door, and began to smoke. In the whiffs curling from his pipe he
imagined the smoke of the great steamer as she drove northward from
Indian seas; he heard the throb of the engines, saw the white wake.
Naples; the Mediterranean; Gibraltar frowning towards the purple
mountains of Morocco; the tumbling Bay; the green shores of Devon; --
his pulses throbbed as he went voyaging in memory. And he might start
this very hour, but for the child, who could not be left alone to
servants. With something like a laugh, he thought of the people who
implored Mary Abbott to relieve them of their burdensome youngsters. And
at that moment Alma opened the door.

Her face, thinned a little by illness, had quite recovered its amiable
humour.

'Of course you are quite right, Harvey. We can't rush across Europe at a
moment's notice.'

He rose up, the lover's light in his eyes again, and drew her to him,
and held her in a laughing embrace.

'What has been wrong between us? It's a new thing for you and me to be
scowling and snarling.'

'I hope I neither scowled nor snarled, dear boy, though I'm not sure
that _you_ didn't. No doubt, Mrs. Abbott went away thinking we lead
rather a cat and dog life.'

'Hang it, no! How could she have any such thoughts?'

'Oh, the drive home that day.'