ed
with the exuberance of his own verbosity.' That's a good description of
a poet."

Another time she spoke of St. Brigid, the Bride of Christ.

"Who's she?" he asked contemptuously.

"The Irish saint." He interrupted with a long tirade against Home
Rule which proved, to his satisfaction, that St. Brigid was also
"high-falutin' nonsense." A pamphlet of Shaw's she found in the saloon
he told her not, on any account, to read.

"A damned Socialist--a vegetarian--a faddist," he said excitedly, and
she led the conversation away from books, though he brought it back
several times to explain to her the jokes in "Punch" which he said would
have to be put into her head with a hammer and chisel, since she was a
Scot.

But in spite of puzzlement and divergences she was intensely happy.
After the solitude of Lashnagar every day was full of thrilled interest
to her. The many people, the changes of temperature as the boat went
south, the shoals of porpoises tumbling in the blue water; the strange
foods, the passing ships were all amazements to her and the fact that
her thoughts had, for the first time, found a tangible resting-place
like homing pigeons alighting at their cot, together with her absorption
in Louis, all gave her a sense of security.

Louis, on the other hand, though he was trying hard to keep content,
realized that the very fact he had to try meant a fight was coming. And
his inflated sense of being a very fine fellow indeed in her eyes made
it impossible for him to be honest as he had been at first, and tell her
that he had caught sight of his enemy seeing to the edge of his sword,
the priming of his pistols. He could not ask her for help now--he could
not be less than a hero now! He would fight it out alone. Both of them
had yet to realize that life is not a static condition: both of them had
to realize that lives are interdependent.

At Gibraltar happened something that was to have far-reaching effects.
She was watching the frowning Rock; Louis was pointing out the little
threatening barbettes as they drew inshore slowly. Out in the
stream--very much out--lay a Norddeutscher Lloyd ship at anchor.

"Every inch of this water is mined," he told her. "A touch from switches
up on the Rock would blow the whole lot of us to Kingdom Come. The bally
old German out there knows that."

Marcella knew nothing of world politics. He explained.

"England is mistress of the seas," he orated proudly. "The empire
on which