g should savour of
clandestine relations and that he should impute to it false motives and
impulses. The Count prided himself upon his tact, and was therefore very
careful to use the most idiomatic English in his conversation. But at
this sudden discovery--for he had not imagined that the acquaintance had
gone beyond his own discernment--he felt the English language quite
inadequate to the occasion, and muttered something under his breath that
sounded remarkably like "_Tison d'enfer!_" as he turned on his heel and
made for his stateroom.

And the Boy, unconscious and indifferent to all this by-play, had only
time to press to his lips the little hand she had surrendered to him
before the crowd was upon them.

But the waves were singing a Te Deum in his ears, and the skies were
bluer in the moonlight than ever sea-skies were before. Paul felt, with
a thrill of joy, that he was looking far off into the vaster spaces of
life, with their broader, grander possibilities. He felt that he was
wiser, nobler, stronger--nearer his ideal of what a brave man should be.

CHAPTER IX

When two are young, and at sea, and in love, and the world is beautiful
and bright, it is joyous and wonderful to drift thoughtlessly with the
tide, and rise and fall with the waves. Thus Paul Zalenska and Opal
Ledoux spent that most delightful of voyages on the Lusitania. They were
not often alone. They did not need to be. Their intimacy had at one
bound reached that point when every word and movement teemed with tender
significance and suggestion. Their first note had reached such a high
measure that all the succeeding days followed at concert pitch. It was a
voyage of discovery. Each day brought forth revelations of some new
trait of character--each unfolding that particular something which the
other had always admired.

And so their intimacy grew.

Paul Verdayne saw and smiled. He was glad to see the Boy enjoying
himself. He knew his chances for that sort of thing were all too
pathetically few.

Mr. Ledoux looked on, troubled and perplexed, but he saw no chance, and
indeed no real reason, for interfering.

The Count de Roannes was irritated, at times even provoked, but he kept
his thoughts to himself, hiding his annoyance, and his secret explosions
of "_Au diable!_" beneath his usual urbanity.

There was nothing on the surface to indicate more than the customary
familiarity of young people thrown together for a time, and yet no one