"Bear I sufficient resemblance to pass in his stead?"
"You are not unlike as to height and build; as to face, you are far the better featured. With the cowl up it might be reasonably safe in a dim light."
"My beauty has always been my undoing," I ventured, in awakened good humor. "Nevertheless I shall be compelled to venture it this time; moreover, I am pleased to learn that things aboard are as you describe, for such a state of affairs may greatly serve our purpose."
I turned away from him to recross the room and murmur a few words of brighter hope into the ear of Eloise, where she sat in white-faced silence amid the deeper shadows of the portiere.