Most striking of all was the poet's face, and it was here that one paused in doubt before rendering a verdict upon Mr. Applebo's physical attractiveness. In feature and expression there seemed to be no standard with which to compare the man's singular type ... or at least, no human standard. Many faces find their caricatures in the lower animals; one sees people who resemble, or at least, suggest the sheep, monkey, bull-dog, camel, etc. Applebo's face suggested a sleepy lion. There was the same tawny colour-scheme, the blinking, amber eyes focussed on some far-distant point, the straight, broad nose with a mouth which was slightly lifted in the middle, cheeks cut away and showing a prominent malar bone ... certainly, the general resemblance was rather toward the cat carnivora than toward anything human. So far as expression went, Wood could discover absolutely nothing. There was about the poet an atmosphere of languor, either real or assumed, and one felt that if this sloth could be torn aside, the true man or animal, beneath, might stand revealed. "What do you do on this boat?" asked Wood. "I dream dreams ... and laugh at them. I weave long and fascinating romances of which I am the glorious hero ... and laugh at them. Also, I write many wingèd words." "And laugh at them?" "No. Other people do that." "I have been sent over here," said Wood, "to order you to report for luncheon aboard the _Shark_. They are getting tired of you as merely a parlor game." Applebo looked a little scared. "Thanks awfully..." he said, less dreamily, "but I cannot go. My delicate sense of social ethics prevents." "Rot!" "Really. My extreme sensitiveness. You can't tag strangers about until they ask you to luncheon, nor, having been so weak as to yield to the temptation and accept, could you continue to tag. Then I would be all adrift and not know which way to sail." "Harold," said Wood, "please go and sing that to the sirens. I am wise to your ingenious sophistries. You are in love with a lady, oh poet. That, and not a lacking initiative, is the reason of your singular fidelity to yon tub." Applebo raised his tawny head, and blinked once or twice at his guest. Then, in the same dreamy way, he lowered his full cup from his lips. Nothing was more remote from his manner than any hint of agitation, wherefore it struck Wood as odd that he should have let the cup turn in his hand and spill the scalding tea on the dorsum of his bare foot. "Confound it!" quoth the poet, and grabbed at his foot. The tea-cup struck the edge of the spirit stove and broke, leaving the porcelain ring of the handle on Applebo's finger. Forgetting his foot, he looked at it and blinked. "There..." said he. "That is the second time that this has happened. A ring upon my finger the minute that my true motive is questioned. I do not like that." "You ought to," observed Wood, "since you are in love with her."