d Billie seriously "It was a tragedy. I
had always thought him romantic, and when this happened the scales
seemed to fall from my eyes. I saw that I had made a mistake."

"And you broke off the engagement?"

"Of course!"

"I think you were hard on him. A man can't help his mother stealing his
trousers."

"No. But when he finds they're gone, he can 'phone to the tailor for
some more or borrow the janitor's or do _something_. But he simply
stayed where he was and didn't do a thing. Just because he was too much
afraid of his mother to tell her straight out that he meant to be
married that day."

"Now that," said Miss Hubbard, "is just the sort of trait in a man which
would appeal to me. I like a nervous, shrinking man."

"I don't. Besides, it made him seem so ridiculous, and--I don't know why
it is--I can't forgive a man for looking ridiculous. Thank goodness, my
darling Sam couldn't look ridiculous, even if he tried. He's wonderful,
Jane. He reminds me of a knight of the Round Table. You ought to see his
eyes flash."

Miss Hubbard got up and stretched herself with a yawn.

"Well, I'll be on the promenade deck after breakfast to-morrow. If you
can arrange to have him flash his eyes then--say between nine-thirty and
ten--I shall be delighted to watch them."

CHAPTER V

PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE

"Good God!" cried Eustace Hignett.

He stared at the figure which loomed above him in the fading light which
came through the porthole of the state-room. The hour was seven-thirty,
and he had just woken from a troubled doze, full of strange nightmares,
and for the moment he thought that he must still be dreaming, for the
figure before him could have walked straight into any nightmare and no
questions asked. Then suddenly he became aware that it was his cousin,
Samuel Marlowe. As in the historic case of father in the pigstye, he
could tell him by his hat. But why was he looking like that? Was it
simply some trick of the uncertain light, or was his face really black
and had his mouth suddenly grown to six times its normal size and become
a vivid crimson?

Sam turned. He had been looking at himself in the mirror with a
satisfaction which, to the casual observer, his appearance would not
have seemed to justify. Hignett had not been suffering from a delusion.
His cousin's face was black; and, even as he turned, he gave it a dab
with a piece of burnt cork and made it blacker.

"Hullo! You awake?" he said, and switc