THE PATAGONIAby Henry James CHAPTER I The houses were dark in the August night and the perspective of BeaconStreet, with its double chain of lamps, was a foreshortened desert. Theclub on the hill alone, from its semi-cylindrical front, projected a glowupon the dusky vagueness of the Common, and as I passed it I heard in thehot stillness the click of a pair of billiard-balls. As "every one" wasout of town perhaps the servants, in the extravagance of their leisure, were profaning the tables. The heat was insufferable and I thought withjoy of the morrow, of the deck of the steamer, the freshening breeze, thesense of getting out to sea. I was even glad of what I had learned inthe afternoon at the office of the company--that at the eleventh hour anold ship with a lower standard of speed had been put on in place of thevessel in which I had taken my passage. America was roasting, Englandmight very well be stuffy, and a slow passage (which at that season ofthe year would probably also be a fine one) was a guarantee of ten ortwelve days of fresh air. I strolled down the hill without meeting a creature, though I could seethrough the palings of the Common that that recreative expanse waspeopled with dim forms. I remembered Mrs. Nettlepoint's house--she livedin those days (they are not so distant, but there have been changes) onthe water-side, a little way beyond the spot at which the Public Gardenterminates; and I reflected that like myself she would be spending thenight in Boston if it were true that, as had been mentioned to me a fewdays before at Mount Desert, she was to embark on the morrow forLiverpool. I presently saw this appearance confirmed by a light aboveher door and in two or three of her windows, and I determined to ask forher, having nothing to do till bedtime. I had come out simply to pass anhour, leaving my hotel to the blaze of its gas and the perspiration ofits porters; but it occurred to me that my old friend might very _well_not know of the substitution of the _Patagonia_ for the _Scandinavia_, sothat I should be doing her a service to prepare her mind. Besides, Icould offer to help her, to look after her in the morning: lone women aregrateful for support in taking ship for far countries. It came to me indeed as I stood on her door-step that as she had a sonshe might not after all be so lone; yet I remembered at the same timethat Jasper Nettlepoint was not quite a young man to lean upon, having--asI at least supposed--a life of his own and tastes and habits which hadlong since diverted him from the maternal side. If he did happen justnow to be at home my solicitude would of course seem officious; for inhis many wanderings--I believed he had roamed all over the globe--hewould certainly have learned how to manage. None the less, in fine, Iwas very glad to show Mrs. Nettlepoint I thought of her. With my longabsence I had lost sight of her; but I had liked her of old, she had beena good friend to my sisters, and I had in regard to her that sense whichis pleasant to those who in general have gone astray or got detached, thesense that she at least knew all about me. I could trust her at any timeto tell people I was respectable. Perhaps I was conscious of how littleI deserved this indulgence when it came over me that I hadn't been nearher for ages. The measure of that neglect was given by my vagueness ofmind about Jasper. However, I really belonged nowadays to a differentgeneration; I was more the mother's contemporary than the son's. Mrs. Nettlepoint was at home: I found her in her back drawing-room, wherethe wide windows opened to the water. The room was dusky--it was too hotfor lamps--and she sat slowly moving her fan and looking out on thelittle arm of the sea which is so pretty at night, reflecting the lightsof Cambridgeport and Charlestown. I supposed she was musing on the lovedones she was to leave behind, her married daughters, her grandchildren;but she struck a note more specifically Bostonian as she said to me, pointing with her fan to the Back Bay: "I shall see nothing more charmingthan that over there, you know!" She made me very welcome, but her sonhad told her about the _Patagonia_, for which she was sorry, as thiswould mean a longer voyage. She was a poor creature in any boat andmainly confined to her cabin even in weather extravagantly termed fine--asif any weather could be fine at sea. "Ah then your son's going with you?" I asked. "Here he comes, he'll tell you for himself much better than I can pretendto. " Jasper Nettlepoint at that moment joined us, dressed in whiteflannel and carrying a large fan. "Well, my dear, have you decided?" hismother continued with no scant irony. "He hasn't yet made up his mind, and we sail at ten o'clock!" "What does it matter when my things are put up?" the young man said. "There's no crowd at this moment; there will be cabins to spare. I'mwaiting for a telegram--that will settle it. I just walked up to theclub to see if it was come--they'll send it there because they supposethis house unoccupied. Not yet, but I shall go back in twenty minutes. " "Mercy, how you rush about in this temperature!" the poor lady exclaimedwhile I reflected that it was perhaps _his_ billiard-balls I had heardten minutes before. I was sure he was fond of billiards. "Rush? not in the least. I take it uncommon easy. " "Ah I'm bound to say you do!" Mrs. Nettlepoint returned withinconsequence. I guessed at a certain tension between the pair and awant of consideration on the young man's part, arising perhaps fromselfishness. His mother was nervous, in suspense, wanting to be at restas to whether she should have his company on the voyage or be obliged tostruggle alone. But as he stood there smiling and slowly moving his fanhe struck me somehow as a person on whom this fact wouldn't sit tooheavily. He was of the type of those whom other people worry about, notof those who worry about other people. Tall and strong, he had ahandsome face, with a round head and close-curling hair; the whites ofhis eyes and the enamel of his teeth, under his brown moustache, gleamedvaguely in the lights of the Back Bay. I made out that he was sunburnt, as if he lived much in the open air, and that he looked intelligent butalso slightly brutal, though not in a morose way. His brutality, if hehad any, was bright and finished. I had to tell him who I was, but eventhen I saw how little he placed me and that my explanations gave me inhis mind no great identity or at any rate no great importance. I foresawthat he would in intercourse make me feel sometimes very young andsometimes very old, caring himself but little which. He mentioned, as ifto show our companion that he might safely be left to his own devices, that he had once started from