nough to
confirm this surmise. "Beastly trip--most tiresome," he added, frankly
yawning. "Don't know how I should have stood it if it hadn't been for
Miss Landis. You know her, I believe? Charming girl--charming."

"Oh, quite," agreed Staff. "Good night."

His tone arrested Arkroyd's attention; the man turned to watch his back
as Staff shouldered down the alleyway toward the smoking-room. "I say!"
commented Mr. Arkroyd, privately. "A bit hipped--what? No necessity for
being so bally short with a chap...."

The guess was only too well founded: Staff was distinctly disgruntled.
Within the past ten minutes his susceptibilities had been deeply
wounded. Why Alison should have chosen to slight him so cavalierly when
in transit through London passed his comprehension.... And the encounter
with Arkroyd comforted him to no degree whatever. He had never liked
Arkroyd, holding him, for all his wealth, little better than a
theatre-loafer of the Broadway type; and now he remembered hearing, once
or twice, that the man's attentions to Alison Landis had been rather
emphatic.

Swayed by whim, he chose to avoid the smoking-room, after all--having
little wish to be annoyed by the chatter of Mr. Iff--and swung out on
deck again for a half-hour of cigarettes and lonely brooding....

But his half-hour lengthened indefinitely while he sat, preoccupied, in
the deck-chair of some total stranger. By definite stages, to which he
was almost altogether oblivious, the Autocratic weighed anchor, shook
off her tender and swung away on the seven-day stretch. As definitely
her decks became bare of passengers. Presently Staff was quite a
solitary figure in the long array of chairs.

Two bells rang mellowly through the ship before he roused, lifted
himself to his feet and prepared to turn in, still distressed and
wondering--so much so that he was barely conscious of the fact that one
of the officers of the vessel was coming aft, and only noticed the man
when he paused and spoke.

"I say--this is Mr. Staff, isn't it?"

Staff turned quickly, searching his memory for the name and status of
the sturdy and good-looking young Englishman.

"Yes," he said slowly, "but--"

"I'm Mr. Manvers, the purser. If I'm not mistaken, you crossed with us
this spring?"

"Oh, yes; I did. How-d'-you-do?" Staff offered his hand.

"Sure I recognised you just now--saw you on the main-deck--talking to
Miss Landis, I believe."

"Yes ...?"

"Beg pardon; I don't wis