they were out of hearing. 

"Chris knows her," was the reply. "She is a Mrs. Heriot." 

"She is very smart," Marie said wistfully. 

"Smart!" Feathers stopped and looked back at the woman deliberately. "Do you call her smart?" he asked, mildly amazed. "I think she looks a sight; but, then, so do most of the women in this hotel. I suppose it's their way of attracting attention—all others failing." 

Marie smiled faintly. 

"You don't like women," she said. 

He shook his shaggy head. 

"I do not," he agreed. 

"And yet—just now, you told me I should be wise to make a friend of you." 

"I did—and I still mean it, and hope some day that you will do so . . . Here is Chris." 

Chris came towards them with a batch of newspapers in his hands. He looked at his wife with faint embarrassment. 

"Early birds!" he said, and then, as Feathers moved away. "Is your head better, Marie Celeste?" 

She smiled nervously. 

"Oh, yes, it's quite gone! I got up early and had a long walk along the sands, and I met Mr. Dakers and he came back with me." 

"Call him 'Feathers,'" said Chris. "Everybody does." 

"Do they? But I hardly know him!" 

"You soon will." He looked at her doubtfully. "Do you think you will manage to have a good time here, Marie?" 

35 "Oh, yes, with . . . " "With you," she had been going to add, but stopped. She felt instinctively that she would not be allowed to have much of her husband's undivided attention. There were so many people in the hotel who were friends of his. 

35

"There is a Mrs. Heriot here who knows you," she said, more for something to say than for any other reason, and 

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