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the way to recovery, anyway. T hose bouts don’t last for ever,” said the Captain, inhaling lazily.
    Lisa darted him a vexed glance. How like him to belittle her effort. It wasn’t that she wanted praise or thanks, but he might allow the tablets the credit which was their due; he had probably decided that nothing she did could be really efficient.
    The next moment those deep-set, ice-blue eyes rested upon her, a sardonic query in their depths, and she quickly looked away.
    “I’m glad you’re better, Miss Carmichael, ” she said conventionally.
    Certainly Astra in black and silver with the warm brown hair set in burnished waves presented a different picture from the one Lisa had seen earlier in the stateroom. To her mind came a paragraph from a review she had read, in which Astra Carmichael had been described as a sultry beauty, smouldering her way into men’s hearts— when she was not a winsome girl looking mortally hurt. “ Only a dynamic actress, ” the critic had finished, “could encompass such a part.”
    An enigmatic woman, too, thought Lisa. One wouldn’t care to have to compete with her on any plane, but in the field of love there would be no hope at all. One felt instinctively that she knew every answer, every telling trick. “It was Captain Kennard who suggested I might like to meet you, Mr. C arne ,” Astra was drawling pleasantly, her glance at the young man full of smiling appraisal. “He was right about you. You’re very good-looking.”
    Jeremy, himself master of the complimentary phrase, was sufficiently taken by surprise at this frontal attack to redden quite furiously. “Thanks a lot. Kind of you to say so. Decent of the Captain, too.”
    “I wasn’ t being decent,” said Mark, so coolly and cryptically that Lisa felt the little hairs rising on the back of her neck. In his utter lack of emotion this man could be an absolute beast.
    However, as Mark had no doubt intended, the implications of the remark passed by the less sensitive Jeremy, who at this moment was gazing at Astra with the candid admiration of a man who is by no means ignorant about women. “I suppose everyone tells you how much they enjoyed your acting in Vale of Tears. I saw the play both at the beginning and at the end of the run and it made a terrific impression on me.”
    “Really?” Astra had patently heard it all before. She readjusted her cigarette in its jade holder before adding, “I had an excellent foil in my leading man. You’d be astonished how difficult it is to respond to some actors, particularly the older, seasoned ones; they’re so keen on putting over their own personality. I prefer someone young, whom I can mould into the part myself. Have you done any acting, Mr. Ca rn e?”
    “I!” he exclaimed blankly. “Good heavens, no.”
    Mark Kennard inserted a mild enquiry. “Not even at college? I would have said you were a natural for hero parts.”
    Unaccountably Lisa felt bound to put in, “You’ve only just met Jeremy. How can you possibly know that?”
    Mark turned to her with elaborate courtesy. “Most people are easy to assess at first meeting. I did the same with you ... remember?”
    Astra’s bright green eyes were upon him. “You’re teasing, Mark, and it’s not seemly in a captain.” To Lisa s he said calmly, “There was a time when he treated me that way, too, but over the years we’ve grown beyond it. You, unfortunately, won’t have time to know him at his best—as a human being, I mean, not a sea-captain. Mr. Carne ,” a brilliant smile at the young man, “or may I call you Jeremy? Well, Jeremy, what about you and your Lisa helping me with my notes for the productions I have to put o n in South Africa? I do need some assistance from young people with fresh ideas. I’m sure you’d find it interesting. ”
    “You’ll have to count me out,” said L isa quickly. “I have a child to look after.”
    “Is Nancy still living? ” queried Mark with sarcasm. “That’s not