chaps like Siddons simply don't count--they are thrown to the discard at once. Innocence and purity of soul are not negotiable assets in this sort of thing. Even men with merely a great deal of money are not so successful as one might imagine. They fizzle out if they lack the character which the woman admires. I have seen them fizzle. A man who roves as I do, reserving for himself, as I have insisted, the part of a super in the play, naturally has many opportunities of watching the lives of these emotional adventurers and the women who constitute the inspiration of the adventures. The singularity of the present instance was that, for the first time in my life, I was assisting at the inauguration of such a career. That is how I interpreted her enigmatic references to 'something I would not approve of.' And when I had got that far I could see it was useless to bring in Siddons any more. His destiny lay ahead. I have no doubt he achieved it with chivalrous rectitude. We English have a way of weathering the gales of passion. "I was turning these things over in my mind as we sat up there on the cliff and half regretting, perhaps, my usual inability to play up to my romantic situation when she raised her hand and pointed out to sea. The surface of the ocean lay like shimmering satin in the hush of the afternoon, but far away a small black blot, with a motionless trail of smoke astern, moved at the apex of a diverging ripple. She pointed to it and looked at me with that hard, bright, radiant smile. It certainly was significant. This was the _Osmanli_, the little tin-kettle steamboat in which her father had invested his capital, the humble beginning of that vast enterprise, the Anglo-Hellenic Development Company. The actual presence of that forlorn little vessel made a profound difference to our words. It was impossible to deny that Captain Macedoine's dreams might come true after all. His remarkable countenance might yet feature in our magazines as one of our great captains of industry, while I, with old Jack, pursued our obscure ways, the victims of a never-ending regret. The _Osmanli_ came on, slowly pushing that immense ripple across the opaline floors. Perhaps the girl perceived the significance of this. Her hand dropped to her lap but she continued to regard me in a sort of defiant silence. There! she seemed to say, there lies our future, wide as the sea, glorious as the afternoon sun on purple isles and the fathomless blue of heavens! She was extraordinarily lovely. I found myself trying to picture the sort of man who would appear later to fashion her destiny--perhaps one of the capitalists who would inevitably be drawn into the great enterprise. She would develop tremendously. For a moment I felt an access of regret at my renunciation. Too late, no doubt. But I have not scrupled since to think of what might have been, had I not--well, lost my nerve, let us say, and preferred to keep in the cool, shadowy by-ways of life.