observation of her companion than ever before. Impressions of his
appearance she had received in plenty--but received them in flashes,
confusing from their very vividness. Confusing, also, because each one of
them was doubled by a haunting consciousness of his likeness to her
father. The traits common to both men, rather than those individually
characteristic of the younger, had been in evidence. And, in her present
happier mood, Damaris also desired a picture to set in the storehouse of
memory. But it must represent this brother of hers in and by himself,
divorced, as far as might be, from that pursuing, and, to her, singularly
agitating likeness.

Her design and her scrutiny were easier of prosecution that, during the
last few minutes, Faircloth had retired into silence, and an attitude of
abstraction. Sitting rather forward upon the sofa, his legs crossed,
nursing one blue serge trousered knee with locked hands, his glance
travelled thoughtfully over the quiet, low-toned room and its varied
contents. Later, sought the window opposite, and ranged across the garden
and terrace walk, with its incident of small ancient cannon, to the long
ridge of the Bar--rising, bleached, wind-swept, and notably deserted
under the colourless sunshine, beyond the dark waters of the tide river
which raced tumultuously seaward in flood.

Seen thus in repose--and repose is a terrible tell-tale,--the lines of
the young man's face and figure remained firm, gracefully angular and
definite. No hint of slackness or sloppiness marred their effect. The
same might be said of his clothes, which though of ordinary regulation
colour and cut--plus neat black tie and stiff-fronted white shirt,
collar, and wristbands--possessed style, and that farthest from the cheap
or flashy. Only the gold bangle challenged Damaris' taste as touching on
florid; but its existence she condoned in face of its wearer's hazardous
and inherently romantic calling. For the sailor may, surely, be here and
there permitted a turn and a flourish, justly denied to the safe
entrenched landsman.

If outward aspects were thus calculated to engage her approval and
agreeably fill in her projected picture, that which glimmered through
them--divined by her rather than stated, all being necessarily more an
affair of intuition than of knowledge--gave her pleasure of richer
quality. High-tempered she unquestionably read him, arrogant and on
occasion not inconceivably remorseless; but ne