essed in lacy
white, with a string of many tinted beads round her slim neck. Her tawny
hair was arranged in a large fluffiness, and the ensemble showed to a
surprised Audrey what Miss Thompkins could accomplish when she deemed the
occasion to be worthy of an effort.

"Shall we? What makes you think so, dear?" absently asked Audrey, in whom
the scene had induced profound reflections upon life and the universe.

"He'll come up on deck," said Miss Thompkins, disclosing her teeth in an
inscrutable smile that the moonbeams made more strange than it actually
was. "Like to know how I know? Sure you'd like to know, Mrs. Simplicity?"
Her beads rattled above Audrey's insignificant upturned nose. "Isn't a
yacht the queerest little self-contained state you ever visited? It's as
full of party politics as Massachusetts; and that's some. Well, I didn't
use all my medicine you gave me. Didn't need it. So I've shared it with
_him_. I got the empty packet with all the instructions on it, and I put
two of my tablets in it, and if he hasn't swallowed them by this time my
name isn't Anne Tuckett Thompkins."

"But you don't mean he's been----"

"Audrey, you're making a noise like a goose. 'Course I do."

"But how did you manage to----"

"I gave them to Mr. Price, with instructions to leave them by
the--er--bedside. Mr. Price is a friend. I hope I've made that plain these
days to everybody, including Mr. Gilman. Mr. Price is a good sample of
what painters are liable to come to after they've found out they don't care
for the smell of oil-tubes. I knew him when he always said 'Puvis' instead
of 'Puvis de Chavannes.' He's cured now. If I hadn't happened to know he'd
be on board I shouldn't have dared to come. He's my lifebuoy."

"But I assure you, Tommy, Mr. Gilman refused the stuff from me. He did."

"Oh! Dove! Wood-pigeon! Of course he refused it. He was bound to. Owner of
a two-hundred-and-fifty-ton yacht taking a remedy for sea-sickness in
public on the two-hundred-and-fifty-ton yacht! The very idea makes you
shiver. But he'll take it down there. And he won't ask any questions. And
he'll hide it from the doctor. And he'll pretend, and he'll expect
everybody else to pretend, that he's never been within a mile of the
stuff."

"Tommy, I don't believe you."

"And he's a lovely man, all the same."

"Tommy, I don't believe you."

"Yes, you do. You'd like not to, but you can't help it. I sometimes do
bruise people badly in their organ