"But most of us had no chance. It sounds a strange thing to say, but it was almost as if Mrs. Evans herself regarded me as married to her. As though because I had been the means of their meeting, I was entitled to a sort of founder's share in Angelina! I was in the way to becoming an expert in infant's complaints. And Jack seemed to think that when I came into the cabin to talk, he had the right of going off duty, so to speak, and would go up to the chart room to have a smoke. No, I didn't go simply to catch a glimpse of Artemisia, though she was worth glimpsing. I went from a sense of social duty. I felt I owed it to Jack to be sociable with his wife. And perhaps, too, there was an idea at the back of my head that contact with Mrs. Evans was a corrective to any tendency I might have to make a fool of myself over any young woman. That was Mrs. Evans' specialty, you might say. She didn't mean it, but unconsciously she shrivelled at the least breath of desire. I used to watch apprehensively for the blank look in the eyes, the tightening of the lips, the infinitesimal drawing back of the head, as of a snake about to strike. There was something sharply astringent about her then, like biting inadvertently into a green banana. And yet she had her gusts of enthusiasm over 'darling Babs.' The child was a monster of egoism, as may be imagined. She was very like her father physically--full-blooded, plump, bold-eyed, and with a perfectly devilish temper. Without warning she would explode, scream, scratch, bite, and kick, until she got what she wanted, when she would subside as suddenly into a self-centred silence broken by hiccoughs and chokes. She wanted everything--the watch and money out of your pocket and heart and liver out of your body. 'Angel child!' her mother would call her, and hang fondly over the odious little brat. For the angel child was still supposed to be 'delicate.' Mrs. Evans had a case of champagne and a stock of Bovril, and I dare say some of the displays I witnessed were due in part to intoxication. The carpenter was busy all day making gates and fences round the companion and bridge deck to prevent the delicate child from crawling out and getting slung overboard. I used to sit in the cabin with the angelic Babs on my knee, from which she was always slipping, listening to Mrs. Evans' account of the diphtheria, and watching Artemisia moving noiselessly to and fro in the bedroom or sitting just inside the spare stateroom door sewing. I never enjoyed looking at a girl so much in my life. She was not pretty in the ordinary sense of the word. Her skin was not the buttery yellow you associate with half-breeds. It was more the russet brown of a sunburned blonde. Her cheeks had a soft peachy glow under the brown bloom that was beautiful. And yet she did not give one the impression of sheer innocence and youth which was implied in her unique complexion. Her eyes were perfectly steady and unabashed, her figure was more mature and matronly