an adventure. Victoria thought their waiter a
particularly good-natured man, because instead of sulking over his
duties he beamed. Stephen might, if he had chosen, have thrown another
light upon the waiter's smiles; but he didn't choose. And he was happy.
He gave Victoria good advice, and promised help from Nevill Caird. "He's
sure to meet me at the ship," he said, "and if you'll let me, I'll
introduce him to you. He may be able to find out everything you want to
know."

Stephen would have liked to go on talking after dinner, but the girl,
ashamed of having taken up so much of his time, would not be tempted.
She went to her cabin, and thought of him, as well as of her si