The figure flashed about, and Hildegarde caught the shine in the black-fringed eyes as he pulled off the cap, leaving his hair ruffled. He held out his hand, laughing, but, as it would almost seem, a little shamefaced. “Well, it took you long enough.” “No wonder!” She felt an imperative need to prevent her gladness from appearing excessive. “You can’t ever say again there’s nothing of the actor in you.” “Why can’t I?” “After masquerading all these days?” “I didn’t mean to masquerade.” “Why did you go about in that horrid cap then, and never speak to me, or—” “Oh, I never meant to stay incog. I was only waiting—” “What for?” “My opportunity; and it never came.” “What opportunity?” “Well”—he leaned against the lintel, and he was smiling in that old whimsical way of his—“I suppose what I was waiting for was your getting into some sort of scrape.” “You were hoping for that!” but while she denounced him, she, too, was smiling. “Well, I had prophesied it. I suppose a prophet usually has a weakness for seeing his wisdom verified.” She laughed out as light-heartedly as though the journey had been without care or cloud. “And you didn’t like your prophecy not to come true. Poor false prophet! No wonder you hid your face.” “Yes, as for pretending—no, it isn’t any earthly use. The truth is, I expected that very first evening to step in at some psychological moment.” “Save-my-life sort of thing?” “Well, save you some anxiety or discomfort at the least. But you were the one passenger on the ship who didn’t suffer the one or the other.” (Ah, he didn’t know! And she wasn’t going to tell him. Oh, dear, no!) “I go to see about your baggage. It’s checked, and on the ship. I curry favor with the captain, so as to get you a seat at the first table. You’ve got one for yourself.” “No. _I_ didn’t.” “Well, whoever got it, you sit in it. Same thing on deck. While I’m looking for a sheltered place for your chair you are established. I bring special provisions to keep you from starvation. You are somehow as well supplied and with as exactly the right things as though you’d made the trip twenty times.” “It was the Blumpittys,” Hildegarde began. “The whattatys? Never mind. Call it any name you like. _I_ couldn’t have promised you new-laid eggs every morning for breakfast a thousand miles from land. I could only hang about ready to save you from unpleasantness. But, God bless me, unpleasantness never comes within a league of you.” “The purser,” Hildegarde prompted, with a gleam of eye. But he tossed the suggestion aside with, “A little over pleasantness that you’re able to check for yourself.” “It’s plain I’m not the stuff romantic heroines are made of.” He didn’t contradict that. “You certainly haven’t given me much excuse for coming along.”