ee days of
grace. Have some of my champagne? I'm a forgiving creachah.'

'No, thank you. I prefer this hock.'

'Your friend, then?' And he motioned the steward to pass the bottle.

To my great disgust, Elsie held out her glass. I was annoyed at that. It
showed she had missed the drift of our conversation, and was therefore
lacking in feminine intuition. I should be sorry if I had allowed the
higher mathematics to kill out in me the most distinctively womanly
faculty.

From that first day forth, however, in spite of this beginning, Lord
Southminster almost persecuted me with his persistent attentions. He
did all a fellah could possibly do to please me. I could not make out
precisely what he was driving at; but I saw he had some artful game of
his own to play, and that he was playing it subtly. I also saw that,
vapid as he was, his vapidity did not prevent him from being worldly
wise with the wisdom of the self-seeking man of the world, who utterly
distrusts and disbelieves in all the higher emotions of humanity. He
harped so often on this string that on our second day out, as we lolled
on deck in the heat, I had to rebuke him sharply. He had been sneering
for some hours. 'There are two kinds of silly simplicity, Lord
Southminster,' I said, at last. 'One kind is the silly simplicity of the
rustic who trusts everybody; the other kind is the silly simplicity of
the Pall Mall clubman who trusts nobody. It is just as foolish and just
as one-sided to overlook the good as to overlook the evil in humanity.
If you trust everyone, you are likely to be taken in; but if you trust
no one, you put yourself at a serious practical disadvantage, besides
losing half the joy of living.'

'Then you think me a fool, like Georgey?' he broke out.

'I should never be rude enough to say so,' I answered, fanning myself.

'Well, you're what I call a first-rate companion for a voyage down the
Red Sea,' he put in, gazing abstractedly at the awnings. 'Such a lovely
freezing mixture! A fellah doesn't need ices when _you're_ on tap. I
recommend you as a refrigeratah.'

'I am glad,' I answered demurely, 'if I have secured your approbation in
that humble capacity. I'm sure I have tried hard for it.'

[Illustration: NOTHING SEEMED TO PUT THE MAN DOWN.]

Yet nothing that I could say seemed to put the man down. In spite of
rebuffs, he was assiduous in running down the companion-ladder for my
parasol or my smelling-bottle; he fetched me chairs; he