“Well, the men thought him rather standoffish; he snubbed some of them, I think. Well, you do meet some queer men on a liner, don’t you? And Mr Walsh said that out of business hours he claimed to choose his acquaintance. But the women all worshipped him--not that he ran after them, but his manner was always just right to them.” “It’s really a pity his manner of life was so--well, so unconventional.” “Yes, wasn’t it?” she said, welcoming my sympathy. “Because, of course, it meant that our acquaintance had to end with the voyage.” I had, perhaps, been thinking of somewhat broader considerations, but I refrained from advancing them. In fact, we had somehow got away from ordinary standards and restraints; the memory of Slim-Fingered Jim had waved them away. We fell into silence for a moment or two, until I asked-- “And the manner of the end? Tell me that.” “I didn’t believe in the end. I had got not to believe in it at all. I thought we might go on sailing for ever over that beautiful sea and having the most splendid fun. He could make you feel that everything was just splendid fun--that there was nothing else in the world. He made me feel that--I suppose he knew he could, or he’d never have told me his secret at all. But, of course, the end had to come.” She sighed and gave a little shiver--not that it was cold in the Major’s garden. Then she turned to me again. “I’ve told you a good deal,” she said, “and you’re not a chicken, are you?” I ruefully admitted that I was no chicken. “Then I needn’t say anything more about myself,” said she. “And what about him?” “I think he liked me tremendously; but he wasn’t in love.” “Not at all?” “I don’t think so. He was just the most perfect of good comrades to me--and in that way the finest gentleman I’ve ever met. Because, you know, I can see now that I gave him opportunities of being something else. Well, I was only nineteen, and----” “Quite so. The hands, of course!” “It seems possible to be good and bad in--in compartments, doesn’t it? That’s rather curious!” “If true!” “Oh, you know it’s true!” “Perhaps I do; but I never contradict the preacher.” She laughed again, but now a trifle fretfully. “In his own business I believe he’s thoroughly bad.” “Not even the chivalrous highwayman?” “No. Just bad--bad--bad.” “Ah, well, business is one thing and charity another, as somebody once observed. And now for the end, please--because ends do come, even though we don’t believe in them.” “Yes, they do; and this one came,” she said. But for an instant or two she did not begin to tell me about it; and in the silence I heard Charlie Pryce assert loudly that he had made a good shot. III