hed foot
or two without making any elaborate apology for doing so.

Margaret only glanced at the familiar sight, but she made a little
movement of annoyance almost directly, and took up the book that lay
open and face downwards on her knee; she became absorbed in it so
suddenly as to convey the impression that she was not really reading
at all.

She had seen Mr. Van Torp and Paul Griggs walking together and coming
towards her.

The millionaire was shorter than his companion and more clumsily made,
though not by any means a stout man. Though he did not look like a
soldier he had about him the very combative air which belongs to so
many modern financiers of the Christian breed. There was the bull-dog
jaw, the iron mouth, and the aggressive blue eye of the man who takes
and keeps by force rather than by astuteness. Though his face had
lines in it and his complexion was far from brilliant he looked
scarcely forty years of age, and his short, rough, sandy hair had not
yet begun to turn grey.

He was not ugly, but Margaret had always seen something in his face
that repelled her. It was some lack of proportion somewhere, which
she could not precisely define; it was something that was out of
the common type of faces, but that was disquieting rather than
interesting. Instead of wondering what it meant, those who noticed it
wished it were not there.

Margaret was sure she could distinguish his heavy step from Griggs's
when he was near her, but she would not look up from her book till he
stopped and spoke to her.

'Good-morning, Madame Cordova; how are you this morning?' he inquired,
holding out his hand. 'You didn't expect to see me on board, did you?'

His tone was hard and business-like, but he lifted his yachting cap
politely as he held out his hand. Margaret hesitated a moment before
taking it, and when she moved her own he was already holding his out
to Miss More.

'Good-morning, Miss More; how are you this morning?'

Miss More leaned forward and put down one foot as if she would have
risen in the presence of the great man, but he pushed her back by her
hand which he held, and proceeded to shake hands with the little girl.

'Good-morning, Miss Ida; how are you this morning?'

Margaret felt sure that if he had shaken hands with a hundred people
he would have repeated the same words to each without any variation.
She looked at Griggs imploringly, and glanced at his vacant chair on
her right side. He did not answ