London to Bombay at three quarters of anhour's notice. "Yes, and it must have been pleasant for the people you were with!" "Oh the people I was with--!" he returned; and his tone appeared tosignify that such people would always have to come off as they could. Heasked if there were no cold drinks in the house, no lemonade, no icedsyrups; in such weather something of that sort ought always to be keptgoing. When his mother remarked that surely at the club they _were_ keptgoing he went on: "Oh yes, I had various things there; but you know I'vewalked down the hill since. One should have something at either end. MayI ring and see?" He rang while Mrs. Nettlepoint observed that with thepeople they had in the house, an establishment reduced naturally at sucha moment to its simplest expression--they were burning up candle-ends andthere were no luxuries--she wouldn't answer for the service. The matterended in her leaving the room in quest of cordials with the femaledomestic who had arrived in response to the bell and in whom Jasper'sappeal aroused no visible intelligence. She remained away some time and I talked with her son, who was sociablebut desultory and kept moving over the place, always with his fan, as ifhe were properly impatient. Sometimes he seated himself an instant onthe window-sill, and then I made him out in fact thoroughlygood-looking--a fine brown clean young athlete. He failed to tell me onwhat special contingency his decision depended; he only alludedfamiliarly to an expected telegram, and I saw he was probably fond at notime of the trouble of explanations. His mother's absence was a signthat when it might be a question of gratifying him she had grown used tospare no pains, and I fancied her rummaging in some close storeroom, among old preserve-pots, while the dull maid-servant held the candleawry. I don't know whether this same vision was in his own eyes; at allevents it didn't prevent his saying suddenly, as he looked at his watch, that I must excuse him--he should have to go back to the club. He wouldreturn in half an hour--or in less. He walked away and I sat therealone, conscious, on the dark dismantled simplified scene, in the deepsilence that rests on American towns during the hot season--there was nowand then a far cry or a plash in the water, and at intervals the tinkleof the bells of the horse-cars on the long bridge, slow in thesuffocating night--of the strange influence, half-sweet, half-sad, thatabides in houses uninhabited or about to become so, in places muffled andbereaved, where the unheeded sofas and patient belittered tables seem(like the disconcerted dogs, to whom everything is alike sinister) torecognise the eve of a journey. After a while I heard the sound of voices, of steps, the rustle ofdresses, and I looked round, supposing these things to denote the returnof Mrs. Nettlepoint and her handmaiden with the refection prepared forher son. What I saw however was two other female forms, visitorsapparently just admitted, and now ushered into the room. They were notannounced--the servant turned her back on them and rambled off to ourhostess. They advanced in a wavering tentative unintroduced way--partly, I could see, because the place was dark and partly because their visitwas in its nature experimental, a flight of imagination or a stretch ofconfidence. One of the ladies was stout and the other slim, and I madesure in a moment that one was talkative and the other reserved. It wasfurther to be discerned that one was elderly and the other young, as wellas that the fact of their unlikeness didn't prevent their being motherand daughter. Mrs. Nettlepoint reappeared in a very few minutes, but theinterval had sufficed to establish a communication--really copious forthe occasion--between the strangers and the unknown gentleman whom theyfound in possession, hat and stick in hand. This was not my doing--forwhat had I to go upon?--and still less was it the doing of the youngerand the more indifferent, or less courageous, lady. She spoke butonce--when her companion informed me that she was going out to Europe thenext day to be married. Then she protested "Oh mother!" in a tone thatstruck me in the darkness as doubly odd, exciting my curiosity to see herface. It had taken the elder woman but a moment to come to that, and to variousother things, after I had explained that I myself was waiting for Mrs. Nettlepoint, who would doubtless soon come back. "Well, she won't know me--I guess she hasn't ever heard much about me, "the good lady said; "but I've come from Mrs. Allen and I guess that willmake it all right. I presume you know Mrs. Allen?" I was unacquainted with this influential personage, but I assentedvaguely to the proposition. Mrs. Allen's emissary was good-humoured andfamiliar, but rather appealing than insistent (she remarked that if herfriend _had_ found time to come in the afternoon--she had so much to do, being just up for the day, that she couldn't be sure--it would be allright); and somehow even before she mentioned Merrimac Avenue (they hadcome all the way from there) my imagination had associated her with thatindefinite social limbo known to the properly-constituted Boston mind asthe South End--a nebulous region which condenses here and there into apretty face, in which the daughters are an "improvement" on the mothersand are sometimes acquainted with gentlemen more gloriously domiciled, gentlemen whose wives and sisters are in turn not acquainted with them. When at last Mrs. Nettlepoint came in, accompanied by candles and by atray laden with glasses of coloured fluid which emitted a cool tinkling, I was in a position to officiate as master of the ceremonies, tointroduce Mrs. Mavis and Miss Grace Mavis, to represent that Mrs. Allenhad recommended them--nay, had urged them--just to come that way, informally and without fear; Mrs. Allen who had been prevented only bythe pressure of occupations so characteristic of her (especially when upfrom Mattapoisett for a few hours' desperate shopping) from herselfcalling in the course of the day to explain who they were and what wasthe favour they had to ask of her benevolent friend. Good-natured womenunderstand each other even when so divided as to sit residentially aboveand below the salt, as who should say; by which token our hostess hadquickly mastered the main facts: Mrs. Allen's visit that morning inMerrimac Avenue to talk of Mrs. Amber's great idea, the classes at thepublic schools in vacation (she was interested with an equal charity tothat of Mrs. Mavis--even in such weather!