"Him? I went to him next day, and told him if ever he spoke to Lil again I'd push his face in." "What did he say to that?" "He was most gentlemanly about it. Oh, _most_ gentlemanly!" Brand assumed the mincing accent which he reserved for his impersonations of the aristocracy. "Told me he had no desire to come between an honest working-man and his future wife. Said he was not _permanently_ interested in the lady! He got no further than that, because that was where I _did_ push his face in. He was a nasty sight when I'd finished with him. He never went near Lil again, though,--the rabbit! Since than not a word has passed between her and me, except when business required. Then, last Friday, I saw her going round the office and garage saying good-bye to everybody--except me, of course--and telling them she was going to America. I waited till the dinner-hour; then wrote to headquarters, resigned my job, and went straight to Liverpool, where I managed to get signed on aboard this boat. That's all." "What are you going to do when you get to New York?" asked Philip. "I don't know. It depends on what Lil does," replied single-minded Citizen Brand. * * * * * "Well, how do you like the prospect of New York to-morrow, Miss Jennings?" asked Philip. They were leaning over the taffrail in the calm darkness, watching the phosphorescent wake of the great propellers. "At the present moment," confessed Miss Jennings frankly, "I don't like it at all. It's a way things have when you get right up against them. They don't look so nice as they did at a distance." "You are not in your usual spirits to-night." "No," said the girl, "and that's a fact. I'm not. Worst of being a woman is that you can't trust yourself to be sensible all the time. You do a thing, and you know you're doing right, and you go on knowing it was right for weeks on end; and then, just when you want to feel that you were right most especially, you go and feel that you've been wrong all the time. Silly, I call it! Sometimes I want to shake myself." "You feel you wish you had not left London? Is that the trouble?" "Ye--es," said Miss Jennings reluctantly. "I'm surprised," said Philip, cautiously opening fire, "that you were ever allowed to forsake your native land." "Who by?" enquired Miss Jennings swiftly. "Well, there are a good many thousand young men there, you know. It doesn't show much enterprise on their part--" "Mr. Meldrum," remarked Miss Jennings frankly, "if you start making pretty speeches, the end of the world must be coming. A good many thousand young men, indeed!" "Well," persisted the abashed but pertinacious Philip, "let us say one young man. Surely there was just one?" Miss Jennings was silent for a moment. Then she replied:-- "Yes, there was one." "More than one?"