“Where’s the girl going now?”

“The captain is fetching her the round trip to Hong-Kong, to break off some love-affair at home, I believe.  But if she’s as canny as she’s bonny, I’ll wager she’ll outwit him before they have done.”

Percival, who at first had remained in the back row of the spectators, during this recital moved to the front, and now as he looked down he suddenly encountered the laughing glance of the person under discussion.  She was lazily watching him from where she floated in the water, with her loosened hair circling in a dark cloud about her head.  The expression on her face gave him instant cause for alarm.

Since that first day when she had spoken to him, he had studiously avoided meeting her eye, and had even come to congratulate himself on having removed from her mind the suspicion of a former encounter.  But there was that in the glance that now met and held his that dispelled any such hope.  It indicated all too clearly that she had not been deceived, and that she was treating the matter with unbecoming levity.

Percival returned haughtily to his steamer-chair, but not to count raindrops.  He had food for new and most irritating reflections.  The girl’s refusal to take his cue and ignore the very mild flirtation that had occurred on the car-platform placed him in a situation at once awkward and embarrassing.  He rather prided himself on never taking advantage of any tribute of admiration that might be tendered him by the less experienced of her sex.  On more than one occasion in the past he had heroically extinguished the tender flames that his own charms had kindled in susceptible bosoms.  He had come to share the belief of his mother that he possessed a rare degree of chivalry in protecting women against himself.

But this impossible child of Nature either did not know the rules of the game, or chose to ignore them.  He would be forced to continue this distasteful partnership memory, or else dissolve it with a casual reference to the episode, which would dispose of it for good and all.  He had about decided upon the latter course when Fate forestalled him.

On his way down to luncheon he encountered Miss Boynton coming up the companionway.  Her hair, still damp, was hanging about her shoulders, and she carried a bundle of bath-towels under her arm.  Both stood politely aside, then both started forward, meeting midway.

[Illustration:  Her hair, still damp, was hanging about her shoulders, and she carried a bundle of bath-towels under her arm.]

“I—­I—­beg your pardon,” said Percival.

“What for?” she asked.

“For—­for not recognizing you the other day.”  It was not in the least what he had meant to say, but it was said, and he must go on as best he could.  “Not expecting to see you, you know, and all that.”

She stood shaking her hair in the breeze and smiling.  While she evidently bore no resentment, she was not helping him out in his apology.