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widower who was more forthcoming than Colonel Ridley and whom there was no necessity for her to chase, as had always been the case with Kent Willoughby.
    The life aboard ship was decidedly pleasant and Karin would have enjoyed it thoroughly but for the fact that a man who disapproved of her was a part of it. He took no active part in the sports, and held himself aloof on most occasions when other people were uniting to render the voyage as memorable as possible, and although there were one or two favoured females with whom he danced in the evenings — not one of them, however, as youthful as Karin — and one or two men with whom he drank in the bar, or who accompanied him during his parades on deck, his air of remoteness was more or less consistently maintained; and it was obvious to most of the passengers that he was not a friendly man, and not merely was he not friendly but he was frequently bar el y approachable.
    Anthea Makepiece, resenting the fact that he snubbed her for no reason, became highly critical of him, and instead of attributing to him various devastating masculine charms insisted after her second attempt to re-establish amiable relations had resulted in yet another snub that the reason most women fawned on him was not because of any personal magnetic appeal he possessed, but because of his background and the rumour that had spread abroad of his being fantastically rich. She, personally, didn’t believe he was half as rich as most people imagined, but she did know something about his background. She had once discussed it with him at dinner. And as a result of probing deep into her memories she recalled that he had once either been married to a raving beauty and it had come unstuck, or the engagement had never got as far as marriage and that had been broken off.
    Whether he was married or merely contemplating marriage, she could not, however, feel anything but sympathy with the woman who had had such a lucky escape. For the Kent Willoughbys of this world were extremely hard to live with, and when their coffers were so well lined that most doors were open to them, and there was nothing they could not obtain by signing a cheque, they became even more impossible, and it was hardly ever that their personal relationships lasted, or their own lives were a success.
    From starting off by disliking the appearance of Kent Willoughby and being provided with just cause for detesting him, Karin proceeded to a stage when the very mention of his name merely bored her. She determined to take herself in hand and behave as if he did not exist, and instead of feeling young and gauche and awkward when enjoying herself in the company of fellow passengers , she remember ed only that she had a right to enjoy herself.
    Mrs. Makepiece was her employer, and if she did not object, then no one else should. If Mrs. Makepiece, who had made herself responsible for all her expenses, did not look down her nose at her when encountering her by accident after she had been playing a strenuous game of deck-tennis with a bronzed young man in flannels — or shorts, or even bathing-trunks if it was a particularly scorching afternoon — and was looking tousled and lighthearted and carefree, or develop a glassy-eyed stare after narrowly avoiding a collision with her on the main staircase while she was wearing a Columbine outfit, or something of the sort, for a gala dance, and making her way a trifle heedless of the other passengers up to the lantern-lit deck, then of all people Kent Willoughby had no right to do so.
    The fact that he never looked in the least tousled or hurried himself was no excuse. The fact that he was always impeccable in a dinner-jacket, and would have died rather than play tennis in bathing-trunks, was not an acceptable excuse, either , for the truth was he reduced a normal, healthily minded girl who had been brought up in an extremely careful fashion and was not trying to kick over the traces, as he possibly imagined she was