“Dead black never suited me.”

“I wouldn’ say that. . . .  But,” added Cai upon a happy thought, “if that’s so, you know where to find excuse to leave off wearin’ it.”

“Hush!” she commanded.  “How can you talk so with all these hundreds of eyes upon us?”

“I don’t care.”  Cai’s voice rose recklessly.

“Oh, hush! or the crew’ll hear us?”

“I don’t care, I tell you.”

“But I do—­I care very much. . . .  You don’t pay me compliments when we’re alone,” she protested, changing the subject slightly.

“I mean ’em all the time.”

“Well, since compliments are flyin’ to-day, that’s a fine new hat you’re wearin’.  And I like the badge in your buttonhole:  red with gold letters—­it gives ye quite a smart appearance.  What’s the writin’ on it?”

“‘President.’  ’Tis the only red-and-gold badge in the show.  Smart?  I tell ‘ee I’m feelin’ smart.”

It was indeed Cai’s day—­his hour, rather—­of triumph.  He had played a winning stroke, boldly, under the public eye:  and a hundred comments of the sightseers, as he steered through the press of boats to the Committee Ship, testified to his success.  Though he could not hear, he felt them.

    —­“Well!”

    —­“Proper cuttin’-out expedition, as you might call it.”

    —­“And she with a great bunch o’ ribbons pinned on her,
      that no-one shan’t miss the meanin’ of it.”

    —­“Well, I always favoured Cap’n Hocken’s chance, for my
      part.  An’, come to think, ’tis more fitty ’t should
      happen so.  When all’s said an’ done, t’other’s a foreigner,
      as you might say, from the far side o’ the Duchy:  an’ if old
      Bosenna’s money is to go anywhere, why then, bein’ Troy-earned,
      let it go to a Troy man.”

    —­“But ’tis a facer for Cap’n Hunken, all the same.  Poor chap,
      look at ’en.”

    —­“Where? . . .  I don’t see ’en.”

    —­“Why, forward there, on the Committee Ship:  leanin’ up against
      the bulwarks an’ lookin’ as if he’d swallowed a dog.”

    —­“There, there! . . .  And some plucky of the man to stand up to
      it, ‘stead of walkin’ off an’ drownin’ hisself.  I like a man
      as can take a knock-down blow standing up.  ’Tis a rare
      occurrence in these days.”

Mrs Bosenna, too, whose wealth (pleasant enough for the comforts it procured, pleasanter, perhaps, for an attendant sense of security, pleasantest of all, it may be, for a further sense of power and importance, secretly enjoyed) had, as yet, of public acknowledgment taken little toll beyond the deference of tradesmen when she went shopping, felt herself of a sudden caught up to an eminence the very giddiness of which was ecstasy.  It is possible that, had Cai claimed her there and then, before the crowd, she would have yielded with but a faint protest.  You must not