As it must be one of the three ladies who constituted the party, Claudius naturally raised his cap, but fearing lest he had chanced on the Duke's sister, or still worse, on Miss Skeat, he did not speak.

Before long, however, as he leaned against the side, watching the wake, the unknown remarked that it was a delightful night.

It was Margaret's voice, and the deep musical tones trembled on the rise and fall of the waves, as if the sounds themselves had a distinct life and beating in them.

Did the dark woman know what magic lay in her most trivial words?
Claudius did not care a rush whether the night were beautiful or otherwise, but when she said it was a fine evening, it sounded as if she had said she loved him.
"I could not stay downstairs," she said, "and so when the others went to bed I wrapped myself up and came here.

Is it not too wonderful ?" Claudius moved nearer to her.
"I have been pent up in the Duke's _tabagie_ for at least two hours," he said, "and I am perfectly suffocated." "How can you sit in that atmosphere?
Why don't you come and smoke on deck ?" "Oh! it was not only the tobacco that suffocated me to-night, it was the ideas." "What ideas ?" asked Margaret.
"You have known the Duke a long time," said he, "and of course you can judge.