--in those of the South End) forgames and exercises and music, to keep the poor unoccupied children outof the streets; then the revelation that it had suddenly been settledalmost from one hour to the other that Grace should sail for Liverpool, Mr. Porterfield at last being ready. He was taking a little holiday; hismother was with him, they had come over from Paris to see some of thecelebrated old buildings in England, and he had telegraphed to say thatif Grace would start right off they would just finish it up and bemarried. It often happened that when things had dragged on that way foryears they were all huddled up at the end. Of course in such a case she, Mrs. Mavis, had had to fly round. Her daughter's passage was taken, butit seemed too dreadful she should make her journey all alone, the firsttime she had ever been at sea, without any companion or escort. _She_couldn't go--Mr. Mavis was too sick: she hadn't even been able to get himoff to the seaside. "Well, Mrs. Nettlepoint's going in that ship, " Mrs. Allen had said; andshe had represented that nothing was simpler than to give her the girl incharge. When Mrs. Mavis had replied that this was all very well but thatshe didn't know the lady, Mrs. Allen had declared that that didn't make aspeck of difference, for Mrs. Nettlepoint was kind enough for anything. It was easy enough to _know_ her, if that was all the trouble! All Mrs. Mavis would have to do would be to go right up to her next morning, whenshe took her daughter to the ship (she would see her there on the deckwith her party) and tell her fair and square what she wanted. Mrs. Nettlepoint had daughters herself and would easily understand. Verylikely she'd even look after Grace a little on the other side, in such aqueer situation, going out alone to the gentleman she was engaged to:she'd just help her, like a good Samaritan, to turn round before she wasmarried. Mr. Porterfield seemed to think they wouldn't wait long, onceshe was there: they would have it right over at the American consul's. Mrs. Allen had said it would perhaps be better still to go and see Mrs. Nettlepoint beforehand, that day, to tell her what they wanted: then theywouldn't seem to spring it on her just as she was leaving. She herself(Mrs. Allen) would call and say a word for them if she could save tenminutes before catching her train. If she hadn't come it was because shehadn't saved her ten minutes but she had made them feel that they mustcome all the same. Mrs. Mavis liked that better, because on the ship inthe morning there would be such a confusion. She didn't think herdaughter would be any trouble--conscientiously she didn't. It was justto have some one to speak to her and not sally forth like a servant-girlgoing to a situation. "I see, I'm to act as a sort of bridesmaid and to give her away, " Mrs. Nettlepoint obligingly said. Kind enough in fact for anything, sheshowed on this occasion that it was easy enough to know her. There isnotoriously nothing less desirable than an imposed aggravation of effortat sea, but she accepted without betrayed dismay the burden of the younglady's dependence and allowed her, as Mrs. Mavis said, to hook herselfon. She evidently had the habit of patience, and her reception of hervisitors' story reminded me afresh--I was reminded of it whenever Ireturned to my native land--that my dear compatriots are the people inthe world who most freely take mutual accommodation for granted. Theyhave always had to help themselves, and have rather magnanimously failedto learn just where helping others is distinguishable from that. In nocountry are there fewer forms and more reciprocities. It was doubtless not singular that the ladies from Merrimac Avenueshouldn't feel they were importunate: what was striking was that Mrs. Nettlepoint didn't appear to suspect it. However, she would in any casehave thought it inhuman to show this--though I could see that under thesurface she was amused at everything the more expressive of the pilgrimsfrom the South End took for granted. I scarce know whether the attitudeof the younger visitor added or not to the merit of her good nature. Mr. Porterfield's intended took no part in the demonstration, scarcely spoke, sat looking at the Back Bay and the lights on the long bridge. Shedeclined the lemonade and the other mixtures which, at Mrs. Nettlepoint'srequest, I offered her, while her mother partook freely of everything andI reflected--for I as freely drained a glass or two in which the icetinkled--that Mr. Jasper had better hurry back if he wished to enjoythese luxuries. Was the effect of the young woman's reserve meanwhile ungracious, or wasit only natural that in her particular situation she shouldn't have aflow of compliment at her command? I noticed that Mrs. Nettlepointlooked at her often, and certainly though she was undemonstrative MissMavis was interesting. The candlelight enabled me to see that though notin the very first flower of her youth she was still fresh and handsome. Her eyes and hair were dark, her face was pale, and she held up her headas if, with its thick braids and everything else involved in it, it werean appurtenance she wasn't ashamed of. If her mother was excellent andcommon she was not common--not at least flagrantly so--and perhaps alsonot excellent. At all events she wouldn't be, in appearance at least, adreary appendage; which in the case of a person "hooking on" was alwayssomething gained. Was it because something of a romantic or patheticinterest usually attaches to a good creature who has been the victim of a"long engagement" that this young lady made an impression on me from thefirst--favoured as I had been so quickly with this glimpse of herhistory? I could charge her certainly with no positive appeal; she onlyheld her tongue and smiled, and her smile corrected whatever suggestionmight have forced itself upon me that the spirit within her was dead--thespirit of that promise of which she found herself doomed to carry out theletter. What corrected it less, I must add, was an odd recollection whichgathered vividness as I listened to it--a mental association evoked bythe name of Mr. Porterfield. Surely I had a personal impression, over-smeared and confused, of the gentleman who was waiting at Liverpool, orwho presently would be, for Mrs. Nettlepoint's protegee. I had met him, known him, some time, somewhere, somehow, on the other side. Wasn't hestudying something, very hard, somewhere--probably in Paris--ten yearsbefore, and didn't he make extraordinarily neat drawings, linear andarchitectural? Didn't he go to a table d'hote, at two francstwenty-five, in the Rue Bonaparte, which I then frequented, and didn't hewear spectacles and a Scotch plaid arranged in a manner which seemed tosay "I've trustworthy information that that's the way they do it in theHighlands"? Wasn't he exemplary to positive irritation, and very poor, poor to positive oppression, so that I supposed