Margaret was not a gushing person, but she stooped and kissed the cheerful little woman, and pressed her small hand affectionately.

‘And everybody is glad when you come, my dear,’ she said.

For Fraeulein Ottilie was perhaps the only person in the company whom Cordova really liked, and who did not jar dreadfully on her at one time or another.

Another blast from the horn and they were all gone, leaving her and Griggs standing by the rail on the upper promenade deck.  The little party gathered again on the pier when they had crossed the plank, and made farewell signals to the two, and then disappeared.  Unconsciously Margaret gave a little sigh of relief, and Griggs noticed it, as he noticed most things, but said nothing.

There was silence for a while, and the gangplank was still in place when the horn blew a third time, longer than before.

‘How very odd!’ exclaimed Griggs, a moment after the sound had ceased.

‘What is odd?’ Margaret asked.

She saw that he was looking down, and her eyes followed his.  A square-shouldered man in mourning was walking up the plank in a leisurely way, followed by a well-dressed English valet, who carried a despatch-box in a leathern case.

‘It’s not possible!’ Margaret whispered in great surprise.

‘Perfectly possible,’ Griggs answered, in a low voice.  ’That is Rufus Van Torp.’

Margaret drew back from the rail, though the new comer was already out of sight on the lower promenade deck, to which the plank was laid to suit the height of the tide.  She moved away from the door of the first cabin companion.

Griggs went with, her, supposing that she wished to walk up and down.  Numbers of other passengers were strolling about on the side next to the pier, waiting to see the start.  Margaret went on forward, turned the deck-house and walked to the rail on the opposite side, where there was no one.  Griggs glanced at her face and thought that she seemed disturbed.  She looked straight before her at the closed iron doors of the next pier, at which no ship was lying.

‘I wish I knew you better,’ she said suddenly.

Griggs looked at her quietly.  It did not occur to him to make a trivial and complimentary answer to this advance, such as most men of the world would have made, even at his age.

‘I shall be very glad if we ever know each other better,’ he said after a short pause.

‘So shall I.’

She leaned upon the rail and looked down at the eddying water.  The tide had turned and was beginning to go out.  Griggs watched her handsome profile in silence for a time.

‘You have not many intimate friends, have you?’ she asked presently.

‘No, only one or two.’

She smiled.

’I’m not trying to get confidences from you.  But really, that is very vague.  You must surely know whether you have only one, or whether there is another.  I’m not suggesting myself as a third, either!’