p's gong showed that the last moment had come. The gangplank was
removed and the great liner pushed off and slowly wended her way
down-river, some of the more faithful ones in the crowd waving
handkerchiefs until she was a blur in the distance.

"Well, there's no truer way of showing loyalty than by going to
Hoboken to see a friend off," said the eyeglassed chap as he walked
beside Jessie Macleod to the ferry. "I wouldn't do it for anybody but
Tommy."

"Nor I!" exclaimed the rosy youth. "Good old Tommy! I wonder whether
she'll sing and have a career, or fall in love over there?"

"She might do both, I should think; at least it has been done, though
not, perhaps, with conspicuous success," was Carl's reply.

"Whatever she does, we've lost her," sighed the girl; "and our little
set will be so dull without Tommy!"

* * * * *

Fergus Appleton had leaned over the deck rail for a few moments before
the ship started on her voyage; leaned there idly and indifferently,
as he did most things, smoking his cigarette with an air of complete
detachment from the world. He was going to no one, and leaving no one
behind. He had money enough to live on, but life had always been
something of a bore to him and he could not have endured it without
regular occupation. His occasional essays on subjects connected with
architecture, his critical articles in similar fields, his travels in
search of wider information, the book on which he was working at the
moment,--these kept him busy and gave him a sense of being tolerably
useful in his generation. The particular group of juveniles shouting
more or less intimate remarks to a girl passenger on board the steamer
attracted his attention for a moment.

"They are very young," he thought, "or they would realize that they
are all revealing themselves with considerable frankness, although
nobody seems to be listening but me!"

He would not have listened, as a matter of fact, had it not been for
the voice of the girl they called Tommy. It was not loud, but it had
the quality of a golden bell, and Fergus was susceptible to a
beautiful voice. One other thing--the slightest possible
thing--enlisted his notice. She wore a great bunch of mignonette stuck
in the waistband of her green cloth dress, and her small hat had a
flat wreath of the same flower. Mignonette was, perhaps, the only
growing thing of which Fergus Appleton ever took note, and its perfume
w