greatly preferred to stay where she was; but when the man did his
wife's bidding, she could only follow and thank him. Lifting a cluster
of fruit from the tray, she asked one question.

"Can you tell me, Mr. Nelson, who is Coralie?"

Nelson looked startled for a moment, and found it necessary to place
another folding chair under the tray. He did not answer until his wife
said:

"Didn't you hear Mrs. Leslie's question, Charley? Who is Coralie?"

"Sounds like the name of a variety actress," answered the man, by no
means glibly. "Why should you ask me? I really don't know. I'm not
good at conundrums. Isn't this a beautiful view? I fancied you'd have
a better appetite up here than amid the crowd below."

Millicent's curiosity was further excited by the speaker's manner, but
she could only possess her soul in patience, until presently it was
satisfied on one point at least. She sat alone for a few minutes on
the steamer's highest deck against the colored glass dome of the great
white and gold saloon. Several of the brass-guarded lights were open
wide, and, hearing a burst of laughter, she looked down. The young
woman, who had spoken to Leslie at the gangway, sat at a corner table,
partly hidden by two carved pillars below. She held a champagne glass
in a lavishly jeweled hand, and there was no doubt that she was pretty,
but there was that in her suggestive laugh and mocking curve of the
full red lips, something which set Millicent's teeth on edge. If more
were needed to increase the unpleasant impression, a rich mine promoter
sat near the young woman, trying to whisper confidentially, and another
man, whose name was notorious in the city, laughed as he watched them.
But Millicent had seen sufficient, and turning her head, looked out to
sea. There were, however, several men smoking on the opposite side of
the dome, and one of them also must have looked down, for his comment
was audible.

"They're having what you call a good time down there! Who and what is
she?"

"Ma'mselle Coralie. Ostensibly a _clairvoyante_," was the dry reply.

"_Clairvoyante_!" repeated the first unseen speaker, who, by his clean
intonation, Millicent set down as a newly-arrived Englishman. "Do you
mean a professional soothsayer?"

"Something of the kind," said the other with a laugh. "We're a curious
people marching in the forefront of progress, so we like to think, and
yet we consult hypnotists and all kinds of fakirs, even