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.

"Which soup shall I take?" he asked, turning with a frown of uncertainty
to his wife.

"I should say the _consommé_, Julius," was the reply.

"I thought I should like the broth better," he objected.