Vancouver. It was a disheartenment from which nothing in the future,
no hope, no dream, could deliver him. He was as he was. He would
always be like that. The finality of it appalled him.

After a time he became aware of a young woman leaning, like himself,
against the rail a few feet distant. He experienced a curious degree
of self-consciousness as he observed her. The thought crossed his mind
that presently she would look at him and move away. When she did not,
his eyes kept coming back to her with the involuntary curiosity of
the casual male concerning the strange female. She was of medium
height, well-formed, dressed in a well-tailored gray suit. Under the
edges of a black velvet turban her hair showed glossy brown in a
smooth roll. She had one elbow propped on the rail and her chin
nestled in the palm. Hollister could see a clean-cut profile, the
symmetrical outline of her nose, one delicately colored cheek above
the gloved hand and a neckpiece of dark fur.

He wondered what she was so intent upon for so long, leaning immobile
against that wooden guard. He continued to watch her. Would she
presently bestow a cursory glance upon him and withdraw to some other
part of the ship? Hollister waited for that with moody expectation. He
found himself wishing to hear her voice, to speak to her, to have her
talk to him. But he did not expect any such concession to a whimsical
desire.

Nevertheless the unexpected presently occurred. The girl moved
slightly. A hand-bag slipped from under her arm to the deck. She
half-turned, seemed to hesitate. Instinctively, as a matter of common
courtesy to a woman, Hollister took a step forward, picked it up.
Quite as instinctively he braced himself, so to speak, for the shocked
look that would gather like a shadow on her piquant face.

But it did not come. The girl's gaze bore imperturbably upon him as he
restored the hand-bag to her hand. The faintest sort of smile lurked
about the corners of a pretty mouth. Her eyes were a cloudy gray. They
seemed to look out at the world with a curious impassivity. That much
Hollister saw in a fleeting glance.

"Thanks, very much," she said pleasantly.

Hollister resumed his post against the rail. His movement had brought
him nearer, so that he stood now within arm's length, and his interest
in her had awakened, become suddenly intense. He felt a queer
thankfulness, a warm inward gratefulness, that she had been able to
regard his disfigurement unm