ays a Brightener, I suppose!" he said. Now that
I'd dropped my "Princesshood" to marry James Courtenaye, I need never
"brighten" any one for money again. But I didn't see why I should not go
sailing along on a sunny career of brightening for love. According to
habit, therefore, my first thought was: What _could_ be done for the man
in the cushioned chair?

Maybe Jim was right! If he hadn't been young and almost better than
good-looking, my interest might not have been so keen. He was the wreck
of a gorgeous creature--one of those great, tall, muscular men you feel
were born to adorn the Guards.

The reason (the physical reason, not the psychic one) for thinking he
hadn't been ill long was the colour of the invalid's face. The pallor of
illness hadn't had time to blanch the rich brown that life in the open
gives. So thin was the face that the aquiline features stood out
sharply; but they seemed to be carved in bronze, not moulded in plaster.
As for the psychic reason, I found it in the dark eyes that met mine now
and then. They were not black like those of my own Jim, which contrasted
so strikingly with auburn hair. Indeed, I couldn't tell whether the eyes
were brown or deep gray, for they were set in shadowy hollows, and the
brows and thick lashes were even darker than the hair, which was lightly
silvered at the temples. Handsome, arresting eyes they must always have
been; but what stirred me was the violent _wish_ that seemed actually to
speak from them.

Whether it was a wish to live, or a haunting wish for joy never
gratified, I could not decide. But I felt that it must have been burnt
out by a long illness.

I had only just learned a few things about the man, when there came that
surprising answer to my prayer for someone to "brighten" him. My maid
had got acquainted with his valet-nurse, and had received a quantity of
information which she passed to me.

"Mr. Tillett's" master was a Major Ralston Murray, an Englishman, who
had gone to live in California some years ago, and had made a big
fortune in oil. He had been in the British Army as a youth, Tillett
understood, and when the European war broke out, he went home to offer
himself to his country. He didn't return to America till after the
Armistice, though he had been badly wounded once or twice, as well as
gassed. At home in Bakersfield, the great oil town where he lived,
Murray's health had not improved. He had been recommended a long sea
journey, to Japan