She has seen service.

Is only a battered, travel-weary old couple-of-thousand-ton cargo boat, which has hugged and nuzzled the foul-smelling quays of half the seaports of southern Europe and Asia.

All the same--next to you--she's the best and finest thing life, up to now, has brought me, and I love her .-- My affection for her, though," he went on, "is safe to be transitory.

She is safe to have rivals and successors in plenty--unless, of course, by some ugly turn of luck, she and I go to the bottom in company." Faircloth broke off.

A little sound, a little gesture of protest and distress, making him straighten himself up and turn quickly, his eyes alight with enquiry and laughter.
"May I take that to mean I'm not quite alone in my caring," he asked; "but that you, Damaris, care, perhaps, just a trifling amount too ?" He went across to the sofa, sat down sideways, laying his right arm along the back of it, and placing his left hand--inscribed with the fanciful device--over the girl's two hands clasped in her lap.