She laughed and danced on. Jack scowled. I wondered. At the cocktail bar, during an interval, things bordered on the hectic. I have been honoured in the friendship of some of Mr. Macalister’s race who were very courtly gentlemen. Mr. Macalister was not as one of these. “Don’t look so gloomy, my lad,” he said to Jack. “It takes a man of experience to please a young girl.” Jack had boxed for his college and was no mean craftsman. I rapidly took in the powerful but fleshy form of Macalister and prepared to mourn his passing. He smiled confidently; but one could have got roughly about the same odds on a peanut in a monkey-house, when: “Mr. Decies!” said someone at my elbow. Jack was just descending in a leisurely way from his tall stool. He paused as I turned. The British consul stood behind us. “A word in private,” said he. I grabbed Jack’s arm. “Come along, too,” I urged. He hesitated, then: “Perhaps you’re right,” came with manifest reluctance. We walked out into the lounge; and the consul handed me a scribbled note. “Received in code to-night,” he explained. Detain Julian Macalister at any cost. Jack had left us, going to look for Nanette, and: “From O’Shea?” I asked. “No. From Scotland Yard!” “But he’s not sailing!” The consul met my gaze of inquiry. “That radio set of Da Cunha’s is very well informed,” he said. “Macalister knew of this move before _I_ did. He only cancelled to-day.” CHAPTER X. THE _ARUNDEL CASTLE_ SAILS I cannot pretend that I was a happy man as I climbed the ladder of the _Arundel Castle_ on the following morning. All my friends were leaving, and the affection and admiration that I had for Edmond O’Shea could not recompense me for their loss. My only consolation lay in the knowledge that, unhonoured and unsung though I should be, yet, in a modest way, I was doing my job of work toward saving Great Britain from the Reds. An inward-bound liner, by the time she makes Madeira, offers a ripe crop of studies to the psychologist. The gay Conrads, who have learned the truth of Leonard Merrick’s unmoral dictum, “a man is young as often as he falls in love.” The anxious-eyed women who have lost what their men have found. A score of flirtations and two or three intrigues, followed with interest by the midnight watch and reported in routine to the purser. The odd men out, too, are always rather pathetic. It was wonderful how many lonely eyes lighted up when Nanette stepped on to the deck. Even some of the Conrads prepared to change their minds. Baggage was missing, of course. Nanette’s mother had lost a wardrobe trunk, nothing less. “Don’t worry,” said Nanette’s father, in his imperturbable way. “It will turn up.” “It will be Nan’s turn to worry,” was the reply. “All her things are in it!” Nanette, the irresponsible, had disappeared with Jack in quest of her new quarters. She professed to be the victim of a dreadful theory that her stable companion was an elderly Boer lady with gout.