“Let me present you, Daireen. Mr. Harwood—Miss Gerald. Now take great care what you say to this gentleman, Daireen; he is a dangerous man—the most dangerous that any one could meet. He is a detective, dear, and the worst of all—a literary detective; the 'special' of the Domnant Trumpeter.”
Daireen had looked into the man's face while she was being presented to him, and she knew it was the face of a man who had seen the people of more than one nation.
“This is not your first voyage, Miss Gerald, or you would not be on deck so early?” he said.
“It certainly is not,” she replied. “I was born in India, so that my first voyage was to England; then I have crossed the Irish Channel frequently, going to school and returning for the holidays; and I have also had some long voyages on Lough Suangorm,” she added with a little smile, for she did not think that her companion would be likely to have heard of the existence of the Irish fjord.
“Suangorm? then you have had some of the most picturesque voyages one can make in the course of a day in this world,” he said. “Lough Suangorm is the most wonderful fjord in the world, let me tell you.”
“Then you know it,” she cried with a good deal of surprise. “You must know the dear old lough or you would not talk so.” She did not seem to think that his assertion should imply that he had seen a good many other fjords also.
“I think I may say I know it. Yes, from those fine headlands that the Atlantic beats against, to where the purple slope of that great hill meets the little road.”
“You know the hill—old Slieve Docas? How strange! I live just at the foot.”
“I have a sketch of a mansion, taken just there,” he said, laughing. “It is of a dark brown exterior.”
“Exactly.”