“But I can, and I will, if you will let me.  I am very strong, and I will keep my word;” and indeed he looked the incarnation of strength as he sat with folded hands and earnest face, awaiting her reply.  His words were not eloquent, but they were plain and true, and he meant them.  Something in the suppressed power of his tone drove away the smile from Margaret’s face, and she looked toward him.

“Could you?” she asked.  But the door opened, and Lady Victoria entered with her book.

“Oh!” said Lady Victoria.

“I must go and dress,” said Claudius.

“We will go on with the book to-morrow,” said the Countess.  And he bore away a light heart.

On the following day the Duke began to take care of the Countess, as he had done yesterday, and Barker turned on the fireworks of his conversation for the amusement of Claudius.  Claudius sat quite still for an hour or more, perhaps enjoying the surprise he was going to give the Duke and Barker.  As the latter finished a brilliant tale, for the veracity of which he vouched in every particular, Claudius calmly rose and threw away his cigarette.

“That is a very good story,” he said.  “Good-bye for the present.  I am going to read with the Countess.”  Barker was nearly “taken off his feet.”

“Why—­” he began, but stopped short.  “Oh, very well.  She is on deck.  I saw the Duke bring up her rugs and things.”  His heavy moustache seemed to uncurl itself nervously, and his jaw dropped slowly, as he watched Claudius leave the deck-cabin.

“I wonder when they got a chance,” he said to himself.

But Barker was not nearly so much astonished as the Duke.  The latter was sitting by Margaret’s side, near the wheel, making conversation.  He was telling her such a good story about a mutual friend—­the son of a great chancellor of the great empire of Kakotopia—­who had gambled away his wife at cards with another mutual friend.

“And the point of the story,” said the Duke, “is that the lady did not object in the least.  Just fancy, you know, we all knew her, and now she is married again to—­” At this point Claudius strode up, and Margaret, who did not care to hear any more, interrupted the Duke.

“Dr. Claudius, I have our book here.  Shall we read?” The Doctor’s face flushed with pleasure.  The Duke stared.

“I will get a chair,” he said; and his long legs made short work of it.

“Well, if you will believe it,” said the Duke, who meant to finish his story, “it was not even the man who won her at cards that she married when she was divorced.  It was a man you never met; and they are living in some place in Italy.”  The Duke could hardly believe his eyes when Claudius boldly marched up with his chair and planted himself on Margaret’s other side.  She leaned back, looking straight before her, and turning the leaves of the book absently backwards and forwards.  The Duke was evidently expected to go, but he sat fully a minute stupidly looking at Margaret.  At last she spoke.