When Margaret turned away from the elderly man's more enduring gaze, both felt that there was a bond of sympathy between them which neither had quite acknowledged till then.

There was silence after that, and Margaret looked out of the window, while her hand unconsciously played with the book on her knee, lifting the cover a little and letting it fall again and again.
Suddenly she turned to Griggs once more and held the book out to him with a smile.
'I'm not an autograph-hunter,' she said, 'but will you write something on the fly-leaf?
Just a word or two, without your name, if you like.
Do you think I'm very sentimental ?' She smiled again, and he took the book from her and produced a pencil.
'It's a book I shall not throw away,' she went on, 'because the man who wrote it is a great friend of mine, and I have everything he has ever written.

So, as I shall keep it, I want it to remind me that you and I grew to know each other better on this voyage.' It occurred to the veteran that while this was complimentary to himself it was not altogether promising for Lushington, who was the old friend in question.

A woman who loves a man does not usually ask another to write a line in that man's book.

Griggs set the point of the pencil on the fly-leaf as if he were going to write; but then he hesitated, looked up, glanced at Margaret, and at last leaned back in the seat, as if in deep thought.
'I didn't mean to give you so much trouble,' Margaret said, still smiling.