here were two men on board this great steamer who were not business
men--Joseph P. Mangles and Reginald Cartoner; and, like two ships on a
sea of commercial interests, they had drifted together during the four
days that had elapsed since their departure from New York. Neither made
anything, or sold anything, or had a card in his waistcoat-pocket ready
for production at a moment's notice, setting forth name and address and
trade. Neither was to be suspected of a desire to repel advances, and
yet both were difficult to get on with. For human confidences must
be mutual. It is only to God that man can continue telling, telling,
telling, and getting never a word in return. These two men had nothing
to tell their fellows about themselves; so the other passengers drifted
away into those closely linked corporations characteristic of steamer
life and left them to themselves--to each other.

And they had never said things to each other--had never, as it were, got
deeper than the surface of their daily life.

Cartoner was a dreamy man, with absorbed eyes, rather deeply sunk under
a strong forehead. His eyelids had that peculiarity which is rarely seen
in the face of a man who is a nonentity. They were quite straight, and
cut across the upper curve of the pupil. This gave a direct, stern look
to dreamy eyes, which was odd. After a pause, he turned slowly, and
looked down at his companion with a vague interrogation in his glance.
He seemed to be wondering whether Mr. Mangles had spoken. And Mangles
met the glance with one of steady refusal to repeat his remark. But
Mangles spoke first, after all.

"Yes," he said, "the women will be on deck soon--and my sister Jooly.
You don't know Jooly?"

He spoke with a slow and pleasant American accent.

"I saw you speaking to a young lady in the saloon after luncheon," said
Cartoner. "She had a blue ribbon round her throat. She was pretty."

"That wasn't Jooly," said Mr. Mangles, without hesitation.

"Who was it?" asked Cartoner, with the simple directness of those who
have no self-consciousness--who are absorbed, but not in themselves, as
are the majority of men and women.

"My niece, Netty Cahere."

"She is pretty," said Cartoner, with a spontaneity which would have
meant much to feminine ears.

"You'll fall in love with her," said Mangles, lugubriously. "They all
do. She says she can't help it."

Cartoner looked at him as one who has ears but hears not. He made no
reply.

"Dist