The Red Sea passed in a dream of homesickness, intolerable heat, of a pale blue surface stretched before aching eyes, and paler strips of pink and gray coast, faint and distant.

Like dreams, too, passed Aden and Colombo; and then, suddenly, he woke to the most acute interest.
He had ignored his mess-mates at their second-class table; but when the new passengers from Colombo came to dinner, he heard behind him the swish of stiff skirts, felt some one brush his shoulder, and saw, sliding into the next revolving chair, the vision of a lady in white.
"_Mahlzeit_" she murmured dutifully.

But the voice was not German.
Rudolph heard her subside with little flouncings, and felt his ears grow warm and red.

Delighted, embarrassed, he at last took sufficient courage to steal side-glances.
The first showed her to be young, fair-haired, and smartly attired in the plainest and coolest of white; the second, not so young, but very charming, with a demure downcast look, and a deft control of her spoon that, to Rudolph's eyes, was splendidly fastidious; at the third, he was shocked to encounter the last flitting light of a counter-glance, from large, dark-blue eyes, not devoid of amusement.
"She laughs at me!" fumed the young man, inwardly.

He was angry, conscious of those unlucky wing-and-wing ears, vexed at his own boldness.