The Spectator., 1915-03-05

the matter?"
 T don't know, Martha. I believe l should like to lose my temper utterly, I'm irritable because I do not know my own mind. hate the stuffy stateroom. the food, the captain. Nothing seems to disturb his conceit. Tonight we sleep on deck, the starboard side. At five o'clock we have to get up and go inside again so they can holy-stone the deck. And l am always soundest asleep at that time. Doubtless, shall be irritable all day tomorrow"
 Sleep up here on deck? But the men?" mortified
 They sleep on the port side" Elsa laughed maliciously. Don't worry. Nobody minds"
 T hate the East" declared Martha vindictively. Everything is so slack. It just brings out the shiftlessness in everybody"
 Perhaps that is what ails me; l am growing shiftless. When 1 came on board l decided to marry Arthur, and have done with the bother. Now am at the same place as when l left home. l don't want to marry anybody. Have you noticed that fellow Craig?"
 What will you do if he speaks?"
 "I have half dozen good hatpins left" dryly.
 q hate to hear you talk like that" Its the East There goes that hateful gong again. Soup, chick en, curry, rice and piccalilli. am go- | ing to live on plantains and mango steens. I'm glad we had sense enough to order that distilled water. Come; we'll go down as we are to dinner, and watch the ridiculous captain and his 1 fan-bearer. The punka will at least give us breath of fresh air. There doesn't seem to be any on deck. One regrets Darjeeling."
 Martha followed her young mistress into the dining-saloon; she was anx- ious and upset Where would this mood end? With glance of relief she found Warrington's chair still vacant.
 The saloon had an air of freshness tonight. All the men were in drill or | |nation that the picture robbed the room of half its heat. To and fro the punka Tapped; the pulleys creaked and the ropes scraped above the sound of knives and forks and spoons.
 Elsa ate little besides fruit She spoke scarcely a word to Martha, and none to those around her Thus, she missed the frowp of the colonel and the lifted brows of the spinsters, and the curious glances of the tourists The passenger list had not yet come from the ships press, 50 Elsa's name was practically unknown. But in some unaccountable manner it had become known that she had been making in qutries in regard to the gentleman il cabin IS, who had thus far remained away from the table. Ship life is g dull life, and gossip is about the only thing that makes it possible to live through the day, It was quite easy to couple this unknown aloof young woman and the invisible man, and then to wait for results. It would have amused Elsa had she known the interest she had already created il not inspired. Her beauty and her ap parent indifference to her surround ings were particularly adapted to the romantic mood of her fellow-travel CTS Her own mind was so broad and generous, so high and detached. that so sordid a thing as ''an affair never entered her thoughts.
 As she refused course after course single phrase drummed necessarily through her tired brain. She was not going to marry Arthur; never. never in this world. She did not love him and this was to be final. She would cable him from Singapore.
 That night Craig found it insupport- able in the cabin below; so he ordered his steward to bring up his bedding He had lain down for half an hour, | grown restless. and had begun to walk the deck in his bath slippers. He had noted the still white figure for ward. where the cross-rail marks the waist As he approached, Craig dis covered his man He hesitated only a moment: then he touched Warning tons arm.
 1 (TO BE CoNTINUED)