andwiches and ginger cookies broadcast among them; he had
tenderly inquired of the invalids, "'Ow you feel?" and had cheerfully
pronounced them, one and all, to be "mush besser"; and now he himself
was, for a fleeting moment, the centre of interest in the one tiny
eddy of animation on the whole length of the deck.

Just aft of the awning, in the full sunshine, he was engaged in
"posing," with the sheepish air of a person having his photograph
taken, while a fresh, comely girl of sixteen stood, kodak in hand,
waiting for his attitude to relax. Half a dozen spectators, elderly
men and small boys, stood about making facetious remarks, but Gustav
and his youthful "operator" were too much in earnest to pay them much
heed.

Blythe Halliday was usually very much in earnest; by which is not to
be inferred that she was of an alarmingly serious cast of mind. Her
earnestness took the form of intense satisfaction in the matter in
hand, whatever that might be, and she had found life a succession of
delightful experiences, of which this one of an ocean voyage was
perhaps the most delectable of all.

In one particular Blythe totally disagreed with her mother; for Mrs.
Halliday had declared, on one of the first universally unbecoming days
of the voyage, that it was a mystery how all the agreeable people got
to Europe, since so few of them were ever to be discovered on an ocean
steamer! Whereas Blythe, for her part, had never dreamed that there
were so many interesting persons in the world as were to be discovered
among their fellow-voyagers.

Was not the big, bluff Captain himself, with his unfathomable
sea-craft and his autocratic power, a regular old Viking such as you
might read of in your history books, but would hardly expect to meet
with in the flesh? And was there not a real Italian Count, elderly
but impressive, who had dealings with no one but his valet, the latter
being a nimble personage with a wicked eye who seemed to possess the
faculty of starting up through the deck as if summoned by a species of
wireless telegraphy? Best of all, was not Blythe's opposite neighbour
at the Captain's table a shaggy, keen-eyed Englishman, figuring on the
passenger-list as "Mr. Grey," but who was generally believed to be no
less a personage than Hugh Dalton, the famous poet, travelling
incognito?

This latter gentleman was more approachable than the Count, and had
taken occasion to tell Blythe some very wonderful tales, besides still