“‘Motley is your only wear,’” was my reply; and for a full half-hour, which, even for a man, is considerable, we spoke no word, but only nodded when some one of the promenaders noticed us. There was a bookmaker fresh from the Melbourne races; an American, Colonel Ryder, whose eloquence had carried him round the world; a stalwart squatter from Queensland; a pretty widow, who had left her husband under the sods of Tasmania; a brace of girls going to join their lovers and be married in England; a few officers fleeing from India with their livers and their lives; a family of four lanky lasses travelling “home” to school; a row of affable ladies, who alternated between envy and gaiety and delight in, and criticism of, their husbands; a couple of missionaries, preparing to give us lectures on the infamous gods of the heathen,--gods which, poor harmless little creatures! might be bought at a few annas a pint at Aden or Colombo,--and on the Exodus and the Pharaohs--pleasures reserved for the Red Sea; a commercial traveller, who arranged theatricals, and cast himself for all the principal parts; a humorous and naive person who industriously hinted at the opulence of his estates in Ireland; two stately English ladies of title; a cheerful array of colonial knights and judges off to Europe for a holiday; and many others, who made little worlds unto themselves, called cliques by blunt people. “To my mind, the most interesting persons on the ship,” said Clovelly at last, “are the bookmaker, Miss Treherne, and the lady with whom you have just been talking--an exceptional type.” “An unusual woman, I fancy,” was my reply. “But which is Miss Treherne? I am afraid I am not quite sure.” He described her and her father, with whom I had talked--a London Q.C., travelling for his health, a notable man with a taste for science, who spent his idle hours in reading astronomy and the plays of Euripides. “Why not include the father in the list of the most interesting persons?” I questioned. “Because I have met many men like him, but no one quite like his daughter, or Mrs.--what is her name?” “Mrs. Falchion.” “Or Mrs. Falchion or the bookmaker.” “What is there so uncommon about Miss Treherne? She had not struck me as being remarkable.” “No? Well, of course, she is not striking after the fashion of Mrs. Falchion. But watch her, study her, and you will find her to be the perfection of a type--the finest expression of a decorous convention, a perfect product of social conservatism; unaffected, cheerful, sensitive, composed, very talented, altogether companionable.” “Excuse me,” I said, laughing, though I was impressed; “that sounds as if you had been writing about her, and applying to her the novelist’s system of analysis, which makes an imperfect individual a perfect type. Now, frankly, are you speaking of Miss Treherne, or of some one of whom she is the outline, as it were?”