he had no overcoat andhis tartan would be what he slept under at night? Wasn't he working veryhard still, and wouldn't he be, in the natural course, not yet satisfiedthat he had found his feet or knew enough to launch out? He would be aman of long preparations--Miss Mavis's white face seemed to speak to oneof that. It struck me that if I had been in love with her I shouldn'thave needed to lay such a train for the closer approach. Architecturewas his line and he was a pupil of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Thisreminiscence grew so much more vivid with me that at the end of tenminutes I had an odd sense of knowing--by implication--a good deal aboutthe young lady. Even after it was settled that Mrs. Nettlepoint would do everythingpossible for her the other visitor sat sipping our iced liquid andtelling how "low" Mr. Mavis had been. At this period the girl's silencestruck me as still more conscious, partly perhaps because she deprecatedher mother's free flow--she was enough of an "improvement" to measurethat--and partly because she was too distressed by the idea of leavingher infirm, her perhaps dying father. It wasn't indistinguishable thatthey were poor and that she would take out a very small purse for hertrousseau. For Mr. Porterfield to make up the sum his own case wouldhave had moreover greatly to change. If he had enriched himself by thesuccessful practice of his profession I had encountered no edifice he hadreared--his reputation hadn't come to my ears. Mrs. Nettlepoint notified her new friends that she was a very inactiveperson at sea: she was prepared to suffer to the full with Miss Mavis, but not prepared to pace the deck with her, to struggle with her, toaccompany her to meals. To this the girl replied that she would troubleher little, she was sure: she was convinced she should prove a wretchedsailor and spend the voyage on her back. Her mother scoffed at thispicture, prophesying perfect weather and a lovely time, and I interposedto the effect that if I might be trusted, as a tame bachelor fairly sea-seasoned, I should be delighted to give the new member of our party anarm or any other countenance whenever she should require it. Both theladies thanked me for this--taking my professions with no sort ofabatement--and the elder one declared that we were evidently going to besuch a sociable group that it was too bad to have to stay at home. Sheasked Mrs. Nettlepoint if there were any one else in our party, and whenour hostess mentioned her son--there was a chance of his embarking but(wasn't it absurd?) he hadn't decided yet--she returned withextraordinary candour: "Oh dear, I do hope he'll go: that would be solovely for Grace. " Somehow the words made me think of poor Mr. Porterfield's tartan, especially as Jasper Nettlepoint strolled in again at that moment. Hismother at once challenged him: it was ten o'clock; had he by chance madeup his great mind? Apparently he failed to hear her, being in the firstplace surprised at the strange ladies and then struck with the fact thatone of them wasn't strange. The young man, after a slight hesitation, greeted Miss Mavis with a handshake and a "Oh good-evening, how do youdo?" He didn't utter her name--which I could see he must have forgotten;but she immediately pronounced his, availing herself of the Americangirl's discretion to "present" him to her mother. "Well, you might have told me you knew him all this time!" that ladyjovially cried. Then she had an equal confidence for Mrs. Nettlepoint. "It would have saved me a worry--an acquaintance already begun. " "Ah my son's acquaintances!" our hostess murmured. "Yes, and my daughter's too!" Mrs. Mavis gaily echoed. "Mrs. Allendidn't tell us _you_ were going, " she continued to the young man. "She'd have been clever if she had been able to!" Mrs. Nettlepointsighed. "Dear mother, I have my telegram, " Jasper remarked, looking at GraceMavis. "I know you very little, " the girl said, returning his observation. "I've danced with you at some ball--for some sufferers by something orother. " "I think it was an inundation or a big fire, " she a little languidlysmiled. "But it was a long time ago--and I haven't seen you since. " "I've been in far countries--to my loss. I should have said it was a bigfire. " "It was at the Horticultural Hall. I didn't remember your name, " saidGrace Mavis. "That's very unkind of you, when I recall vividly that you had a pinkdress. " "Oh I remember that dress--your strawberry tarletan: you looked lovely init!" Mrs. Mavis broke out. "You must get another just like it--on theother side. " "Yes, your daughter looked charming in it, " said Jasper Nettlepoint. Thenhe added to the girl: "Yet you mentioned my name to your mother. " "It came back to me--seeing you here. I had no idea this was your home. " "Well, I confess it isn't, much. Oh there are some drinks!"--heapproached the tray and its glasses. "Indeed there are and quite delicious"--Mrs. Mavis largely wiped hermouth. "Won't you have another then?--a pink one, like your daughter's gown. " "With pleasure, sir. Oh do see them over, " Mrs. Mavis continued, accepting from the young man's hand a third tumbler. "My mother and that gentleman? Surely they can take care of themselves, "he freely pleaded. "Then my daughter--she has a claim as an old friend. " But his mother had by this time interposed. "Jasper, what does yourtelegram say?" He paid her no heed: he stood there with his glass in his hand, lookingfrom Mrs. Mavis to Miss Grace. "Ah leave her to me, madam; I'm quite competent, " I said to Mrs. Mavis. Then the young man gave me his attention. The next minute he asked ofthe girl: "Do you mean you're going to Europe?" "Yes, tomorrow. In the same ship as your mother. " "That's what we've come here for, to see all about it, " said Mrs. Mavis. "My son, take pity on me and tell me what light your telegram throws, "Mrs. Nettlepoint went on. "I will, dearest, when I've quenched my thirst. " And he slowly drainedhis glass. "Well, I declare you're worse than Gracie, " Mrs. Mavis commented. "Shewas first one thing and then the other--but only about up to threeo'clock yesterday. " "Excuse me--won't you take something?" Jasper inquired of Gracie; whohowever still declined, as if to make up for her mother's copious_consommation_. I found myself quite aware that the two ladies would dowell to take leave, the question of Mrs. Nettlepoint's good will being sosatisfactorily settled and the meeting of the morrow at the ship so nearat hand and I went so far as to judge that their protracted stay, withtheir hostess visibly in a fidget, gave the last proof of their want ofbreeding. Miss Grace after all then was not such an improvement on hermother, for she easily might