He started upon his return without any definite intentions or for any special reason, except that he had gone away for two years and that the two years were up.  He had carried on a desultory correspondence with his father, who had replied occasionally, rather briefly, but on the whole affectionately.  He had noticed that during the latter part of his stay abroad the replies had been more than usually irregular, but had attributed no special significance to the fact.  It was not until afterward that it occurred to him that in all their correspondence his father had never alluded in any way to his return.

On the passenger list of the Altruria John came upon the names of Mr. and Mrs. Julius Carling and Miss Blake.

“Blake, Blake,” he said to himself.  “Carling—­I seem to remember to have known that name at some time.  It must be little Mary Blake whom I knew as a small girl years ago, and, yes, Carling was the name of the man her sister married.  Well, well, I wonder what she is like.  Of course, I shouldn’t know her from Eve now, or she me from Adam.  All I can remember seems to be a pair of very slim and active legs, a lot of flying hair, a pair of brownish-gray or grayish-brown eyes, and that I thought her a very nice girl, as girls went.  But it doesn’t in the least follow that I might think so now, and shipboard is pretty close quarters for seven or eight days.”

Dinner is by all odds the chief event of the day on board ship to those who are able to dine, and they will leave all other attractions, even the surpassingly interesting things which go on in the smoking-room, at once on the sound of the gong of promise.  On this first night of the voyage the ship was still in smooth water at dinner time, and many a place was occupied which would know its occupant for the first, and very possibly for the last, time.  The passenger list was fairly large, but not full.  John had assigned to him a seat at a side table.  He was hungry, having had no luncheon but a couple of biscuits and a glass of “bitter,” and was taking his first mouthful of Perrier-Jouet, after the soup, and scanning the dinner card when the people at his table came in.  The man of the trio was obviously an invalid of the nervous variety, and the most decided type.  The small, dark woman who took the corner seat at his left was undoubtedly, from the solicitous way in which she adjusted a small shawl about his shoulders—­to his querulous uneasiness—­his wife.  There was a good deal of white in the dark hair, brushed smoothly back from her face.

A tall girl, with a mass of brown hair under a felt traveling hat, took the corner seat at the man’s right.  That was all the detail of her appearance which the brief glance that John allowed himself revealed to him at the moment, notwithstanding the justifiable curiosity which he had with regard to the people with whom he was likely to come more or less in contact for a number of days.  But though their faces, so far as he had seen them, were unfamiliar to him, their identity was made plain to him by the first words which caught his ear.  There were two soups on the menu, and the man’s mind instantly poised itself between them.