"It might only have been gratitude," he murmured. "For what?" "Berring--I mean your husband--saved her from being trampled upon by a mustang." "How picturesque, and how suited to Jim's qualifications! And she----?" "No, she didn't," interrupted Askew, hurriedly. "I see I have been mistaken. It was gratitude, not love." "Of course," said Lady Jim, jeeringly; "a woman always prefers to exercise the former rather than the latter." "I wish I'd stopped and tried my luck," muttered the sailor, not clever enough to interpret this speech. "It's not too late. Mr. Berring is safely secured, by love and the law, to my apron-strings, so you can go back and----" "No; I've just come in for a property of sorts, and the service has seen the last of me." "Is Señorita Fajardo in the same predicament as the service?" "There's a cousin, Lady James----" "A female cousin, who goes with the property, as a fixture. I quite understand. You have to marry her, out of gratitude for the money, and without the discomforting passion of love. The Spanish lady's history repeats itself, I see." Askew was rather discomfited. "How quick you are!" "You can't have had much to do with women," she murmured; "but I hope you will make no trouble in the smoking-room." "No; as things are, it's none of my funeral," he observed, grumpily. "Quite so. I am the chief mourner." "But I say, Lady James," said the lieutenant, anxiously, "I hope what I've inadvertently told you won't----" "Of course not," she assured him, mendaciously; "my husband is most trustworthy, as you can see by his choice of that ugly old maid as a dinner companion. You were mistaken." "I think I must have been," said Askew, with great relief. "Of course, people talk at Lima, as elsewhere," he ended apologetically. "Unless South America is inhabited by the deaf and dumb, I suppose they do." "You're laughing at me, Lady James." "I always laugh. It's good for the digestion." "At everything?" "At everything." "Even at love?" he asked timidly. She shot an amused glance at his colouring face. "Remember you are engaged to the fixture, Mr. Askew." "But I say, can't I come and see you in town?" "I shall be delighted, if you can find your way to Curzon Street." "You live there?" he asked obtusely. "In a most respectable manner with my husband, Mr. Berring. I'm known as Lady Jim of Curzon Street. Most improper, isn't it, when Berring----?" "I say, don't," expostulated the young man, quickly. "I'll never forgive myself for being such a fool. Can I call you Lady Jim?" He was getting on very fast, and Leah, in the interests of virtue, deemed it necessary to snub him. "Certainly not. Only people who have known me fifty years address me so familiarly." "You must believe in re-incarnation then," he retorted.