"Yes, dear, my old black," replied the dutiful daughter. She was arranging a small bouquet of violets in the front of her dress--a bouquet she had found in her cabin when she went to dress. Luke had, no doubt, sent ashore for them at Gibraltar--and there was something of the unknown, the vaguely possible, in his manner of placing them on her tiny dressing-table, without a word of explanation, which appealed to her jaded imagination. There was some suggestion of recklessness about Agatha, which her mother almost detected--something which had never been suggested in the subtler element of London drawing-room. The girl spoke in a short, sharp way which was new to the much-snubbed rear-commander. Agatha still had this when Luke asked her for a dance. "Yes," she answered curtly, handing him the card and avoiding his eyes. He stepped back to take advantage of the light of a swinging hurricane lamp, and leant against the awning which had been closed in all round. "How many may I have?" he asked. She continued to look anywhere except in his direction. Then quite suddenly she gave a little laugh. "All." "What?" he added, with a catch in his breath. "You may have them all." There was a pause; then Agatha turned with a half-mocking smile, and looked at him. For the first time in her life she was really frightened. She had never seen passion in a man's face before. It was the one thing she had never encountered in the daily round of social effort in London. Not an evil passion, but the strong passion of love, which is as rare in human beings as is genius. He was standing in a conventional attitude, holding her programme--and that which took the girl's breath away lay in his eyes alone. She could not meet his look, for she felt suddenly quite puny and small and powerless. She realised in that flash of thought that there was a whole side of life of which she had never suspected the existence. After all, she was learning the lesson that millions of women have to learn before they quite realise what life is. She smiled nervously, and looked hard at the little card in his strong, still hands--wondering what she had done. She saw him write his name opposite five or six dances. Then he handed her the card, and left her with a grave bow--left her without a word of explanation, to take his silence and explain it if she could. That sense of the unknown in him, which appealed so strongly to her, seemed to rise and envelop her in a maze of thought and imagination which was bewildering in its intensity--thrilling with a new life. When he came back later to claim his first dance, he was quietly polite, and nothing else. They danced until the music stopped, and Agatha knew that she had met her match in this as in other matters.