At least Margaret thought so.  And Claudius felt it, even though he would not acknowledge it.  They talked about the voyage; about what they had said and done, about the accident, and a hundred other things.  There is a moment in acquaintance, in friendship, and in love, when two people become suddenly aware that they have a common past.  Days, weeks, or months have been spent in conversation, in reading, perhaps in toil and danger, and they have not thought much about it.  But one day they wake up to the fact that these little or great things bind them, as forming the portion of their lives that have touched; and as they talk over the incidents they remember they feel unaccountably drawn to each other by the past.  Margaret and Claudius knew this on the first evening they spent together on shore.  The confusion of landing, the custom-house, the strange quarters in the great hotel—­all composed a drop-curtain shutting off the ocean scene, and ending thus an episode of their life-drama.  A new act was beginning for them, and they both knew how much might depend on the way in which it was begun, and neither dared plan how it should end.  At all events, they were not to be separated yet, and neither anticipated such a thing.

Little by little their voices dropped as they talked, and they recked little of the others, as the dark cheek of the woman flushed with interest, and the blue light shone in the man’s eyes.  Their companions on the voyage were well used to seeing them thus together, and hardly noticed them, but Mr. Bellingham’s bright eyes stole a glance from time to time at the beautiful pair in their corner, and the stories of youth and daring and love, that he seemed so full of this evening, flashed with an unwonted brilliancy.  He made up his mind that the two were desperately, hopelessly, in love, and he had taken a fancy to Claudius from the first.  There was no reason why they should not be, and he loved to build up romances, always ending happily, in his fertile imagination.

But at last it was “good-night.”  Mr. Bellingham was not the man to spend the entire evening in one house, and he moved towards Margaret, hating to disturb the couple, but yet determined to do it.  He rose, therefore, still talking, and, as the Duke rose also, cleverly led him round the chairs until within speaking distance of Margaret, who was still absorbed in her conversation.  Then, having finished the one thread, he turned round.

“By the by, Countess,” he said, “I remember once—­” and he told a graceful anecdote of Margaret’s grandmother, which delighted every one, after which he bowed, like a young lover of twenty, to each of the three ladies, and departed.

The party dispersed, the Duke and Claudius for half an hour’s chat and a cigar, and the ladies to their rooms.  But Claudius and Margaret lingered one moment in their corner, standing.

“Has it been a happy day for you?” he asked, as she gave her hand.