hands and hers stumbled together, and his
fingers selected a little cylinder from the row.

He produced a match and held the flame before her. He filled his eyes
with her vivid features as the glow detached her from the dark. Of her
eyes he saw only the big lids, but he noted her lips, pursed a trifle
with the kissing muscles, and he sighed as she blew a smoke about her
like a goddess creating a cloud of vanishment. He lighted his own
cigarette and threw the match away. They returned to a perfect gloom
mitigated by the slight increase and decrease in the vividness of
their tobacco-tips as they puffed.

She was the first to speak:

"I have a whole box of fags in my hand-bag. I usually have a good
supply. When you want another-- Does it horrify you to see a woman
smoke?"

He was very superior to his old bigotry. "Quite the contrary!"

This was hardly honest enough, so he said:

"It did once, though. I remember how startled I was years ago when I
was in England and I saw ladies smoking in hotel corridors; and on the
steamer coming back, there was a countess or something who sat in the
balcony and puffed away. Of course, at the big dinners in London they
smoked, too. They did at Sir Joseph's, I remember."

He did not see her wince at this name.

"There were some odd fish surrounding old Sir Joseph. Some of them I
couldn't quite make out. He was just a little hard to get at, himself.
I got very huffy at the old boy once or twice, I'm sorry to say. It
was about ships. I'm a crank on ships. Everybody has at least one
mania. That's mine--ships. Sir Joseph and I quarreled about them. He
wanted to buy all I could make, but he was in no hurry to have 'em
finished. I told him he talked more like a German trying to stop
production than like a Britisher trying to speed it up. That made him
huffy. I'm sorry I did him such an injustice. When you insult a man,
and he dies--What a terrible repartee dying is! He had offered me a
big price, too, but it's not money I want to make; it's ships. And I
want to see 'em at work. Did you ever see a ship launched?"

"No, I never did."

"There's nothing prettier. Come over to my shipyard and I'll show you.
We're going to put one over before long. I'll let you christen her."

"That would be wonderful."

"It's better than that. The civilized world is starting out on the
most poetic job it ever undertook."

"Indeed?"

"Yep. The German sharks are gradually dragging all our shipping un