ven't the least idea," Philip replied carelessly. "Something to do
with boots and shoes, isn't it?"

His questioner stared at him for a moment and then laughed.

"Say, you're a young man of your word!" he remarked appreciatively.

CHAPTER VII

Philip Romilly was accosted, late that afternoon, by two young women
whose presence on board he had noticed with a certain amount of
disapproval. They were obviously of the chorus-girl type, a fact which
they seemed to lack the ambition to conceal. After several would-be
ingratiating giggles, they finally pulled up in front of him whilst he
was promenading the deck.

"You are Mr. Romilly, aren't you?" one of them asked. "Bob Millet told us
you were going to be on this steamer. You know Bob, don't you?"

Philip for a moment was taken aback.

"Bob Millet," he repeated thoughtfully.

"Of course! Good old Bob! I don't mind confessing," the young woman went
on, "that though we were all out one night together--Trocadero, Empire,
and Murray's afterwards--I should never have recognised you. Seems to me
you've got thinner and more serious-looking."

"I am afraid my own memory is also at fault," Philip remarked, a little
stiffly.

"I am Violet Fox," the young woman who had accosted him continued. "This
my friend, Hilda Mason. She's a dear girl but a little shy, aren't you,
Hilda?"

"That's just because I told her that we ought to wait until you
remembered us," the slighter young woman, with the very obvious
peroxidised hair, protested.

"Didn't seem to be any use waiting for that," her friend retorted
briskly. "Hilda and I are dying for a cocktail, Mr. Romilly."

He led them with an unwillingness of which they seemed frankly unaware,
towards the lounge. They drank two cocktails and found themselves
unfortunately devoid of cigarettes, a misfortune which it became his
privilege to remedy. They were very friendly young ladies, if a little
slangy, invited him around to their staterooms, and offered to show him
the runs around New York. Philip escaped after about an hour and made his
way to where Elizabeth was reclining in her deck chair.

"That fellow Romilly," he declared irritably, "the other one, I mean,
seems to have had the vilest tastes. If I am to be landed with any more
of his ridiculous indiscretions, I think I shall have to go overboard.
There was an enterprising gentleman named Gayes in Liverpool, who nearly
drove me crazy, then there's this Mr. Lawton who wants