reason for our travelling
together."

"We are not travelling together," I answered. "We are travelling by
the same steamer; that is all--exactly like the rest of our
fellow-passengers. I decline to be dragged into this imaginary
partnership."

"Now do be serious, Hubert! I am going to invent an object in life for
us."

"What object?"

"How can I tell yet? I must wait and see what turns up. When we tranship
at Aden, and find out what people are going on to Bombay with us, I
shall probably discover some nice married lady to whom I can attach
myself."

"And am I to attach myself to her, too?"

"My dear boy, I never asked you to come. You came unbidden. You must
manage for yourself as best you may. But I leave much to the chapter of
accidents. We never know what will turn up, till it turns up in the end.
Everything comes at last, you know, to him that waits."

"And yet," I put in, with a meditative air, "I have never observed that
waiters are so much better off than the rest of the community. They seem
to me--"

"Don't talk nonsense. It is YOU who are wandering from the question now.
Please return to it."

I returned at once. "So I am to depend on what turns up?"

"Yes. Leave that to me. When we see our fellow-passengers on the Bombay
steamer, I shall soon discover some ostensible reason why we two should
be travelling through India with one of them."

"Well, you are a witch, Hilda," I answered. "I found that out long ago;
but if you succeed between here and Bombay in inventing a Mission, I
shall begin to believe you are even more of a witch than I ever thought
you."

At Aden we changed into a P. and O. steamer. Our first evening out on
our second cruise was a beautiful one; the bland Indian Ocean wore
its sweetest smile for us. We sat on deck after dinner. A lady with a
husband came up from the cabin while we sat and gazed at the placid
sea. I was smoking a quiet digestive cigar. Hilda was seated in her deck
chair next to me.

The lady with the husband looked about her for a vacant space on which
to place the chair a steward was carrying for her. There was plenty of
room on the quarter-deck. I could not imagine why she gazed about her
with such obtrusive caution. She inspected the occupants of the
various chairs around with deliberate scrutiny through a long-handled
tortoise-shell optical abomination. None of them seemed to satisfy her.
After a minute's effort, during which she also muttered a few words