have taken the initiative of departure, inspite of Mrs. Mavis's evident "game" of making her own absorption ofrefreshment last as long as possible. I watched the girl with increasinginterest; I couldn't help asking myself a question or two about her andeven perceiving already (in a dim and general way) that rather markedembarrassment, or at least anxiety attended her. Wasn't it complicatingthat she should have needed, by remaining long enough, to assuage acertain suspense, to learn whether or no Jasper were going to sail?Hadn't something particular passed between them on the occasion or at theperiod to which we had caught their allusion, and didn't she really notknow her mother was bringing her to _his_ mother's, though she apparentlyhad thought it well not to betray knowledge? Such things weresymptomatic--though indeed one scarce knew of what--on the part of ayoung lady betrothed to that curious cross-barred phantom of a Mr. Porterfield. But I am bound to add that she gave me no further warrantfor wonder than was conveyed in her all tacitly and covertly encouragingher mother to linger. Somehow I had a sense that _she_ was conscious ofthe indecency of this. I got up myself to go, but Mrs. Nettlepointdetained me after seeing that my movement wouldn't be taken as a hint, and I felt she wished me not to leave my fellow visitors on her hands. Jasper complained of the closeness of the room, said that it was not anight to sit in a room--one ought to be out in the air, under the sky. Hedenounced the windows that overlooked the water for not opening upon abalcony or a terrace, until his mother, whom he hadn't yet satisfiedabout his telegram, reminded him that there was a beautiful balcony infront, with room for a dozen people. She assured him we would go and sitthere if it would please him. "It will be nice and cool tomorrow, when we steam into the great ocean, "said Miss Mavis, expressing with more vivacity than she had yet throwninto any of her utterances my own thought of half an hour before. Mrs. Nettlepoint replied that it would probably be freezing cold, and her sonmurmured that he would go and try the drawing-room balcony and reportupon it. Just as he was turning away he said, smiling, to Miss Mavis:"Won't you come with me and see if it's pleasant?" "Oh well, we had better not stay all night!" her mother exclaimed, butstill without moving. The girl moved, after a moment's hesitation;--sherose and accompanied Jasper to the other room. I saw how her slimtallness showed to advantage as she walked, and that she looked well asshe passed, with her head thrown back, into the darkness of the otherpart of the house. There was something rather marked, rathersurprising--I scarcely knew why, for the act in itself was simpleenough--in her acceptance of such a plea, and perhaps it was our sense ofthis that held the rest of us somewhat stiffly silent as she remainedaway. I was waiting for Mrs. Mavis to go, so that I myself might go; andMrs. Nettlepoint was waiting for her to go so that I mightn't. Thisdoubtless made the young lady's absence appear to us longer than itreally was--it was probably very brief. Her mother moreover, I think, had now a vague lapse from ease. Jasper Nettlepoint presently returnedto the back drawing-room to serve his companion with our lucent syrup, and he took occasion to remark that it was lovely on the balcony: onereally got some air, the breeze being from that quarter. I remembered, as he went away with his tinkling tumbler, that from _my_ hand, a fewminutes before, Miss Mavis had not been willing to accept this innocentoffering. A little later Mrs. Nettlepoint said: "Well, if it's sopleasant there we had better go ourselves. " So we passed to the frontand in the other room met the two young people coming in from thebalcony. I was to wonder, in the light of later things, exactly how longthey had occupied together a couple of the set of cane chairs garnishingthe place in summer. If it had been but five minutes that only madesubsequent events more curious. "We must go, mother, " Miss Mavisimmediately said; and a moment after, with a little renewal of chatter asto our general meeting on the ship, the visitors had taken leave. Jasperwent down with them to the door and as soon as they had got off Mrs. Nettlepoint quite richly exhaled her impression. "Ah but'll she be abore--she'll be a bore of bores!" "Not through talking too much, surely. " "An affectation of silence is as bad. I hate that particular _pose_;it's coming up very much now; an imitation of the English, likeeverything else. A girl who tries to be statuesque at sea--that will acton one's nerves!" "I don't know what she tries to be, but she succeeds in being veryhandsome. " "So much the better for you. I'll leave her to you, for I shall be shutup. I like her being placed under my 'care'!" my friend cried. "She'll be under Jasper's, " I remarked. "Ah he won't go, " she wailed--"I want it too much!" "But I didn't see it that way. I have an idea he'll go. " "Why didn't he tell me so then--when he came in?" "He was diverted by that young woman--a beautiful unexpected girl sittingthere. " "Diverted from his mother and her fond hope?--his mother trembling forhis decision?" "Well"--I pieced it together--"she's an old friend, older than we know. It was a meeting after a long separation. " "Yes, such a lot of them as he does know!" Mrs. Nettlepoint sighed. "Such a lot of them?" "He has so many female friends--in the most varied circles. " "Well, we can close round her then, " I returned; "for I on my side know, or used to know, her young man. " "Her intended?"--she had a light of relief for this. "The very one she's going out to. He can't, by the way, " it occurred tome, "be very young now. " "How odd it sounds--her muddling after him!" said Mrs. Nettlepoint. I was going to reply that it wasn't odd if you knew Mr. Porterfield, butI reflected that that perhaps only made it odder. I told my companionbriefly who he was--that I had met him in the old Paris days, when Ibelieved for a fleeting hour that I could learn to paint, when I livedwith the _jeunesse des ecoles_; and her comment on this was simply:"Well, he had better have come out for her!" "Perhaps so. She looked to me as she sat there as if, she might changeher mind at the last moment. " "About her marriage? "About sailing. But she won't change now. " Jasper came back, and his mother instantly challenged him. "Well, _are_you going?" "Yes, I shall go"--he was finally at peace about it. "I've got mytelegram. " "Oh your telegram!"