As they sat that evening in the garden of the hotel drinking their after-dinner coffee, which the gentlemen accompanied with cigarettes, they discussed the news from home contained in a batch of letters Mrs. Fairhew and her niece had found awaiting them on their return from the yacht. The announcement of an engagement, rumors of flirtations which might end in others, the latest gossip about people they all knew, were mingled with chat about an extraordinary yacht race at Northeast Harbor, a Russian princess at Nahant, an automobile accident at Lenox, and a fresh divorce at Newport.

"Everything else," Mrs. Fairhew said at length, "is simply nothing at all in comparison to a piece of business news I received. Have you heard of the Tillington failure?"

"What!" cried Jack. "R. B. Tillington?"

"Yes. Their own notice was with the other mail this afternoon," she responded. "Liabilities something like a third of a million and their assets nothing."

"How in the world did it happen?" asked Tab. "I knew they had a lot to do with mines, and of course those are always risky; but Tillington always had the name of being awfully clever."

"Perhaps he was too clever," Jack suggested.

"Clever or not," Mrs. Fairhew said, "he has come to grief, and, I am ashamed to confess, he has lost some money for me."

"I am very sorry for that," Jack responded. "I'll wager you'll have plenty of distinguished company. I'm awfully afraid Uncle Randolph got his fingers burned. He's had dealings with Tillington for ever so long. I never took kindly to the man myself, but Uncle Randolph had a great opinion of his business sagacity."

"I'll wager Mrs. Fairhew's bound to be in good company even in misfortune," Jerry declared with his usual somewhat clumsy gallantry.

Mrs. Fairhew smiled, and made a little sweeping gesture with her fan as if the subject were a disagreeable one and should be waved aside.

"Even that," she said, "doesn't soothe my wounded vanity. The money I've lost is fortunately not very much, but I pride myself on my business head, and I made this investment in spite of the advice of my banker. Think how he will chuckle! I'd rather have lost three times as much on an investment he selected."

"How thoroughly feminine!" Jack laughed.

"Of course you can't understand," Katrine struck in. "I agree with Aunt Anne entirely. Of course one would rather lose money than to give a man a chance to crow over her."

The talk was thus drawn into the inexhaustible discussion of feminine and masculine characteristics, that topic about which revolves two thirds of all the small talk of the world. Then it drifted back to the personal news of the letters.

"I don't think Billy Rafton's to be congratulated," announced Tab emphatically, in reference to a recent wedding. "Edna Leighton has plenty of money of course, and is a stunning girl and all that; but she's so horribly ambitious that she won't give poor Billy a minute's peace."

"And Billy is one of the most quiet men alive," put in Jack.

"Ambitious?" queried Katrine. "How? I've known her pretty well, and to me she always seemed nice. Certainly she's clever."

"So she is clever," Jerry assented; "but of course that'll make it harder for Billy to stand out against her."

"She naturally would have the instinct to get ahead in the world," commented Castleport. "Her mother was a Farquhar."

"Mr. Castleport," remonstrated Mrs. Fairhew, "that remark is too feminine to be worthy of you."

"Do you regret that I didn't leave it for you to say?" he asked saucily. "I know you entirely agree with me."

"Her father, Stephen Leighton," Mrs. Fairhew continued, making no answer but a hardly perceptible smile to his statement, "was a thoroughly charming man and of very good family. You can't deny that, Mr. Castleport."

"I haven't any wish to. I'm not trying to run down Edna Leighton—Rafton, that is."

"I always thought," began Katrine. Then she stopped, with an involuntary movement of the eyes in the direction of Taberman.

"Oh, I was hit there once," Tab said jovially, "if that's what you mean. I got over it at a boat race."

They all laughed, and the topic seemed exhausted, when the elder lady said:—

"We shall have sight of them at Florence, I suppose. They are to be at the Villa Foscagni for the summer. It belongs to the Raftons."

"When do you expect to get there?" Tab inquired carelessly.

"Florence? In five or six days."

"Five or six days!" cried Jack. "Why, when do you leave here?"

"To-morrow afternoon," answered Katrine in a tone of which the indifference might have struck Jack as a little overdone had he not been too perturbed to notice.

"Why—but—" Jack began; "I had no idea"—

"Did you fancy we were here for the summer?" queried Katrine with demure interest.

The hint of teasing in her tone brought Castleport to himself. Half his social success lay in the fact that he was not easily disconcerted.

