London had loved her. It was impossible not to meet them,
equally impossible not to perceive their cold confusion at each
encounter, shown by a sudden interest in empty seas and unpopulated
horizons. That they mistook the situation was so evident to Nigel that
one day he managed to confront Lord Hayman in the smoke-room and to
have it out with him.

"Congratulate you, I'm sure, congratulate you!" murmured that gentleman,
whose practical brown eyes became suddenly wells full of ironical
amazement. "Tell my wife at once. Knew nothing at all about it."

He got away, with a moribund cigar between his teeth, and no doubt
informed Lady Hayman, who thereafter bowed to Nigel, but with a
reluctant muscular movement that adequately expressed an inward moral
surprise mingled with condemnation. Mrs. Armine seemed totally
undisturbed by these demonstrations, her only comment upon the lady
being that it was really strange that "in these days" any one could be
found to wear magenta and red together, especially any one with a
complexion like Lady Hayman's. And her astonishment at the triple
combination of colours seemed so simple, so sincere, that it had to be
believed in as merely an emanation from an artistic temperament. It was
probable that the Haymans told other English on the _Hohenzollern_ the
news of Nigel's marriage, for several of the faces that had stared from
the luncheon-tables continued to stare on the deck, but with a slightly
different expression; the sheer, dull curiosity being exchanged for that
half-satirical interest with which the average person of British blood
regards a newly-married couple.

This contemplation of them made Nigel secretly angry, and awoke in him a
great and peculiar tenderness for his wife, founded on a suddenly more
acute understanding of the brutality of the ostracism, combined with
notoriety, which she had endured in recent years. Now at last she had
some one to protect her. His heart enfolded her with ample wings. But he
longed to be free from this crowd, from which on a ship they could not
escape, and they spoke to no one during the voyage except to their
companion at meals.

With him they were soon on the intimate terms of shipboard--terms that
commit one to nothing in the future when land is reached. Although he
was dressed like an Englishman, and on deck wore a straw hat with the
word "Scott" inside it, he soon let them know that his name was Mahmoud
Baroudi, that his native place wa