lace while
you're there. D'you know what I thought? I thought you were goin' out to
get married, and"--he continued gallantly--"I thought he was a deuced
lucky chap."

She smiled and shook her head. She was not looking at Sir Langham, but
at the long, white, moonlit pathway of foam left in the wake of the
ship.

"I say," he went on confidentially, "what's your Christian name? I'm
certain they don't call you Janet. Is it Nettie, now? I bet it's
Nettie!"

"My _family_," said Miss Ross somewhat coldly, "call me Jan."

"Nice little name," he exclaimed, "but more like a boy's. Now, I never
got a pet name. I started Langham, and Langham I've stopped, and I
flatter myself I've made the name known and respected."

He wanted her to look at him, and leaned towards her: "Look here, Miss
Ross, I'm goin' to ask you a funny question, and it's not one you can
ask most women--but you're a puzzle. You've got a face like a child, and
yet you're as grey as a badger. What _is_ your age?"

"I shall be twenty-eight in March."

She looked at him then, and her grey eyes were so full of amusement
that, incredulous as he usually was as to other people's statements, he
knew that she was speaking the truth.

"Then why the devil don't you _do_ something _to_ it?" he demanded.

She laughed. "I couldn't be bothered. And it might turn green, or
something. I don't mind it. It began when I was twenty-three."

"_I_ don't mind it either," Sir Langham declared magnanimously; "but
it's misleading."

"I'm sorry," she said demurely. "I wouldn't mislead anyone for the
world."

"Now, what age should you think _I_ am? But I suppose you know--that's
the worst of being a public character; when one gets nearly a column in
_Who's Who_, everybody knows all about one. That's the penalty of
celebrity."

"Do you mind people knowing your age?"

"Not I! Nor anything else about me. _I've_ never done anything to be
ashamed of. Quite the other way, I can assure you."

"How pleasant that must be," she said quietly.

Sir Langham turned and looked suspiciously at her; but her face was
guileless and calm, with no trace of raillery, her eyes still fixed on
the long bright track of foam.

"I suppose you, now," he muttered hoarsely, "always sleep well, go off
directly you turn in--eh?"

Her quiet eyes met his; little and fierce and truculent, but behind
their rather bloodshot boldness there lurked something else, and with a
sudden pang of pity she knew that