"As Mrs. Fairhew was good enough to tell me her plans," he returned coolly, "I naturally understood that you were to leave here before long, but I admit I hadn't thought you would go so soon."

"You see," Mrs. Fairhew explained, "we really must get on. Katrine has to do museums and things, as I told you. When I was a girl it wouldn't have been thought respectable for a girl to come out before she'd seen the Pitti and Uffizzi; but it's all different now."

"What nonsense, Aunt Anne! I don't believe you'd seen the galleries yourself when you came out."

"Indeed I had. I'll make you read all the finest print in the guide-books if you are impertinent. We take," she added, turning to Castleport, "the 3.08 for Genoa."

Jack was by nature quick and resolute; and before Mrs. Fairhew had got to this remark he had conceived a plan, and resolved to follow it out. Gravely regarding the thicket of oleanders behind Miss Marchfield, yet with the tail of his eye on the face of Jerry, which was alternately lighted and obscured as his cigarette glowed or waned, the captain remarked coolly:—

"That's a curious coincidence."

"Coincidence?" repeated Mrs. Fairhew questioningly.

"It would seem so," Jack almost drawled. "You said the 3.08, didn't you? How far do you go? All the way to Genoa?"

"Yes. What is there extraordinary about that?"

"Why, nothing much," returned Jack in a brisker tone, throwing away the butt of his cigarette; "only—yes—that's the very train I go on myself. Same destination, too, unless I decide to stop at Bordighera."

There naturally was a sensation at this unexpected announcement. Katrine drew in her breath audibly; in the very nick of time Jerry caught himself in the act of saying profanely what he would be; Mrs. Fairhew closed her fan quickly, but she was too much mistress of herself to give any indication of her feelings beyond a little quick laugh.

"I had not remembered that you spoke of going," she said.

"No?" Jack said politely.

"But," gasped Jerry, "I say—you know, I say"—

Evidently his feelings were too much for him, and he collapsed. So sudden a move on the part of Jack was sure to disconcert his slower-witted comrade, and the captain had fortunately been prepared by previous experiences for some mental confusion on the part of the mate.

"Yes, Jerry?" he asked.

"Nothing—I—I don't remember what I was going to say," murmured the bewildered Tab.

"Really," observed Mrs. Fairhew, "it hadn't occurred to me that you could or would leave the yacht. What becomes of her?"

"Oh, you don't doubt Jerry, do you? He's going to take her in charge."

Once determined upon his plan, Jack felt it best to carry matters off with a high hand. He did not in the least care whether Mrs. Fairhew and Katrine suspected that his resolution to go on by land had been taken on the spot or not; but he liked to play the game well, and to put a good face on things. He spoke as though his mind had been made up long before, although all the time his brain was working with furious energy, as he tried to shape the scheme thoroughly and to foresee all possible contingencies. To give over to Jerry the care of the President's yacht was a bold stroke, but he said to himself that he was confident his friend was entirely competent to manage her for the comparatively short run to Naples; and his thought nimbly disposed of objection after objection as they rose in his mind.

Rapid as had been his decision, it was less wild than it might seem; and by the time he spoke again Jack had all the details pretty well mastered.

"Do you leave the Merle here?" inquired Mrs. Fairhew.

Katrine, Jack noted, had said nothing, but he had heard that quick, indrawn breath, and he did not believe that her silence arose from indifference.

"Oh, no; Jerry's going to take her to Naples," was Castleport's cool reply.

It was to Tab's credit that at this astounding piece of intelligence he did not make a violent demonstration; but he was not unaccustomed to the rapidity with which Jack came to a decision, and he had before been trained in accepting what his captain said. Now he only dropped his cigarette, and on picking it up put the lighted end between his lips, spluttered and smothered a profane comment, and hurled the offending butt as far as he could.

"Have another?" asked Jack, unruffled, as he pushed his case across the little table by which they were sitting.

"Thank you, no!" replied Tab with quite unnecessary emphasis.

"You've no need to touch your lips with fire, Mr. Taberman," Mrs. Fairhew observed, opening and closing her fan in a way which she had when amused; "you have been sufficiently eloquent in compliments ever since you arrived. May we hope, then," she went on, turning to Castleport, "for the pleasure of your company on the journey?"

"If you and Miss Marchfield do not object, I shall be delighted."

"It will be a great pleasure to me. Of course I can't speak for Katrine."

