Altogether, Mr. Maseden liked the looks of Mrs. Maseden!

He was beginning to revel in sentiment when the edifice of seemingly substantial fact so swiftly constructed by a fertile imagination was dissipated into space by hearing a voice—the voice, he was sure—coming from some unseen part of the upper deck.

“Ah! There you are, Nina!” it said. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere! How long have you been here?”

Nina! So this fairy was only the sister. Maseden smiled grimly behind a cloud of cigarette smoke because of the absurd shock which the words administered. He was sharply aware of a sense of disappointment, a feeling so far-fetched as to be almost ludicrous.

What in the world did it matter to which of these two he was married? In all probability he would never exchange a word with either, and his first serious business on reaching a civilized country would be to get rid of the incubus with which a set of phenomenal circumstances alone had saddled him.

At last, however, he would really see his wife, and thus end one phase of a curious entanglement. Nina had half turned. Evidently she realized that Madeleine meant to join her. [Pg 70]Maseden leaned back against the external paneling of his cubby-hole and looked aloft now with curiosity at once quickened and undisguised.

[Pg 70]

But he was fated to suffer many minor shocks that day. Madeleine appeared, and presented such an exact replica of Nina that, at first sight, and in the strong shadows cast by the canvas screen which alone rendered that portion of the deck habitable while the sun was up, it was practically impossible for a stranger to differentiate between them.

Maseden discovered later that Madeleine was twenty-two and Nina nearly twenty-four; but the marked resemblance between the pair, accentuated by their trick of dressing alike, led people to take them for twins. Moreover, each so admirably duplicated the other in voice and mannerisms that only near relatives or intimate friends could be certain which was speaking if the owner of the voice remained invisible.

For a little while, too, Maseden’s mind was reduced to chaos by hearing Nina address her sister as “Madge.” He was vouchsafed the merest glimpse of Madge’s face, because, after a quick, heedless look at him and at a half-caste sailor readjusting the hatches covering the fore hold, she turned her back 

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