icketed bottle of California champagne,
effervescent, machine-made, cheap, and nasty. And his glance
comprehended the pair, and loved them. He thought they were like a
picture of the North and of the South; and the thought called up
memories in his brave old breast of a struggle that shook the earth to
her foundations, and made him think of problems yet unsolved. He sat in
his place silent for some minutes, and the broad brown hand stroked the
snowy beard in deep thought, so that the conversation flagged, and the
Duke began to talk about the voyage. But Mr. Bellingham took his
brimming glass, filled with the wine that ripened in the sun when he
himself was but a little boy, and he held it a moment to the light; the
juice was clearer now than it had been that day sixty years, and the
hand that held the goblet was as a hand of iron for strength and
steadiness, though the dark fingers might have plucked the grapes on the
day they were pressed. And with an old-time motion he carried it to his
lips, then paused one instant, then drank it slowly, slowly to the last
drop. It was a toast, but the speech was unspoken, and none knew to whom
or to what he drained the measure. In a little time he began to speak
again; the conversation turned upon mutual friends in England, and the
dinner was at an end.

But all through the evening Claudius never left Margaret's side. He
felt that he was bridging over the difference between life at sea and
life on land--that he was asserting his right to maintain in a
drawing-room the privileges he had gained on the deck of the _Streak_.
And Margaret, moreover, was especially friendly to-night, for she too
felt the difference, and recognised that, after all, life on shore is
the freer. There are certain conventionalities of a drawing-room that a
man is less likely to break through, more certain to remember, than the
unwritten rules of cruising etiquette. Most men who have led a free life
are a little less likely to make love under the restraint of a white tie
than they are when untrammelled by restraints of dress, which always
imply some restraint of freedom.

At least Margaret thought so. And Claudius felt it, even though he would
not acknowledge it. They talked about the voyage; about what they had
said and done, about the accident, and a hundred other things. There is
a moment in acquaintance, in friendship, and in love, when two people
become suddenly aware that they have a common past. Days, w