Jack turned to look at Katrine. On her face the soft light of a Japanese lantern fell between a couple of trees, but she at once moved so that the shadows hid her expression.

"Nothing could please me more, Aunt Anne, than that you should be pleased," she responded.

"Then you had better bring Mr. Taberman and your luggage ashore, and come to luncheon to-morrow," the aunt said, rising. "In that way we can take our time and be comfortable. Does that suit your plans, Mr. Castleport?"

Jack detected the suspicion of mirth in her voice, but he felt that if she had disapproved she would not only have shown no amusement but that she was clever enough to have thwarted his scheme.

"I don't want to abuse your hospitality," he said.

"Oh, we shall make you useful as an escort, and get enough service out of you on the journey to pay that," spoke Katrine, with the air of feeling that she had been too noticeably silent.

"We're only too delighted to come, of course," Jerry said with boyish enthusiasm. "Anybody'd be glad of a chance to lunch with you, Mrs. Fairhew."

"Your compliments are rather direct, Mr. Taberman," that lady answered with a laugh. "We'll say 1.30, then. That will give us plenty of time. I hate to be hurried; it is so undignified."

As Mrs. Fairhew had risen the others were of course on their feet, and as Jack stood aside for Katrine to pass him, the elder lady took his arm. By this she detained him an instant, until her niece and Jerry were a few yards away. When they approached the door of the hotel and it was light enough for him to see her clearly, she dropped his arm; and as he turned his face toward her at the movement, she regarded him through her lorgnette with a look quizzical though kindly.

"You are a clever boy," she said after a little, and with a peculiar faint stress on the adjective. "Do you want to marry my niece?"

Jack of course recognized that the question would never have been asked had there been any doubt of the answer, and even in the confusion of the moment he had a dim perception that Mrs. Fairhew was, with kindly whim, helping him to ask her sanction to his wooing. He felt his cheeks grow hot, but he faced his inquisitor frankly, and he spoke with a manner which though instinctively subdued was full of energy and feeling.

"You know I do," he said. "You know I'd die the worst of deaths for her. I—As God's above me," he burst out, breaking off and feeling himself strangle with his emotion, "I'll win her or die trying! I—I— Of course I want to marry her! What do you suppose I came to Europe for?"

Mrs. Fairhew's face softened, for no true woman could have heard the passion of his voice unmoved; but she laughed at the sudden change with which he ended.

"I hope you may succeed," she said softly. "I think you will." Then she took his arm again, and spoke in her ordinary voice: "Come, we must go in."

"Now, then, Jack, in the name of heaven," demanded Jerry, as soon as he and the captain were out of hearing of the ladies, "what is this awful josh of yours about leaving the yacht?"

"I'll tell you when we get aboard," his friend answered. "Don't bother me now; I'm thinking."

Tab snorted contemptuously, and in silence the pair held on until they reached the quay. The cutter awaited them, and still in silence they were pulled out to the Merle. There was not a breath of wind now; the stars blazed brilliantly above them, and not a cloud-blot was to be seen. In a stillness broken only by the rhythmical oar-strokes the pair watched the myriad star-points which dotted the heavens as they had adorned it centuries before when old Nice was new NicÆa, and some brown Sicilian pilot may have gazed up at them and made haven by their faithful guidance.

No sooner were they aboard than Gonzague came to ask if they would have supper.

"Oh, I don't know," Jack answered, still in a dream from the spell of Mrs. Fairhew's words.

"Well, I do," put in Jerry. "We'll have some caviare sandwiches, Gonzague, and a glass of sherry."

The supper was eaten almost in silence, and it was not until Gonzague had taken away the things and left them with pipes lighted that the inevitable explanation was reached.

"Now then?" said Tab impatiently.

His face wore a sober expression, full of expectancy, but not without a hint of annoyance and reproach. Jack blew a large smoke-ring at him, and laughed to see how in dodging it Jerry kept his solemnity unchanged.

"Well, Tab," he began, "I don't suppose it's necessary to say that the idea of leaving the yacht never came into my head till I knew Mrs. Fairhew and Katr—Miss Marchfield were off to-morrow."

"Heave ahead," grumpily retorted Jerry. "Don't mind me. Of course I shall be delighted to be left alone on the yacht."

"Come, cheer up, old man," Jack exhorted. "Don't be grouchy. I'm awfully sorry to leave you; but of course it's only for a little while, and we shall both have compensations. I hope I shall be coming nearer to—to—well, to something definite, you know; and you'll have the Merle to do what you jolly well please with."

