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The boy, meeting her on the companionway, gasped.

That night he asked permission to move over to her table, and after that the three of them ate together, Lethway watching and saying little, the other two chattering. They were very gay. They gambled to the extent of a quarter each, on the number of fronds, or whatever they are, in the top of a pineapple that Cecil ordered in, and she won. It was delightful to gamble, she declared, and put the fifty cents into a smoking-room pool.

The boy was clearly infatuated. She looked like a debutante, and, knowing it, acted the part. It was not acting really. Life had only touched her so far, and had left no mark. When Lethway lounged away to an evening’s bridge Cecil fetched his military cape and they went on deck.

“I’m afraid it’s rather lonely for you,” he said. “It’s always like this the first day or two. Then the women warm up and get friendly.”

“I don’t want to know them. They are a stupid-looking lot. Did you ever see such clothes?”

“You are the only person who looks like a lady to-night,” he observed. “You look lovely. I hope you don’t mind my saying it?”

She was a downright young person, after all. And there was something about the boy that compelled candour. So, although she gathered after a time that he did not approve of chorus girls, was even rather skeptical about them and believed that the stage should be an uplifting influence, she told him about herself that night.

It was a blow. He rallied gallantly, but she could see him straggling to gain this new point of view.

“Anyhow,” he said at last, “you’re not like the others.” Then hastily: “I don’t mean to offend you when I say that, you know. Only one can tell, to look at you, that you are different.” He thought that sounded rather boyish, and remembered that he was going to the war, and was, or would soon be, a fighting man. “I’ve known a lot of girls,” he added rather loftily. “All sorts of girls.”

It was the next night that Lethway kissed her. He had left her alone most of the day, and by sheer gravitation of loneliness she and the boy drifted together. All day long they ranged the ship, watched a boxing match in the steerage, fed bread to the hovering gulls from the stern. They told each other many things. There had been a man in the company who had wanted to marry her, but she intended to have a career. Anyhow, she would not marry unless she loved a person very much.

He eyed her wistfully when she said that.

At dusk he told her about the girl in Toronto.

“It wasn’t an engagement, you understand. But we’ve been awfully good friends. She came to see me off. It was rather awful. She cried. She had some sort of silly idea that I’ll get hurt.”

It was her turn to look wistful. Oh, they were getting on! When he went to ask the steward to bring tea to the corner they had found, she looked after him. She had been so busy with her own worries that she had not thought much of the significance of his neatly belted khaki. Suddenly it hurt her. He was going to war.

She knew little about the war, except from the pictures in illustrated magazines. Once or twice she had tried to talk about it with Mabel, but Mabel had only said, “It’s fierce!” and changed the subject.

The uniforms scattered over the ship and the precautions taken at night, however, were bringing this thing called war very close to her. It was just beyond that horizon toward which they were heading. And even then it was brought nearer to her.

Under cover of the dusk the girl she had tried to approach came up and stood beside her. Edith was very distant with her.