Mrs. Norman had the young oil man next to her at table; and when they danced, she asked him would he dance with her—these horrid young fellows neglected their hostess quite shamelessly. They danced, and Bunny discovered that she was a good dancer, and she said that he was an exquisite dancer, she just adored it, and would he dance some more with her? Bunny was willing; there was no one else he particularly wanted to dance with. She had a faint elusive perfume, and he might have learned about that also from Aunt Emma, but he had the vague impression that women somehow naturally smelled that way, and it was very sweet of them. The steel-widow’s bosom was bare most of the way, and her back was bare all the way, down to where he put his hand. Charlie teased them, and the rest of the company giggled. But next morning, when they took a long walk about the deck, Bunny realized that it took these young people less than twenty-four hours to get used to anything, and after that it was a bore. So he sat with Mrs. Norman, and drove with her, and danced with her, and played golf with her, while Charlie did all these things with Bertie, and it suited at least three of them completely. X Then one evening there was something in a magazine that Bunny wanted to read, and towards midnight he slipped away to his own cabin, and settled himself in his gold-plated bed, with hand-embroidered pink silk pillows, and a gold-plated, or possibly solid gold lamp-stand at his head, and presently was far away—in Russia seeing the famine stragglers dying by the roadside, or maybe in Hungary, where they were putting down the social revolution by the simple plan of slaughtering everybody who believed in it; using, as always, machine gun bullets made in American steel mills, and purchased with an American loan. Bunny was so much absorbed in these unhappy far-off things, that he did not hear the door of his cabin very softly opened, nor the key very gently turned on the inside. The first thing he noticed was the faint elusive sweet odor, and he gazed upon a vision standing by his bedside, clad in a purple kimono with huge red hibiscus flowers. The vision looked timorous, and had its two hands clasped in front of it, and it whispered in a voice he could hardly hear, “Bunny, may I talk to you a little?” Of course Bunny had to say that it might; and the vision sank down on its knees by the bed, and gently one of the soft hands touched his, and the soft voice trembled, “Bunny, I’m so lonely and so unhappy! I don’t know if you can understand what it means to a woman to be so lonely, but you are the first man I’ve wanted to trust for a long, long time. I know I shouldn’t come like this, but I have to tell you, and why shouldn’t men and women be frank with each other?”