Captain to his room through the parting crowd of passengers. He nodded
to one or two familiar faces in the crowd, for he was an old Atlantic
ferryman, and had crossed five times with Captain Hawkins in the _St.
Louis_.

Then he caught sight of a well and fondly remembered face which he had
not seen for over two years. It was a face which possessed at once the
fair Anglo-Saxon skin, the firm and yet delicate Anglo-Saxon features,
and the wavy wealth of the old Saxon gold-brown hair; but a pair of big,
soft, pansy eyes, fringed with long, curling, black lashes, looked out
from under dark and perhaps just a trifle heavy eyebrows. Moreover,
there was that indescribable expression in the curve of her lips and the
pose of her head; to say nothing of a lissome, vivacious grace in her
whole carriage which proclaimed her a daughter of the younger branch of
the Race that Rules.

Their eyes met for an instant, and Lord Redgrave was startled and even a
trifle angered to see that she flushed up quickly, and that the
momentary smile with which she greeted him died away as she turned her
head aside. Still, he was a man accustomed to do what he wanted: and
what he wanted to do just then was to shake hands with Lilla Zaidie
Rennick, and so he went straight towards her, raised his cap, and held
out his hand saying, first with a glance into her eyes, and then with
one upward at the _Astronef_:

"Good morning again, Miss Rennick! You see it is done."

"Good morning, Lord Redgrave!" she replied, he thought, a little
awkwardly. "Yes, I see you have kept your promise. What a pity it is too
late! But I hope you will be able to stop long enough to tell us all
about it. This is Mrs. Van Stuyler, who has taken me under her
protection on my journey to Europe."

His lordship returned the bow of a tall, somewhat hard-featured matron
who looked dignified even in the somewhat nondescript costume which most
of the ladies were wearing. But her eyes were kindly, and he said:

"Very pleased to meet, Mrs. Van Stuyler. I heard you were coming, and I
was in hopes of catching you on the other side before you left. And now,
if you will excuse me, I must go and have a chat with the Skipper." He

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