--I ventured a little to jeer. "That charming girl's your telegram. " He gave me a look, but in the dusk I couldn't make out very well what itconveyed. Then he bent over his mother, kissing her. "My news isn'tparticularly satisfactory. I'm going for _you_. " "Oh you humbug!" she replied. But she was of course delighted. CHAPTER II People usually spend the first hours of a voyage in squeezing themselvesinto their cabins, taking their little precautions, either so excessiveor so inadequate, wondering how they can pass so many days in such a holeand asking idiotic questions of the stewards, who appear in comparisonrare men of the world. My own initiations were rapid, as became an oldsailor, and so, it seemed, were Miss Mavis's, for when I mounted to thedeck at the end of half an hour I found her there alone, in the stern ofthe ship, her eyes on the dwindling continent. It dwindled very fast forso big a place. I accosted her, having had no conversation with her amidthe crowd of leave-takers and the muddle of farewells before we put off;we talked a little about the boat, our fellow-passengers and ourprospects, and then I said: "I think you mentioned last night a name Iknow--that of Mr. Porterfield. " "Oh no I didn't!" she answered very straight while she smiled at methrough her closely-drawn veil. "Then it was your mother. " "Very likely it was my mother. " And she continued to smile as if I oughtto have known the difference. "I venture to allude to him because I've an idea I used to know him, " Iwent on. "Oh I see. " And beyond this remark she appeared to take no interest; sheleft it to me to make any connexion. "That is if it's the same one. " It struck me as feeble to say nothingmore; so I added "My Mr. Porterfield was called David. " "Well, so is ours. " "Ours" affected me as clever. "I suppose I shall see him again if he's to meet you at Liverpool, " Icontinued. "Well, it will be bad if he doesn't. " It was too soon for me to have the idea that it would be bad if he did:that only came later. So I remarked that, not having seen him for somany years, it was very possible I shouldn't know him. "Well, I've not seen him for a considerable time, but I expect I shallknow him all the same. " "Oh with you it's different, " I returned with harmlessly brightsignificance. "Hasn't he been back since those days?" "I don't know, " she sturdily professed, "what days you mean. " "When I knew him in Paris--ages ago. He was a pupil of the Ecole desBeaux Arts. He was studying architecture. " "Well, he's studying it still, " said Grace Mavis. "Hasn't he learned it yet?" "I don't know what he has learned. I shall see. " Then she added for thebenefit of my perhaps undue levity: "Architecture's very difficult andhe's tremendously thorough. " "Oh yes, I remember that. He was an admirable worker. But he must havebecome quite a foreigner if it's so many years since he has been athome. " She seemed to regard this proposition at first as complicated; but shedid what she could for me. "Oh he's not changeable. If he werechangeable--" Then, however, she paused. I daresay she had been going to observe thatif he were changeable he would long ago have given her up. After aninstant she went on: "He wouldn't have stuck so to his profession. Youcan't make much by it. " I sought to attenuate her rather odd maidenly grimness. "It depends onwhat you call much. " "It doesn't make you rich. " "Oh of course you've got to practise it--and to practise it long. " "Yes--so Mr. Porterfield says. " Something in the way she uttered these words made me laugh--they were socalm an implication that the gentleman in question didn't live up to hisprinciples. But I checked myself, asking her if she expected to remainin Europe long--to what one might call settle. "Well, it will be a good while if it takes me as long to come back as ithas taken me to go out. " "And I think your mother said last night that it was your first visit. " Miss Mavis, in her deliberate way, met my eyes. "Didn't mother talk!" "It was all very interesting. " She continued to look at me. "You don't think that, " she then simplystated. "What have I to gain then by saying it?" "Oh men have always something to gain. " "You make me in that case feel a terrible failure! I hope at any ratethat it gives you pleasure, " I went on, "the idea of seeing foreignlands. " "Mercy--I should think so!" This was almost genial, and it cheered me proportionately. "It's a pityour ship's not one of the fast ones, if you're impatient. " She was silent a little after which she brought out: "Oh I guess it'll befast enough!" That evening I went in to see Mrs. Nettlepoint and sat on her sea-trunk, which was pulled out from under the berth to accommodate me. It was nineo'clock but not quite dark, as our northward course had already taken usinto the latitude of the longer days. She had made her nest admirablyand now rested from her labours; she lay upon her sofa in a dressing-gownand a cap that became her. It was her regular practice to spend thevoyage in her cabin, which smelt positively good--such was the refinementof her art; and she had a secret peculiar to herself for keeping her portopen without shipping seas. She hated what she called the mess of theship and the idea, if she should go above, of meeting stewards withplates of supererogatory food. She professed to be content with hersituation--we promised to lend each other books and I assured herfamiliarly that I should be in and out of her room a dozen times aday--pitying me for having to mingle in society. She judged this alimited privilege, for on the deck before we left the wharf she had takena view of our fellow-passengers. "Oh I'm an inveterate, almost a professional observer, " I replied, "andwith that vice I'm as well occupied as an old woman in the sun with herknitting. It makes me, in any situation, just inordinately andsubmissively _see_ things. I shall see them even here and shall comedown very often and tell you about them. You're not interested today, but you will be tomorrow, for a ship's a great school of gossip. Youwon't believe the number of researches and problems you'll be engaged inby the middle of the voyage. " "I? Never in the world!