assertiveness. And there's that ruffian who came
down the river. What's he doing on the same boat? What?"

Elsa became aware of their presence at the fifth turn. She nodded
absently. Being immersed in the sea of conjecture regarding
Warrington's behavior, the colonel's glare did not rouse in her the
sense of impending disaster.

The first gong for dinner boomed. Elsa missed the clarion notes of the
bugle, so familiar to her ears on the Atlantic. The echoing wail of
the gong spoke in the voice of the East, of its dalliance, its content
to drift in a sargassa sea of entangling habits and desires, of its
fatalism and inertia. It did not hearten one or excite hunger. Elsa
would rather have lain down in her Canton lounging-chair. The gong
seemed out of place on the sea. Vaguely it reminded her of the railway
stations at home, where they beat the gong to entice passengers into
the evil-smelling restaurants, there to lose their patience and often
their trains.

The dining-saloon held two long tables, only one of which was in
commission, the starboard. The saloon was unattractive, for staterooms
marshaled along each side of it; and one caught glimpses of tumbled
luggage and tousled berths. A punka stretched from one end of the
table to the other, and swung indolently to and fro, whining
mysteriously as if in protest, sometimes subsiding altogether (as the
wearied coolie above the lights fell asleep) and then flapping
hysterically (after a shout of warning from the captain) and setting
the women's hair awry.

Elsa and Martha were seated somewhere between the head and the foot of
the table. The personally-conducted surrounded them, and gabbled
incessantly during the meal of what they had seen, of what they were
going to see, and of what they had missed by not going with the other
agency's party. Elsa's sympathy went out to the tired and faded
conductor.

There was but one vacant chair; and as she saw Warrington nowhere, Elsa
assumed that this must be his reservation. She was rather glad that he
would be beyond conversational radius. She liked to talk to the
strange and lonely man, but she preferred to be alone with him when she
did so. Neither of them had yet descended to the level of trifles; and
Elsa had no wish to share with persons uninteresting and
uncompanionable her serious views of life. Sometimes she wondered if,
after all, she was not as old as the hills instead of twenty-five.

She began as