slight but exquisitely moulded
figure. In her dark eyes there was a sympathy, a compassion, that was
new to me. It thrilled me with an emotion different from anything that
my frankly happy, but hitherto wholly selfish life had known. There was
only one note in her conversation which jarred upon me. She was apt to
drift into the extraordinary views of life and death which were
interesting when formulated by her eccentric brother, but pained me
coming from her lips. In spite of this, the purpose I had contemplated
of joining Brande's Society--evoked as it had been by his own whimsical
observation--now took definite form. I would join that Society. It would
be the best way of keeping near to Natalie Brande.

Her brother returned to us to say that the tender was about to leave the
ship. He had left us for half an hour. I did not notice his absence
until he himself announced it. As we shook hands, I said to him:

"I have been thinking about that Society of yours. I mean to join it."

"I am very glad," he replied. "You will find it a new sensation, quite
outside the beaten track, which you know so well."

There was a shade of half-kindly contempt in his voice, which missed me
at the moment. I answered gaily, knowing that he would not be offended
by what was said in jest:

"I am sure I shall. If all the members are as mad as yourself, it will
be the most interesting experience outside Bedlam that any man could
wish for."

I had a foretaste of that interest soon.

As Miss Brande was walking to the gangway, a lamp shone full upon her
gypsy face. The blue-black hair, the dark eyes, and a deep red rose she
wore in her bonnet, seemed to me an exquisite arrangement of harmonious
colour. And the thought flashed into my mind very vividly, however
trivial it may seem here, when written down in cold words: "The queen of
women, and the queen of flowers." That is not precisely how my thought
ran, but I cannot describe it better. The finer subtleties of the brain
do not bear well the daylight of language.

Brande drew her back and whispered to her. Then the sweet face, now
slightly flushed, was turned to me again.

"Oh, thank you for that pretty thought," she said with a pleasant smile.
"You are too flattering. The 'queen of flowers' is very true, but the
'queen of women!' Oh, no!" She made a graceful gesture of dissent, and
passed down the gangway.

As the tender disappeared into the darkness, a tiny scrap of lace waved,
and I