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Rh know what that might be until he came to it. The Sea Lady abandoned an attempt to understand him in favour of a more urgent topic.

"Do you think Miss Glendower and Mr. Chatteris?"

Melville looked up at her. He noticed she had hung on the latter name. "Decidedly," he said. "It's just what they would do."

Then he spoke again. "Chatteris?" he said.

"Yes," said she.

"I thought so," said Melville.

The Sea Lady regarded him gravely. They scrutinised each other with an unprecedented intimacy. Melville was suddenly direct. It was a discovery that it seemed he ought to have made all along. He felt quite unaccountably bitter; he spoke with a twitch of the mouth and his voice had a note of accusation. "You want to talk about him."

She nodded—still grave.

"Well, I don't." He changed his note. "But I will if you wish it."

"I thought you would."

"Oh, you know," said Melville, discovering his extinct cigarette was within reach of a vindictive heel.

She said nothing.

"Well?" said Melville.

"I saw him first," she apologised, "some years ago."

"Where?"

"In the South Seas—near Tonga."

"And that is really what you came for?"