ted wanderer.

There was a rather awkward silence after this. Miss Zaidie stirred the
coffee in her cup with a dainty Queen Anne spoon, and seemed to
concentrate the whole of her attention upon the operation. Then Mrs. Van
Stuyler took a sip out of her cup and said:

"But really, Lord Redgrave, I feel that I must ask you whether you think
that what you have done during the last few minutes (which already, I
assure you, seem hours to me) is--well, quite in accordance with
the--what shall I say--ah, the rules that we have been accustomed to
live under?"

Lord Redgrave looked at Miss Zaidie again. She didn't even raise her
eyelids, only a very slight tremor of her hand as she raised her cup to
her lips told that she was even listening. He took courage from this
sign, and replied:

"My dear Mrs. Van Stuyler, the only answer that I can make to that just
now is to remind you that, by the sanction of ages, everything is
supposed to be fair under two sets of circumstances, and, whatever is
happening on the earth down yonder, we, I think, are not at war."

The next moment Miss Zaidie's eyelids lifted a little. There was a
tremor about her lips almost too faint to be perceptible, and the
slightest possible tinge of colour crept upwards towards her eyes. She
put her cup down and got up, walked towards the glass walls of the
deck-chamber, and looked out over the cloud-scape.

The shortness of her steamer skirt made it possible for Lord Redgrave
and Mrs. Van Stuyler to see that the sole of her right boot was swinging
up and down on the heel ever so slightly. They came simultaneously to
the conclusion that if she had been alone she would have stamped, and
stamped pretty hard. Possibly also she would have said things to herself
and the surrounding silence. This seemed probable from the almost
equally imperceptible motion of her shapely shoulders.

Mrs. Van Stuyler recognised in a moment that her charge was getting
angry. She knew by experience that Miss Zaidie possessed a very proper
spirit of her own, and that it was just as well not to push matters too
far. She further recognised that the circumstances were extraordinary,
not to say equivocal, and that she herself occupied a distinctly
peculiar position.

She had accepted the charge of Miss Zaidie from her Uncle Russell for a
consideration counted partly by social advantages and partly by dollars.
In the most perfect innocence she had permitted not only her charge but
hers