"That's all very well, of course," Tab responded, his face relaxing a little; "but what's your game? We've beastly little money, you know; and this shore cruise of yours is bound to sop up a lot of tin."

"We've money enough to carry us through," Jack declared. "I'll go to Genoa, of course. I know Italy pretty well, and I can make myself useful,—sort of 'guide, philosopher, and friend,' and courier all in one. When they go on to Naples,—well, from something Mrs. Fairhew said to-night, I think I shan't have any difficulty going on to Naples with them. A man's a handy article in traveling, you see, especially if he knows the language."

Jerry regarded the captain as if his slower wits found it somewhat hard to follow the swift flights of his friend's mind.

"But the Merle?" he objected. "It's bad enough for you to be skylarking about the world with the President's yacht, but when it comes to turning it over to me—Why, the old gentleman would throw five hundred fits at the bare idea."

"Oh, I'll trust you there," Jack said lightly, consciously trying to make his confidence as flattering as possible. "You can manage, and do as you please for the next month. Who ever heard of a mate that didn't jump at the chance of taking command for a while. I'd advise you to stop, say, at Elba, if you're for doing the sights. Then, if you like, while you're on the Napoleonic tack, you might run 'round to Ajaccio. It's an out-of-the-way place, rather, but it's jolly when you get there. As for Elba, I've never been ashore there, though I've passed it and know the chap that owns it. I'll give you a letter in case you want to go ashore."

"But, Jack—Damn it!" broke out Jerry, as if exasperated by the very feasibility of his friend's sudden change of tactics, "I can't speak a word of their blessed lingo!"

"Pooh! Your French will carry you about well enough, and if worst comes to worst, you can fall back on Gonzague. At Naples you'll find them speaking English all over the lot."

"Jack Castleport, you're certainly the damnedest man to handle I ever came across," Jerry said in despairing tones. "A fellow might as well try to bully-rag a sea-cow as to argue you out of any of your confounded schemes."

"That's because they're so good," laughed Jack. "You see their profound wisdom carries me away so completely that objections can't touch me." Then he stretched his hand across the table corner, and caught hold of Jerry's. "I'm deuced sorry to give you the slip like this," he said, "but you know the reason."

The good-natured Tab melted at once. He returned the pressure of his friend's hand and tried to quote

but made so hopeless a mess of it that he could only break out into one of his boisterously jovial guffaws.

"Well, by George," he cried, "if she only knew how devoted you are, Jack, she'd let you wait a dog's age, just to try you."

They spent an hour or so in arranging details, going over charts, dividing their funds, and so on. Jack gave Tab addresses at Genoa, Florence, and Rome by which he might be reached, and told him that at Naples he should go to the HÔtel du Vesuve. On the twentieth of August Jerry was to inquire for him there. These and other affairs having been arranged, the pair smoked a final pipe, and turned in.

Jack was very wakeful. He lay thinking of this and of that, restlessly tossing about in his berth. Just as at last he was dropping off to sleep, he was aroused by the voice of Jerry, who called softly across the passage:—

"I say, Jack,—are you awake?"

"Almost," replied Jack; "but I shouldn't have been, if you'd let me alone."

"I say, Jacko, do you fancy the President came a cropper in that Tillington smashup?"

"Don't know," Jack answered. "He's pretty shrewd, and Mrs. Fairhew would have been likely to hear of it, I should think, if he had come seriously to grief."

"Well, you know, it struck me that perhaps that beastly letter from Tillington might have been something important, and"—

"Oh, take a liver-pill!" interrupted Jack. "You've got an attack of Conscientia Novanglicana."

"What's that?"

"Forerunner of nervous pros.," replied the captain with a chuckle. "Go to sleep or you'll get it."

"Well, good-night."

"Good-night, boy."

Silence again reigned, but Jack, once more aroused, threshed about uneasily until far into the night. Resolutely as he might determine not to think of the possible consequences of the carrying off of that big blue letter, he could not prevent doubt from recurring constantly to his mind, and something not so far removed from remorse mingled with his thoughts of Katrine and of the delight of traveling in her company. He was so long awake that on the next afternoon Mrs. Fairhew, when he had installed her and her niece comfortably in a first-class compartment on the 3.08 train, and they were beginning to see the olive groves and the villas slip picturesquely past the windows, noted the shadows beneath his eyes, and smiled to herself discreetly and unseen.