“It’s perfectly lovely!” I said, turning to her with eagerness—­ “It’s quite a little fairyland!  But isn’t this Miss Harland’s cabin?”

“Oh dear no, miss,”—­she replied—­“Miss Harland wouldn’t have all these things about her on any account.  There are no carpets or curtains in Miss Harland’s rooms.  She thinks them very unhealthy.  She has only a bit of matting on the floor, and an iron bedstead—­ all very plain.  And as for roses!—­she wouldn’t have a rose near her for ever so!—­she can’t bear the smell of them.”

I made no comment.  I was too enchanted with my surroundings for the moment to consider how uncomfortable my hostess chose to make herself.

“Who arranged these rooms?” I asked.

“Mr. Harland gave orders to the steward to make them as pretty as he could,”—­said the maid—­“John” and she blushed—­“has a lot of taste.”

I smiled.  I saw at once how matters were between her and “John.”  Just then there was a sound of thudding and grinding above my head, and I realised that we were beginning to weigh anchor.  Quickly tying on my yachting cap and veil, I hurried on deck, and was soon standing beside my host, who seemed pleased at the alacrity with which I had joined him, and I watched with feelings of indescribable exhilaration the ‘Diana’ being loosed from her moorings.  Steam was up, and in a very short time her bowsprit swung round and pointed outward from the bay.  Quivering like an eager race-horse ready to start, she sprang forward; and then, with a stately sweeping curve, glided across the water, catting it into bright wavelets with her sword-like keel and churning a path behind her of opalescent foam.  We were off on our voyage of pleasure at last,—­a voyage which the Fates had determined should, for one adventurer at least, lead to strange regions as yet unexplored.  But no premonitory sign was given to me, or suggestion that I might be the one chosen to sail ’the perilous seas of fairy lands forlorn’—­for in spiritual things of high import, the soul that is most concerned is always the least expectant.

II

THE FAIRY SHIP

I was introduced that evening at dinner to Mr. Harland’s physician, and also to his private secretary.  I was not greatly prepossessed in favour of either of these gentlemen.  Dr. Brayle was a dark, slim, clean-shaven man of middle age with expressionless brown eyes and sleek black hair which was carefully brushed and parted down the middle,—­he was quiet and self-contained in manner, and yet I thought I could see that he was fully alive to the advantages of his position as travelling medical adviser to an American millionaire.  I have not mentioned till now that Morton Harland was an American.  I was always rather in the habit of forgetting the fact, as he had long ago forsworn his nationality and had naturalised himself as a British subject.  But he had made his vast fortune in America, and was