upon
the back of his hand. Gently the cabin rose and fell, rocking so slowly
that she could only occasionally be sure that the movement was true. She
shook her head in reply.

"I've had one solid meal to-night," she explained. "Wish I hadn't! If
I'd known I was coming out I'd have starved myself all day. Then you'd
have been shocked at me!"

Keith demurely answered, as if to reassure her:

"Takes a lot to shock me. Have a peach?"

"I must!" she breathed. "I can't let the chance slip. O-oh, what a
scent!" She reached the peach towards him. "Grand, isn't it!" Jenny
discovered for Keith's quizzical gaze an unexpected dimple in each pale
cheek. He might have been Adam, and she the original temptress.

"Shall I peel it?"

"Seems a shame to take it off!" Jenny watched his deft fingers as he
stripped the peach. The glowing skin of the fruit fell in lifeless
peelings upon his plate, dying as it were under her eyes, Keith had
poured wine for her in another, smaller, glass. She shook her head.

"I shall be drunk!" she protested. "Then I should sing! Horrible, it
would be!"

"Not with a little port ... I'm not pressing you to a lot. Am I?" He
brought coffee to the table, and she began to admire first of all the
pattern of the silver tray. Jenny had never seen such a tray before,
outside a shop, nor so delicately porcelain a coffee-service. It helped
to give her the sense of strange, unforgettable experience.

"You didn't say if you'd remember this evening," she slowly reflected.
Keith looked sharply up from the coffee, which he was pouring, she saw,
from a thermos flask.

"Didn't I?" he said. "Of course I shall remember it. I've done better.
I've looked forward to it. That's something you've not done. I've looked
forward to it for weeks. You don't think of that. We've been in the
Mediterranean, coasting about. I've been planning what I'd do when we
got back. Then Templecombe said he'd be coming right up to London; and I
planned to see you."

"Templecombe?" Jenny queried. "Who's he?"

"He's the lord who owns this yacht. Did you think it was my yacht?"

"No.... I hoped it wasn't...." Jenny said slowly.

viii

Keith's eyes were upon her; but she looked at her peach stone, her hand
still lightly holding the fruit knife, and her fingers half caught by
the beam of a candle which stood beside her. He persisted:

"Well, Templecombe took his valet, who does the cooking; and my
hand--my sailorman--wanted to go and vis