They wished to consult Mrs.
Falchion in certain matters of costume and decoration, for which, it had been discovered, she had a peculiar faculty.

She turned to me half inquiringly, and I bade her good-night, inwardly determined (how easy it is after having failed to gratify ourselves!) that the touch of her fingers should never again make my heart beat faster.
I joined Colonel Ryder and Clovelly in the smoking-room.

Hungerford, as I guessed gladly, was gone.

I was too much the coward to meet his eye just then.

Colonel Ryder was estimating the amount he would wager--if he were in the habit of betting--that the 'Fulvia' could not turn round in her tracks in twenty minutes, while he parenthetically endorsed Hungerford's remarks to me--though he was ignorant of them--that lascars should not be permitted on English passenger ships.