--lying here with my nose in a book and notcaring a straw. " "You'll participate at second hand. You'll see through my eyes, hangupon my lips, take sides, feel passions, all sorts of sympathies andindignations. I've an idea, " I further developed, "that your younglady's the person on board who will interest me most. " "'Mine' indeed! She hasn't been near me since we left the dock. " "There you are--you do feel she owes you something. Well, " I added, "she's very curious. " "You've such cold-blooded terms!" Mrs. Nettlepoint wailed. "Elle ne saitpas se conduire; she ought to have come to ask about me. " "Yes, since you're under her care, " I laughed. "As for her not knowinghow to behave--well, that's exactly what we shall see. " "You will, but not I! I wash my hands of her. " "Don't say that--don't say that. " Mrs. Nettlepoint looked at me a moment. "Why do you speak so solemnly?" In return I considered her. "I'll tell you before we land. And have youseen much of your son?" "Oh yes, he has come in several times. He seems very much pleased. Hehas got a cabin to himself. " "That's great luck, " I said, "but I've an idea he's always in luck. Iwas sure I should have to offer him the second berth in my room. " "And you wouldn't have enjoyed that, because you don't like him, " shetook upon herself to say. "What put that into your head?" "It isn't in my head--it's in my heart, my _coeur de mere_. We guessthose things. You think he's selfish. I could see it last night. " "Dear lady, " I contrived promptly enough to reply, "I've no general ideasabout him at all. He's just one of the phenomena I am going to observe. He seems to me a very fine young man. However, " I added, "since you'vementioned last night I'll admit that I thought he rather tantalised you. He played with your suspense. " "Why he came at the last just to please me, " said Mrs. Nettlepoint. I was silent a little. "Are you sure it was for your sake?" "Ah, perhaps it was for yours!" I bore up, however, against this thrust, characteristic of perfidiouswoman when you presume to side with her against a fond tormentor. "Whenhe went out on the balcony with that girl, " I found assurance to suggest, "perhaps she asked him to come for _hers_. " "Perhaps she did. But why should he do everything she asks him--such asshe is?" "I don't know yet, but perhaps I shall know later. Not that he'll tellme--for he'll never tell me anything: he's not, " I consistently opined, "one of those who tell. " "If she didn't ask him, what you say is a great wrong to her, " said Mrs. Nettlepoint. "Yes, if she didn't. But you say that to protect Jasper--not to protecther, " I smiled. "You _are_ cold-blooded--it's uncanny!" my friend exclaimed. "Ah this is nothing yet! Wait a while--you'll see. At sea in generalI'm awful--I exceed the limits. If I've outraged her in thought I'lljump overboard. There are ways of asking--a man doesn't need to tell awoman that--without the crude words. " "I don't know what you imagine between them, " said Mrs. Nettlepoint. "Well, nothing, " I allowed, "but what was visible on the surface. Ittranspired, as the newspapers say, that they were old friends. " "He met her at some promiscuous party--I asked him about it afterwards. She's not a person"--my hostess was confident--"whom he could ever thinkof seriously. " "That's exactly what I believe. " "You don't observe--you know--you imagine, " Mrs. Nettlepoint continued toargue. "How do you reconcile her laying a trap for Jasper with her goingout to Liverpool on an errand of love?" Oh I wasn't to be caught that way! "I don't for an instant suppose shelaid a trap; I believe she acted on the impulse of the moment. She'sgoing out to Liverpool on an errand of marriage; that's not necessarilythe same thing as an errand of love, especially for one who happens tohave had a personal impression of the gentleman she's engaged to. " "Well, there are certain decencies which in such a situation the mostabandoned of her sex would still observe. You apparently judge hercapable--on no evidence--of violating them. " "Ah you don't understand the shades of things, " I returned. "Decenciesand violations, dear lady--there's no need for such heavy artillery! Ican perfectly imagine that without the least immodesty she should havesaid to Jasper on the balcony, in fact if not in words: 'I'm in dreadfulspirits, but if you come I shall feel better, and that will be pleasantfor you too. '" "And why is she in dreadful spirits?" "She isn't!" I replied, laughing. My poor friend wondered. "What then is she doing?" "She's walking with your son. " Mrs. Nettlepoint for a moment said nothing; then she treated me toanother inconsequence. "Ah she's horrid!" "No, she's charming!" I protested. "You mean she's 'curious'?" "Well, for me it's the same thing!" This led my friend of course to declare once more that I wascold-blooded. On the afternoon of the morrow we had another talk, andshe told me that in the morning Miss Mavis had paid her a long visit. Sheknew nothing, poor creature, about anything, but her intentions were goodand she was evidently in her own eyes conscientious and decorous. AndMrs. Nettlepoint concluded these remarks with the sigh "Unfortunateperson!" "You think she's a good deal to be pitied then?" "Well, her story sounds dreary--she told me a good deal of it. She fellto talking little by little and went from one thing to another. She's inthat situation when a girl _must_ open herself--to some woman. " "Hasn't she got Jasper?" I asked. "He isn't a woman. You strike me as jealous of him, " my companion added. "I daresay _he_ thinks so--or will before the end. Ah no--ah no!" And Iasked Mrs. Nettlepoint if our young lady struck her as, very grossly, aflirt. She gave me no answer, but went on to remark that she found itodd and interesting to see the way a girl like Grace Mavis resembled thegirls of the kind she herself knew better, the girls of "society, " at thesame time that she differed from them; and the way the differences andresemblances were so mixed up that on certain questions you couldn't tellwhere you'd find her. You'd think she'd feel as you did because you hadfound her feeling so, and then suddenly, in regard to some othermatter--which was yet quite the same--she'd be utterly wanting. Mrs. Nettlepoint proceeded to observe--to such idle speculations does thevacancy of sea-hours give encouragement--that she wondered whether itwere better to be an ordinary girl very well brought up or anextraordinary girl not brought up at all. "Oh I go in for the extraordinary girl under all circumstances. " "It's true that if you're _very_ well brought up you're not, you can'tbe, ordinary, " said Mrs. Nettlepoint, smelling her strong salts. "You'rea lady, at any rate. " "And Miss Mavis is fifty miles out--is that what you mean?" "Well--you've seen her mother. " "Yes, but I think your contention would be that among such people themother doesn't count. " "Precisely, and that's bad. " "I see what you mean. But isn't it rather hard? If your mother doesn'tknow anything it's better you should be independent of her, and yet ifyou are that constitutes a bad note. " I added that Mrs. Mavis hadappeared to count sufficiently two nights before. She had said and doneeverything she wanted, while the girl sat silent and respectful. Grace'sattitude, so far as her parent was concerned, had been eminently decent. "Yes, but she 'squirmed' for her, " said Mrs. Nettlepoint. "Ah if you know it I may confess she has told