And I'm not saying it, as you might suppose, under any
threat, but because I've been thinking it out and I mean it. I'm a
childless man--"
Foe cut him short here. "My only trouble with you, Farrell,"
said he, "is that you may reach your grave without understanding.
If I thought that wasn't preventible somehow, it would save me
trouble to wring your neck here and now and throw you overboard.
As it is--"
But, as it was, along the deck just then came Constantia Denistoun,
with her mother leaning on her arm and a maid following. She
recognised Foe and halted.
"Why, good Heavens! . . . and I'd no idea that you were on the
_Emania_," said she. "Mother, this is Mr. Foe--Roddy's friend,
you know. . . . Or ought I to call you Doctor, or Professor, or
what? . . . You weren't anything of that sort anyhow, when we met--
how many years ago? at Cambridge."
--That, or to that effect. . . . Constantia told me afterwards that
she didn't remember throwing more than a glance at Farrell, whom she
took, very pardonably, to be a chance acquaintance from the
smoking-room, picked up as such acquaintances are picked up on
ship-board.
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