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 cabin, "I have met very few men in my life who are capable of what you are doing?"

"I?" said Cleggett, surprised. "I have done nothing."

"You have found a woman in a strange position—an unusual position, indeed!—and you have helped her without persecuting her with questions."

"It is nothing," murmured Cleggett.

"Would you think me too impulsive," she said, with a rare smile, "if I told you that you are the sort of man whom women are ready to trust implicitly almost at first sight?"

Cleggett did not permit himself to speak for fear that the thrill which her words imparted to him would carry him too far. He bowed.

"But I think you mentioned tea?" she said. "Did I hear you say it was orange pekoe, or did I dream that? And couldn't we have it on deck?"

While Kuroki was bringing a table and chairs on deck and busying himself about that preparation of tea, Cleggett watched Elmer, the squat young man, with a growing curiosity. George and Cap'n Abernethy were also watching Elmer from a discreet distance. Even Kuroki, silent, swift, and well-trained Kuroki, could not but steal occasional