“You are not well, Dr. Claudius.  Please don’t mind me, my brother will be back in a moment.  Go below and get warm.  You really look ill.”

“Do I?  I do not feel ill at all I am very fond of this kind of weather.”  And he put one arm through the shrouds and prepared for conversation under difficulties.  Meanwhile the Duke brought out Miss Skeat, who rattled inside her tarpaulin, but did not exhibit the slightest nervousness, though a bit of a sea broke over the weather-bow just as she appeared.

“Keep your eye peeled there, will you?” the Duke shouted away to the men at the wheel; whereat they grinned, and luffed a little, just enough to let the lady get across.

“Steady!” bawled the Duke again when Miss Skeat was made fast; and the men at the wheel held her off once more, so that the spray flew up in a cloudy sheet.

Claudius was relieved.  He had expected to see Margaret come up the companion, and he had dreaded the meeting, when he would almost of necessity be obliged to help her across and touch her hand; and he inwardly blessed her wisdom in staying below.  The others might have stayed there too, he thought, instead of coming up to get wet and to spoil his solitude, which was the only thing left to him to-day.

But Claudius was not the man to betray his ill-temper at being disturbed; and after all there was something about these two women that he liked—­in different ways.  The English girl was so solidly enthusiastic, and the Scotch gentlewoman so severely courageous, that he felt a sort of companionable sympathy after he had been with them a few minutes.

Lady Victoria, as previously hinted, was married, and her husband, who was in the diplomatic service, and who had prospects afterwards of coming into money and a peerage, was now absent on a distant mission.  They had not been married very long, but his wife was always ready to take things cheerfully, and, since she could not accompany him, she had made up her mind to be happy without him; and the trip with her brother was “just the very thing.”  Mr. Barker admired what he called her exuberant vitality, and expressed his opinion that people with a digestion like that were always having a good time.  She was strong and healthy, and destined to be the mother of many bold sons, and she had a certain beauty born of a good complexion, bright eyes, and white teeth.  To look at her, you would have said she must be the daughter of some robust and hardworking settler, accustomed from her youth to face rain and snow and sunshine in ready reliance on her inborn strength.  She did not suggest dukes and duchesses in the least.  Alas! the generation of those ruddy English boys and girls is growing rarer day by day, and a mealy-faced, over-cerebrated people are springing up, who with their children again, in trying to rival the brain-work of foreigners with larger skulls and more in them, forget that their English forefathers have always done everything