He looked at her steadfastly.

"I have made use of women as playthings," he confessed. "Until I met you I never thought of them as companions, as partners."

She laughed at him through the darkness, and at the sound of her laugh his eyes glowed.

"Really, I am very much flattered," she said. "You give me credit for intelligence, then?"

"I give you credit for every gift a woman should have," he answered enthusiastically. "I recognise in you the woman I have sometimes dreamed of."

Again she laughed.

"Don't tell me, Mr. Fischer," she protested, "that ever in your practical life you have spent a single moment in dreams?"

"I have spent many," he assured her, "but they have all been since I knew you."

Pamela sighed.

"I have never been through a voyage," she observed, "without a love affair. Still, I never suspected you, Mr. Fischer."