"Yes," said Philip, with a gulp. "Well?"
"But she could never marry any of them."
"Why, I wonder?"
"Because of her father," explained the everready Miss Jennings. "She won't ever leave him, him being a widower, and very peculiar in his manner, and unable to look after himself. A bit silly-like, from all accounts. Seems to me to be asking a good lot of a girl, to stay at home to look after an old image like that. That's only supposing, of course, that she wants to marry one of these thousands of hers. She's welcome to the lot, so far as I'm concerned."
"Yes, rather!" agreed Philip absently.
So that was the reason! And he had never guessed. Well, it made his own chances no brighter, but it took a load from his mind. Peggy was back on a higher pedestal than ever, and her silent knight could now worship her without reservation. She was acquitted for all time of the charge of being hard, or callous, or unfeminine.
The Bosphorus was rolling heavily when Philip rose next morning, but his sea-legs were good, and he proceeded to his toilet with no particular pangs save those of hunger. After shaving he put on a dressing-gown and staggered along an alleyway in search of a bath. Presently an illuminated sign informed him that he had reached his destination. He turned into the first empty bathroom, where a man in a white jacket was tidying up after the last occupant.
"Bath, please," said Philip. "Chill just off."
The man turned his back and set going a spouting cataract, and the bath was half-full of salt water in less than a minute. There are no corporation restrictions or half-inch pipes in oceanic bathrooms: you simply open a sluice and let in as much of the Atlantic as you require. The man next lowered a long hinged pipe into the bottom of the bath, and gave a twist to a little valve-wheel on the wall. Straightway a violent subaqueous crackling announced that live steam from the boilers was performing its allotted task of taking the chill off.