ing soft
nonsense into her ear. Of course it was nonsense! Is it conceivable
that a man like Raffles, with his knowledge of the world, and his
experience of women (a side of his character upon which I have
purposely never touched, for it deserves another volume); is it
credible, I ask, that such a man could find anything but nonsense to
talk by the day together to a giddy young schoolgirl? I would not be
unfair for the world.

I think I have admitted that the young person had points. Her eyes, I
suppose, were really fine, and certainly the shape of the little brown
face was charming, so far as mere contour can charm.

I admit also more audacity than I cared about, with enviable health,
mettle, and vitality. I may not have occasion to report any of this
young lady's speeches (they would scarcely bear it), and am therefore
the more anxious to describe her without injustice. I confess to some
little prejudice against her. I resented her success with Raffles, of
whom, in consequence, I saw less and less each day. It is a mean thing
to have to confess, but there must have been something not unlike
jealousy rankling within me.

Jealousy there was in another quarter--crude, rampant, undignified
jealousy. Captain von Heumann would twirl his mustaches into twin
spires, shoot his white cuffs over his rings, and stare at me
insolently through his rimless eyeglasses; we ought to have consoled
each other, but we never exchanged a syllable. The captain had a
murderous scar across one of his cheeks, a present from Heidelberg, and
I used to think how he must long to have Raffles there to serve the
same. It was not as though von Heumann never had his innings. Raffles
let him go in several times a day, for the malicious pleasure of
bowling him out as he was "getting set"; those were his words when I
taxed him disingenuously with obnoxious conduct towards a German on a
German boat.

"You'll make yourself disliked on board!"

"By von Heumann merely."

"But is that wise when he's the man we've got to diddle?"

"The wisest thing I ever did. To have chummed up with him would have
been fatal--the common dodge."

I was consoled, encouraged, almost content. I had feared Raffles was
neglecting things, and I told him so in a burst. Here we were near
Gibraltar, and not a word since the Solent. He shook his head with a
smile.

"Plenty of time, Bunny, plenty of time. We can do nothing before we
get to Genoa, and that won't b