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to bother with small potatoes like you and me.”
    L isa laughed and described the episode of the yellow tablets. Jeremy was amused.
    “Let’s hope like blazes that the thing worked, or she’ll have the merchant navy clamp you in irons. I’d hate to have to spend the rest of the voyage with bars between us.”
    P resently she suggested that they go up to see Snippy and Tubs, the bull mastiffs whose acquaintance she had made this morning, but they found the companion roped off and affixed to the rail was a sign which forbade passengers to go farther. Philosophically, they turned back to the lounge, to be button-holed there by an earnest young man who begged them to attend a meeting for the election of a sports captain and committee at six o’clock. When they had agreed to be present, Lisa disengaged herself from Jeremy’s firm grasp.
    “I mustn’t neglect Nancy. She’s the reason I happen to be on the. Wentworth .”
    “She’s a nuisance,” he groused amiably. “You’re too conscientious. It beats me how you’ve endured that little sphinz for three years.”
    “You say that because Nancy’s femini n e yet unmoved by your charm,” she chided him.
    “Never mind, so long as you’re a little affected by it,” he said comfortably. “We’re dancing tonight, Lee!”
    “In this weather?”
    “ The bumps will have evened out by then,” he stated confidently. “We may even have a clear sky and an Italian moon; you know the sort—large and ; silver-gilt. It’s not so heady as an African one, but I always think it’s safer for you English to come to Africa by degre e s—particularly when it’s the first time, as with you. I wonder if the band has a crooner?”
    “Is that a relevant question?”
    “Of course. An Italian moon isn’t half so potent without someone singing Santa Lucia in the background. Lisa, my sweet, we are adrift on the everlasting sea.”
    That evening she wore the blue frock. It had a shaped bodice and almost invisible straps over the shoulders, and her only ornament was a tiny aquamarine butterfly in her hair. Jeremy groaned and said he didn’t stand a chance with all these naval uniforms about, not to mention a few monied young men among the passengers. She was too sweet by far! Lisa imbibed a grain of salt with his admiration, yet knew she was blossoming. Any girl would expand in such an atmosphere.
    J eremy’s hope for moonlight w as not fulfilled, though the seas had abated somewhat and the rain had been left behind. However, too many women still kept to their cabins to make dancing worth while. The quintet played popular classics in the lounge, and people sat around in groups, listening and talking. Old Lord Picton was beetling his brows over a chess board while his opponent, a placid - faced missionary, strove to keep boredom from his expression.
    L isa and Jeremy joined two others for a card game, and she became so interested that when the chief deck steward stood beside her, she threw him an absorbed, “Nothing to drink, thanks.”
    He bent lower, however. “Pardon me, madam, Miss Carmichael would like you and Mr. Carne to come to her table.”
    “Oh!” L isa cast a swift look towards the end of the lounge, saw Astra sunk within a tall-backed armchair near a low wine-table, and experienced a queer stab of mis g iving; for Astra’s companion was Captain Kennard.
    Speaking rather fast, she transmitted Astra’s message t o the card table. Jeremy and Lisa were excuse d , and without any of the haste that quickened her pulses she preceded him, to wreathe among the tables and groups of chairs and finally reach Astra’s secluded corner .
    Mark Kennard was standing. After her escort had been introduced Mark indicated a chair first for L isa and then for Jeremy, after which he seated himself and offered cigarettes.
    Unmoving, Astra showed her small even teeth in a smile. “I owe you a spot of gratitude, Miss Maxwell. Y our medicine did the trick . ”
    “You were probably on