He was a tall handsome young man, slightly built, with the kind of sallow complexion that women admire, and I wondered at his preferring my company to that of the womankind on board, who were certainly very civil to him.

One evening when I was rallying him on the subject, as we were leaning over the side (for though it was December it was hot enough in the Red Sea to lounge on deck), he told me that he was engaged to be married to a beautiful young American girl.

I forget her name, but I remember he told it me--Dulcima Something--but it is of no consequence.

I quite understood then.

I always can enter into the feelings of others so entirely.