little
hairless dog from Mexico. It never relaxes. I think I have told you about
my favourite city in the middle of Asia, _la sainte Asie_, where the
rainfall is absolutely nil, and you are protected on every side by
hundreds of metres of warm, dry sand. I was there when I was a child
once, and it is still my intention to retire there when I have finished
with all this. I would be there now, n-ow-ow," his voice rose
querulously, "if Madame Cressida did not imagine that she needs me,--and
her fancies, you know," he flourished his hands, "one gives in to them.
In humouring her caprices you and I have already played some together."

We were approaching Cressida's deck chairs, ranged under the open windows
of her stateroom. She was already recumbent, swathed in lavender scarfs
and wearing purple orchids--doubtless from Jerome Brown. At her left,
Horace had settled down to a French novel, and Julia Garnet, at her
right, was complainingly regarding the grey horizon. On seeing me,
Cressida struggled under her fur-lined robes and got to her feet,--which
was more than Horace or Miss Julia managed to do. Miss Julia, as I could
have foretold, was not pleased. All the Garnets had an awkward manner
with me. Whether it was that I reminded them of things they wished to
forget, or whether they thought I esteemed Cressida too highly and the
rest of them too lightly, I do not know; but my appearance upon their
scene always put them greatly on their dignity. After Horace had offered
me his chair and Miss Julia had said doubtfully that she thought I was
looking rather better than when she last saw me, Cressida took my arm and
walked me off toward the stern.

"Do you know, Carrie, I half wondered whether I shouldn't find you here,
or in London, because you always turn up at critical moments in my life."
She pressed my arm confidentially, and I felt that she was once more
wrought up to a new purpose. I told her that I had heard some rumour of
her engagement.

"It's quite true, and it's all that it should be," she reassured me.
"I'll tell you about it later, and you'll see that it's a real solution.
They are against me, of course,--all except Horace. He has been such a
comfort."

Horace's support, such as it was, could always be had in exchange for his
mother's signature, I suspected. The pale May day had turned bleak and
chilly, and we sat down by an open hatchway which emitted warm air from
somewhere below. At this close range I studied