py about? What on earth
does any man want to get married for? I don't. Give me my gay bachelor
life! My Uncle Charlie used to say 'It's better luck to get married
than it is to be kicked in the head by a mule.' But _he_ was a man who
always looked on the bright side. Good-night, Miss Bennett. And
good-bye--for ever."

He turned on his heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaven
the moon still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spoken
bravely; the most captious critic could not but have admitted that he
had made a good exit. But already his heart was aching.

As he drew near to his state-room, he was amazed and disgusted to hear a
high tenor voice raised in song proceeding from behind the closed door.

"I fee-er naw faw in shee-ining arr-mor,
Though his lance be sharrrp and--er keen;
But I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour
Therough thy der-rooping lashes seen:
I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour...."

Sam flung open the door wrathfully. That Eustace Hignett should still be
alive was bad--he had pictured him hurling himself overboard and bobbing
about, a pleasing sight in the wake of the vessel; that he should be
singing was an outrage. Remorse, Sam felt, should have stricken Eustace
Hignett dumb. Instead of which, here he was comporting himself like a
blasted linnet. It was all wrong. The man could have no conscience
whatever.

"Well," he said sternly, "so there you are!"

Eustace Hignett looked up brightly, even beamingly. In the brief
interval which had elapsed since Sam had seen him last, an extraordinary
transformation had taken place in this young man. His wan look had
disappeared. His eyes were bright. His face wore that beastly
self-satisfied smirk which you see in pictures advertising certain makes
of fine-mesh underwear. If Eustace Hignett had been a full-page drawing
in a magazine with "My dear fellow, I always wear Sigsbee's Super-fine
Featherweight!" printed underneath him, he could not have looked more
pleased with himself.

"Hullo!" he said. "I was wondering where you had got to."

"Never mind," said Sam coldly, "where I had got to! Where did you get to
and why? You poor, miserable worm," he went on in a burst of generous
indignation, "what have you to say for yourself? What do you mean by
dashing away like that and killing my little entertainment?"

"Awfully sorry, old man. I hadn't foreseen the cigar. I was bearing up
tolerably well till I began to