“Yes.”

“He’s a dear old man,” said Ann.  “I suppose he’s very proud of you?”

“I hope so.”

“You must do tremendously well in America, so as not to disappoint him.  What are you thinking of doing?”

Jimmy considered for a moment.

“Newspaper work, I think.”

“Oh?  Why, have you had any experience?”

“A little.”

Ann seemed to grow a little aloof, as if her enthusiasm had been damped.

“Oh, well, I suppose it’s a good enough profession.  I’m not very fond of it myself.  I’ve only met one newspaper man in my life, and I dislike him very much, so I suppose that has prejudiced me.”

“Who was that?”

“You wouldn’t have met him.  He was on an American paper.  A man named Crocker.”

A sudden gust of wind drove them back a step, rendering talk impossible.  It covered a gap when Jimmy could not have spoken.  The shock of the information that Ann had met him before made him dumb.  This thing was beyond him.  It baffled him.

Her next words supplied a solution.  They were under shelter of one of the boats now and she could make herself heard.

“It was five years ago, and I only met him for a very short while, but the prejudice has lasted.”

Jimmy began to understand.  Five years ago!  It was not so strange, then, that they should not recognise each other now.  He stirred up his memory.  Nothing came to the surface.  Not a gleam of recollection of that early meeting rewarded him.  And yet something of importance must have happened then, for her to remember it.  Surely his mere personality could not have been so unpleasant as to have made such a lasting impression on her!

“I wish you could do something better than newspaper work,” said Ann.  “I always think the splendid part about America is that it is such a land of adventure.  There are such millions of chances.  It’s a place where anything may happen.  Haven’t you an adventurous soul, Mr. Bayliss?”

No man lightly submits to a charge, even a hinted charge, of being deficient in the capacity for adventure.

“Of course I have,” said Jimmy indignantly.  “I’m game to tackle anything that comes along.”

“I’m glad of that.”

Her feeling of comradeship towards this young man deepened.  She loved adventure and based her estimate of any member of the opposite sex largely on his capacity for it.  She moved in a set, when at home, which was more polite than adventurous, and had frequently found the atmosphere enervating.

“Adventure,” said Jimmy, “is everything.”

He paused.  “Or a good deal,” he concluded weakly.

“Why qualify it like that?  It sounds so tame.  Adventure is the biggest thing in life.”