“See how my friends are beginning to spoil me!” she cried out.  “Really, I can’t tell any of you a thing more,” she went on, turning back to them, “only this, and I am sure it ought to be interesting.  I have discovered a new dramatist, and I am going to produce a play of his within three months, I hope.  I shan’t tell you his name and I shan’t tell you anything about the play, except that I find more promise in it than anything I have seen or read for months.  Mr. Romilly, please wait for me,” she called after him.  “I want to point out some of the buildings to you.”

A dark young man, wearing eyeglasses, with a notebook and pencil in his hand, swung around.

“Is this Mr. Douglas Romilly,” he enquired, “of the Romilly Shoe Company?  I am from the New York Star.  Pleased to meet you, Mr. Romilly.  You are over here on business, we understand?”

Philip was taken aback and for the moment remained speechless.

“We’d like to know your reason, Mr. Romilly, for paying us a visit,” the young man continued, “in your own words.  How long a trip do you intend to make, anyway?  What might your output be in England per week?  Women’s shoes and misses’, isn’t it?”

Elizabeth intervened swiftly, shaking her finger at the journalist.

“Mr. Harris,” she said, “Mr. Romilly is my friend, and I am not going to have him spend these few impressive moments, when he ought to be looking about him at the harbour, telling you silly details about his business.  You can call upon him at his hotel, if you like—­the Waldorf he is going to, I believe—­and I am sure he will tell you anything you want to know.”

“That’s all right, Miss Dalstan,” the young man declared soothingly.  “See you later, Mr. Romilly,” he added.  “Maybe you’ll let us have a few of your impressions to work in with the other stuff.”

Romilly made light of the matter, but there was a slight frown upon his forehead as they passed along the curiously stationary deck.

“I am afraid,” he observed, “that this is going to be a terribly hard country to disappear in.”

“Don’t you believe it,” she replied cheerfully.  “You arrive here to-day and you are in request everywhere.  To-morrow you are forgotten—­some one else arrives.  That newspaper man scarcely remembers your existence at the present moment.  He has discovered Mr. Raymond Greene....  Tell me, why do you look so white and unhappy?”

“I am sorry the voyage is over,” he confessed.

“So am I, for that matter,” she assented.  “I have loved every minute of the last few days, but then we knew all the time, didn’t we, that it was just an interlude?  The things which lie before us are so full of interest.”

“It is the next few hours which I fear,” he muttered gloomily.

She laughed at him.

“Foolish!  If there had been any one on this side who wanted to ask you disagreeable questions, they wouldn’t have waited to meet you on the quay.  They’d have come down the harbour and held us up.  Don’t think about that for a moment.  Think instead of all the wonderful things we are going to do.  You will be occupied every minute of the time until I come back to New York, and I shall be so anxious to see the result.  You won’t disappoint me, will you?”