handed him a light.

He made no further reply. Simon's exploits and his rescue of Lord
Bakefield when at the point of death, these obviously were interesting
things, deserving the reward of a good cigar, with Isabel's hand
perhaps thrown into the bargain. But it was asking too much to expect
thanks as well and praise and endless effusions. Lord Bakefield
remained Lord Bakefield and Simon Dubosc a nobody.

"Well, see you later, young man . . . Oh, by the way! I have had the
marriage annulled which that reptile Rolleston forced upon Isabel.
. . . The marriage wasn't valid of course; but I've done what was
necessary just as though it had been. Isabel will tell you all about
it. You'll find her in the park."

She was not in the park. She had heard that Simon had called and was
waiting for him on the terrace.

He told her of his interview with Lord Bakefield.

"Yes," she said, "my father accepts the position. He considers that
you have satisfied the ordeal."

"And you, Isabel?"

She smiled:

"I have no right to be more difficult than my father. But remember
that there were not only his conditions: there was one added by
myself."

"Which condition was that, Isabel?"

"Have you forgotten? . . . On the deck of the _Queen Mary_?"

"Then, Isabel, you doubt me?"

She took both his hands and said:

"Simon, it sometimes makes me rather sad to think that in this great
adventure it was not I but another who was your companion in danger,
the one whom you defended and who protected you."

He shook his head:

"No, Isabel, I never had but one companion, you, Isabel, and you
alone. You were my only aim and my only thought, my one hope and my
one desire."

After a moment's reflection, she said:

"I talked of her a good deal with Antonio, on the way home. Do you
know, Simon, that girl is not only very beautiful, but capable of the
noblest, loftiest feelings? I know nothing of her past; according to
Antonio, it had its unsettled moments. But since then . . . since
then . . . in spite of her present mode of life, in spite of all the
admiration which she attracts, she leads an existence apart. You alone
have really stirred her feelings. For you, from what I can see for
myself and from what Antonio told me--and he, after all, is only a
rejected and embittered lover--for you Dolores would have laid down
her life and that from the first day. Did you know that, Simon?"

He was silent.

"You are right," she said. "You can