believing: "We have found our paradise
together, my Lady Una," he whispered softly. "And, love, there is no way
back."

* * * * *

THE LOOKER-ON

I

"Oh, I'm going to be Lady Jane Grey," said Charlie Cleveland, balancing
himself on the deck-rail in front of his friends, Mrs. Langdale and
Mollie Erle, with considerable agility. "And, Mollie, I say, will you
lend me a black silk skirt? I saw you were wearing one last night."

He spoke with complete seriousness. It was this boy's way to infuse into
all his actions an enthusiasm that deprived the most trifling of the
commonplace element. He was the gayest passenger on board--the very life
of the boat. Yet he had few accomplishments to recommend him, his
abundant spirits alone attaining for him the popularity he everywhere
enjoyed.

Molly Erle, who with Mrs. Langdale was returning home after spending the
winter with some friends at Calcutta, regarded him with a toleration not
wholly devoid of contempt. He apparently deemed it necessary to pay her
a good deal of attention, and Molly was strongly determined to keep him
at a distance--a matter, by the way, that had its difficulties in face
of young Cleveland's romping lack of ceremony.

"Yes, you may have the skirt," she said with a generosity not wholly
spontaneous, as he waited expectantly for a reply to his request.

"Ah, good!" he said effusively. "That is a great weight off my mind. And
may I have Number Ten on your programme?"

"Are you going to dance?" asked Mrs. Langdale, with a half-suppressed
laugh.

He turned upon her, grinning openly.

"No. Fisher says I mustn't. I'm going to sit out, dear Mrs. Langdale--a
modest wall-flower for once. I hope you will all be very kind to me.
Have you made a note of Number Ten, Molly--I mean, Miss Erle? No? But
you will, though. Ah! Thanks, awfully! Here comes Fisher! I wish you
would persuade him to do Guildford Dudley. I can't."

He bounced off the rail and departed, laughing.

Molly looked after him with slight disapprobation on her pretty face. He
was such a thoroughly nice boy. She wished with almost unreasonable
intensity that he possessed more of that sterling quality, solidity, for
which his travelling companion, Fisher, was chiefly noteworthy.

Captain Fisher approached them with a casual air as if he had drifted
their way by accident. He was one of those oppressively quiet men who
possess the unhappy knack of appeari