persist in picking on me, skipper, I'll ravish you
of those magnificent eyebrows with a safety razor, some time when
you're asleep, and leave you as dumb as a Wop peddler who's lost both
arms."

Liane followed him out in silence, but her carriage was that of a queen
of tragedy. Lanyard got up in turn, and to his amazement found the
eyebrows signalling confidentially to him.

"What the devil!" he exclaimed, in an open stare.

Immediately the eyebrows became conciliatory.

"Well, monsieur, and what is your opinion?"

"Why, to me it would seem there might be something in the suggestion of
Monsieur Phinuit."

"Ridiculous!" Monk dismissed it finally. "Do you know, I rather fancy
my own.... Liane's up to something," he added, explanatory; and then,
as Lanyard said nothing--"You haven't told me yet what she was talking
to you about last night just before her--alleged fright."

Lanyard contrived a successful offensive with his own eyebrows.

"Oh?" he said, "haven't I?" and walked out.

Here was a new angle to consider. Monk's attitude hinted at a possible
rift in the entente cordiale of the conspirators. Why else should he
mistrust Liane's sincerity in asserting that she had seen Popinot?
Aside from the question of what he imagined she could possibly gain by
making a scene out of nothing--a riddle unreadable--one wondered
consumedly what had happened to render Monk suspicious of her good
faith.

The explanation, when it was finally revealed to Lanyard by the most
trivial of incidents, made even his own blindness seem laughable.

For three more days the life of the ship followed in unruffled
tranquillity its ordered course. Liane Delorme was afflicted with no
more visions, as the captain would have called them; though by common
consent the subject had been dropped upon the failure of the search,
and to all seeming was rapidly fading from the minds of everybody but
Liane herself and Lanyard. This last continued to plague himself with
the mystery and, maintaining always an open mind, was prepared at any
time to be shockingly enlightened; that is, to discover that Liane had
not cried wolf without substantial reason. For he had learned this much
at least of life, that everything is always possible.

As for Liane, she made no secret of her unabated timidity, yet suffered
it with such fortitude as could not fail to win admiration. If she was
a bit more subdued, a trifle less high-spirited than was her habit, if
she ref