ties at a haberdasher's. I was bored but unexpectant; I had no
premonition of what was to come. Nothing unusual had ever happened
to me; friends of mine had sometimes sailed the high seas of
adventure or skirted the coasts of chance, but all of the shipwrecks
had occurred after a woman passenger had been taken on. "Ergo," I
had always said "no women!" I repeated it to myself that evening
almost savagely, when I found my thoughts straying back to the
picture of John Gilmore's granddaughter. I even argued as I ate my
solitary dinner at a downtown restaurant.

"Haven't you troubles enough," I reflected, "without looking for
more? Hasn't Bad News gone lame, with a matinee race booked for
next week? Otherwise aren't you comfortable? Isn't your house in
order? Do you want to sell a pony in order to have the library
done over in mission or the drawing-room in gold? Do you want
somebody to count the empty cigarette boxes lying around every
morning?"

Lay it to the long idle afternoon, to the new environment, to
anything you like, but I began to think that perhaps I did. I
was confoundedly lonely. For the first time in my life its even
course began to waver: the needle registered warning marks on the
matrimonial seismograph, lines vague enough, but lines.

My alligator bag lay at my feet, still locked. While I waited for
my coffee I leaned back and surveyed the people incuriously. There
were the usual couples intent on each other: my new state of mind
made me regard them with tolerance. But at the next table, where
a man and woman dined together, a different atmosphere prevailed.
My attention was first caught by the woman's face. She had been