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42 voice, I wonder, that is so soothing, or just what you say?"

She smiled reassuringly.

"You are glad because you have found a friend," she told him, "and a friend who, even if she does not understand, does not wish to understand. Do you see?"

"I wish I felt that I deserved it," he groaned.

She laughed almost gaily.

"What a sorting up there would be of our places in life," she declared, "if we all had just what we deserved! Now give me your arm. I want to walk a little. While we walk, if you like, I will try to tell you what I can about New York. It may interest you."

They walked up and down the deck, and by degrees their conversation drifted into a discussion of such recent plays as were familiar to both of them. At the far end of the ship she clung to him once or twice as the wind came booming over the freshening waves. She weighed and measured his criticisms of the plays they spoke of, and in the main approved of them. When at last she stopped outside the companionway and bade him good night, the deck was almost deserted. They were near one of the electric lights, and he saw her face more distinctly than he had seen it at all, realised more adequately its wonderful charm. The large, firm mouth, womanly and tender though it was, was almost the mouth of a protector. She smiled at him as one might smile at a boy.

"You are to sleep well," she said firmly. "Those are my orders. Good night!"

She gave him her hand—a woman's soft and deli-