The young man stepped to the looking-glass. Both eyes were blacked, his
lip had been cut, and there was a purple weal well up on his left cheek.
He stopped himself from grinning only just in time to save another
twinge of pain.
"Some party while it lasted. I never saw more willing mixers. Everybody
seemed anxious to sit in except Mr. Wally Selfridge," he explained to
his reflection. "But Macdonald is the class. He's there with both right
and left. That uppercut of his is vicious. Don't ever get in the way of
it, Gordon Elliot." He examined his injuries more closely in the glass.
"Some one landed a peach on my right lamp and the other is in mourning
out of sympathy. Oh, well, I ain't the only prize beauty on board this
morning." The young man forgot and smiled. "Ouch! Don't do that, Gordon.
Yes, son. 'There's many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright
as mine.' Now isn't that the truth?"
He bathed, dressed, and went out on the deck.
Early though he was, one passenger at least was up before him. The
young woman he had noticed last evening with the magazine was doing a
constitutional. A slight breeze was stirring, and as she moved against
it the white skirt clung first to one knee and then the other, moulding
itself to the long lines of her limbs with exquisite grace of motion.
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