She walked towards the door (painted cloudy between two painted clumps of bamboo) of her bedroom. She walked with small steps in a line. It was in her walk that she became a woman. One saw that her knees and back were a woman’s. In the open door she twisted round on sinuous hips and thrust out a hand through a torrent of hair in a gesture of good-night. “Why is she so often moody, do you suppose?” asked Lord Sombrewater when the door was shut. “She is twenty-two. She is likely to be dissatisfied until she is mated,” Ambrose observed. Lord Sombrewater accepted this with considerable reluctance. “No doubt there is something in what you say. The observations of a spectator are certainly very illuminating. I hardly seem to be putting her in the way of getting a mate, though, at present.” He smiled, passing it off. “It would be difficult, no doubt, for her to find one among those on board.” He wondered whether, in fact, Lord Sombrewater was not even consciously hiding her away. “How does she react towards Quentin?” he was asked. “It is to be presumed that it is a matter of indifference to a flower what wind carries the pollen, or whence.” “You are doubtless right.” “Without pursuing a misleading analogy too far, it is to be remarked that a certain type of flower-minded and flower-passionate young woman is often strangely careless in selecting a lover.” “That is so,” said her father slowly. 7 Early next morning Ambrose came on deck in a monkish dressing-gown with a fleecy towel round his neck. The wind had fallen. The morning was fresh and tender and delicate as a morning in a Chinese silk, and the sea was rippling and black like a lake. It was time for the matutinal exercises. Lord Sombrewater’s valet and the fierce Chink were in attendance with sponges and other matters; fresh and sea-water showers were fixed conveniently; but it seemed to Ambrose that there began to be something queer about these English habits in those far eastern seas.