but before she could observe him closely, he had turned, closed the hatch with a certain familiar dexterity, and walked slowly towards the bows.  Even in her slight bewilderment she observed that his step upon the deck seemed different to her father’s or the photographer’s, and that he laid his hand on various objects with a half-caressing ease and habit.  Presently he paused and turned back, and glancing at the galley door for the first time encountered her wondering eyes.

It seemed so evident that she had been a curious spectator of his abrupt entrance on deck that he was at first disconcerted and confused.  But after a second glance at her he appeared to resume his composure, and advanced a little defiantly towards the galley.

“I suppose I frightened you, popping up the fore hatch just now?”

“The what?” asked Rosey.

“The fore hatch,” he repeated impatiently, indicating it with a gesture.

“And that’s the fore hatch?” she said abstractedly.  “You seem to know ships.”

“Yes—­a little,” he said quietly.  “I was below, and unfastened the hatch to come up the quickest way and take a look round.  I’ve just hired a room here,” he added explanatorily.

“I thought so,” said Rosey simply; “you’re the contractor?”

“The contractor!—­oh, yes!  You seem to know it all.”

“Father’s told me.”

“Oh, he’s your father—­Nott?  Certainly.  I see now,” he continued, looking at her with a half repressed smile.  “Certainly, Miss Nott, good morning,” he half added and walked towards the companion-way.  Something in the direction of his eyes as he turned away made Rosey lift her hands to her head.  She had forgotten to remove her father’s baleful gift.

She snatched it off and ran quickly to the companion-way.

“Sir!” she called.

The young man turned half-way down the steps and looked up.  There was a faint color in her cheeks, and her pretty brown hair was slightly disheveled from the hasty removal of the bonnet.

“Father’s very particular about strangers being on this deck,” she said a little sharply.

“Oh—­ah—­I’m sorry I intruded.”

“I—­I—­thought I’d tell you,” said Rosey, frightened by her boldness into a feeble anti-climax.

“Thank you.”

She came back slowly to the galley and picked up the unfortunate bonnet with a slight sense of remorse.  Why should she feel angry with her poor father’s unhappy offering?  And what business had this strange young man to use the ship so familiarly?  Yet she was vaguely conscious that she and her father, with all their love and their domestic experience of it, lacked a certain instinctive ease in its possession that the half indifferent stranger had shown on first treading its deck.  She walked to the hatchway and examined it with a new interest.  Succeeding in lifting the hatch, she gazed at the lower deck.  As she already knew the ladder had long since been