"I beg a thousand pardons!" she said, and inclined her head in such a bow as an empress might bestow on a blundering and ignorant supplicant. It was such a very grand air for such a small person that the big officer drew a breath of surprise, and gazed down with a startled interest. The girl's features were delicately modelled; the brows might have been drawn with a pencil, so clear and perfect was the arch which they described, and the brilliant hazel eyes met his with a mocking glance. For almost the first time in his life a spasm of discomfiture seized him, a struggling suspicion that his conduct had not been altogether above reproach. He stood with the book in his hand, hesitating, uncertain. "If you would care to read it, pray keep it! I shall be most happy to lend it to you." The girl waved her hand with a gracious patronage. "Not for the world, until you have finished! When you have no more use for it yourself, perhaps you will be good enough to renew the offer. Meantime, there are plenty of other books. The library seems very large." "I make a point of never reading the ship's books. You never--aw--know who has had them last!" drawled the stranger, sweeping a scathing glance over the well-filled shelves; "and, as a rule, they are in such shocking condition. People seem to take a malign satisfaction in tearing out the most important pages, so that, after wading through a whole volume, you are left in uncertainty as to what really happened." "But sometimes that is a blessing in disguise, for by exercising a little imagination you can make the story end as you like, and spare yourself the pain of disappointment. I rarely read a book without reflecting how much better I could have finished it myself," remarked the young lady, with an assurance which evoked a smile on the officer's impassive countenance. "You don't look much like an authoress," he said, surveying the dainty little figure approvingly, and calling up a mental picture of the spectacled and cadaverous female invariably associated with a literary career in the masculine mind. "I am afraid my imagination will hardly stand such a strain; but books are the only refuge for the destitute on a voyage, especially during the first few days, when you find yourself shut up with a herd of strangers whom you have never met before in the course of your life. There is only one thing to do under the circumstances, and that is to lie low, and speak to no one until you have found your bearings and discovered who is who. If you go about talking to strangers, you can never tell in what sort of a set you may land yourself."