"  There  may  be,"  he  suggested,  half-
ironically,  "  a  hidden  motive  in  the  soap."

"  But  there  is  not,"  she  replied,  sharply.
"  I  advocate  cleanliness  onl}^  Personally  I
prefer  the  dirty  ones."

"Probably,"  he  said,  "you  do  a  great
deal  of  good.  These  poor  fellows  lead  a
very  lonely  life.  You  must  seem  to  them
like  a  beino:  from  another  world."

"So    I    am,   Mr.    Tyars,"  she   said,  still


268         PRISONERS  AND   CAPTIVES.
upholding  her  work.  "  Quite  another
world,"

Then  she  suddenly  laid  aside  her  gravity
with  that  strange  inconsequence  which  is
one  of  the  many  important  diflferences
between  the  male  and  female  mind.
"  Yon  speak  feelingly,"  she  continued,  in
thinly- veiled  mockery.  "  Perhaps  you  have
been  a  ship-keeper  yourself !  You  seem  to
have  been  a  good  many  things."

"  Yes,"  was  his  calm  reply,  "  I  have.  I
was  once  a  ship-keeper  in  the  Southern
Atlantic."

She  was  silenced.  The  details  of  his
terrible  experience  on  board  the  fever-
stricken  merchantman  had  never  been
vouchsafed,  but  it  was  not  diiiicult  to
imagine  them  from  the  official  account  he
had  been  forced  to  publish.
Suddenly  this  cheerful  little  lady  had
realized  the  pettiness  of  her  own  existence,


A   MEETING.  209


the  futility  of  lier  own  small  caprice.  She
glanced  np  at  him  almost  meditating  an
apology.  Observant  and  analytical  as  she
was,  she  had  not  yet  noticed  a  fact  of
wdiich  Tyars  was  fully  aware ;  she  had  not
noticed  that  in  her  intercourse  with  Claud
Tyars  she  invariably  began  in  an  antago-
nistic vein,  and  that  with  equal  monotony
this  antag;onism  melted  after  a  few
moments.
