"Oh, you mustn't expect me to pity you!" she said. "I don't believe you need ever be dull, unless you choose. There must always be friends who are glad to see you." "I am glad to think," said Peter, "that, when I do feel dull, I have at least one friend--one dear friend--from whom I may count upon a welcome!" He accompanied this speech with such a look, that she could not well pretend to mistake his meaning; and the next moment he regretted it, for he saw he had gone too far. "That is a very pretty speech," she said, with a faint flush; "but isn't it a little premature, Mr. Tourmalin, considering that we have scarcely known one another two days!" For the moment, Peter had forgotten the want of consecutiveness in these eccentric Time Cheques. This interview should by rights have preceded the first he had had with her. He felt annoyed with himself, and still more with the unbusinesslike behaviour of the Bank. "I--I was anticipating, perhaps," he said. "But I assure you that we shall certainly _be_ friends--I may even go so far as to say, dear friends--sooner or later. You see if I am not right!" Miss Tyrrell smiled. "Are you sure," she said, with her eyes demurely lowered--"are you sure that there is nobody who might object to our being on quite such intimate terms as that?" Peter started. Could she possibly have guessed, and how much did she know? "There could be nothing for anybody to object to," he said. "Are you--er--referring to any person in particular?" She still kept her eyes down, but then she was occupied just at the moment in removing a loose splinter of bamboo from the arm of her chair. "You mustn't think me curious or--or indiscreet, if I tell you," she said; "but before I knew you to speak to, I--I couldn't help noticing how often, as you sat on deck, you used to pull something out of your pocket and look at it." "My watch?" suggested Peter, feeling uncomfortable. "No, not your watch; it looked more like--well, like a photograph." "It may have been a photograph, now you mention it," he admitted. "Well, Miss Tyrrell?" "Well," she said, "I often amuse myself by making up stories about people I meet--quite strangers, I mean. And, do you know, I made up my mind that that photograph was the portrait of someone--some lady you are engaged to. I should so much like to know if I was right or not?" Here was Peter's opportunity of revealing his real status, and preventing all chance of future misunderstanding. It was not too late; but still it might be best and kindest to break the news gradually. "You were partly right and partly wrong," he said: "that was the portrait of a lady I was--er--_once_ engaged to." Unless Peter was very much mistaken, there was a new light in her face, an added brightness in her soft grey eyes as she raised them for an instant before resuming her labours upon the wicker-chair. "Then you mean," she said softly, "that the engagement is broken off?"