me as much. " My friend stared. "Told _you_? There's one of the things they do!" "Well, it was only a word. Won't you let me know whether you do thinkher a flirt?" "Try her yourself--that's better than asking another woman; especially asyou pretend to study folk. " "Oh your judgement wouldn't probably at all determine mine. It's asbearing on _you_ I ask it. " Which, however, demanded explanation, sothat I was duly frank; confessing myself curious as to how far maternalimmorality would go. It made her at first but repeat my words. "Maternal immorality?" "You desire your son to have every possible distraction on his voyage, and if you can make up your mind in the sense I refer to that will makeit all right. He'll have no responsibility. " "Heavens, how you analyse!" she cried. "I haven't in the least yourpassion for making up my mind. " "Then if you chance it, " I returned, "you'll be more immoral still. " "Your reasoning's strange, " said Mrs. Nettlepoint; "when it was you whotried to put into my head yesterday that she had asked him to come. " "Yes, but in good faith. " "What do you mean, in such a case, by that?" "Why, as girls of that sort do. Their allowance and measure in suchmatters, " I expounded, "is much larger than that of young persons whohave been, as you say, _very_ well brought up; and yet I'm not sure thaton the whole I don't think them thereby the more innocent. Miss Mavis isengaged, and she's to be married next week, but it's an old old story, and there's no more romance in it than if she were going to bephotographed. So her usual life proceeds, and her usual lifeconsists--and that of _ces demoiselles_ in general--in having plenty ofgentlemen's society. Having it I mean without having any harm from it. " Mrs. Nettlepoint had given me due attention. "Well, if there's no harmfrom it what are you talking about and why am I immoral?" I hesitated, laughing. "I retract--you're sane and clear. I'm sure shethinks there won't be any harm, " I added. "That's the great point. " "The great point?" "To be settled, I mean. " "Mercy, we're not trying them!" cried my friend. "How can _we_ settleit?" "I mean of course in our minds. There will be nothing more interestingthese next ten days for our minds to exercise themselves upon. " "Then they'll get terribly tired of it, " said Mrs. Nettlepoint. "No, no--because the interest will increase and the plot will thicken. Itsimply can't _not_, " I insisted. She looked at me as if she thought memore than Mephistophelean, and I went back to something she had latelymentioned. "So she told you everything in her life was dreary?" "Not everything, but most things. And she didn't tell me so much as Iguessed it. She'll tell me more the next time. She'll behave properlynow about coming in to see me; I told her she ought to. " "I'm glad of that, " I said. "Keep her with you as much as possible. " "I don't follow you closely, " Mrs. Nettlepoint replied, "but so far as Ido I don't think your remarks in the best taste. " "Well, I'm too excited, I lose my head in these sports, " I had torecognise--"cold-blooded as you think me. Doesn't she like Mr. Porterfield?" "Yes, that's the worst of it. " I kept making her stare. "The worst of it?" "He's so good--there's no fault to be found with him. Otherwise she'dhave thrown it all up. It has dragged on since she was eighteen: shebecame engaged to him before he went abroad to study. It was one ofthose very young and perfectly needless blunders that parents in Americamight make so much less possible than they do. The thing is to insist onone's daughter waiting, on the engagement's being long; and then, afteryou've got that started, to take it on every occasion as little seriouslyas possible--to make it die out. You can easily tire it to death, " Mrs. Nettlepoint competently stated. "However, " she concluded, "Mr. Porterfield has taken this one seriously for some years. He has done hispart to keep it alive. She says he adores her. " "His part? Surely his part would have been to marry her by this time. " "He has really no money. " My friend was even more confidently able toreport it than I had been. "He ought to have got some, in seven years, " I audibly reflected. "So I think she thinks. There are some sorts of helplessness that arecontemptible. However, a small difference has taken place. That's whyhe won't wait any longer. His mother has come out, she has something--alittle--and she's able to assist him. She'll live with them and bearsome of the expenses, and after her death the son will have what thereis. " "How old is she?" I cynically asked. "I haven't the least idea. But it doesn't, on his part, sound veryheroic--or very inspiring for our friend here. He hasn't been to Americasince he first went out. " "That's an odd way of adoring her, " I observed. "I made that objection mentally, but I didn't express it to her. She metit indeed a little by telling me that he had had other chances to marry. " "That surprises me, " I remarked. "But did she say, " I asked, "that _she_had had?" "No, and that's one of the things I thought nice in her; for she musthave had. She didn't try to make out that he had spoiled her life. Shehas three other sisters and there's very little money at home. She hastried to make money; she has written little things and painted littlethings--and dreadful little things they must have been; too bad to thinkof. Her father has had a long illness and has lost his place--he was inreceipt of a salary in connexion with some waterworks--and one of hersisters has lately become a widow, with children and without means. Andso as in fact she never has married any one else, whatever opportunitiesshe may have encountered, she appears to have just made up her mind to goout to Mr. Porterfield as the least of her evils. But it isn't veryamusing. " "Well, " I judged after all, "that only makes her doing it the morehonourable. She'll go through with it, whatever it costs, rather thandisappoint him after he has waited so long. It's true, " I continued, "that when a woman acts from a sense of honour--!" "Well, when she does?" said Mrs. Nettlepoint, for I hung backperceptibly. "It's often so extravagant and unnatural a proceeding as to entail heavycosts on some one. " "You're very impertinent. We all have to pay for each other all thewhile and for each other's virtues as well as vices. " "That's precisely why I shall be sorry for Mr. Porterfield when she stepsoff the ship with her little bill. I mean with her teeth clenched. " "Her teeth are not in the least clenched. She's quite at her easenow"--Mrs. Nettlepoint could answer for that. "Well, we must try and keep her so, " I said. "You must take care that Jasper neglects nothing. " I scarce know whatreflexions this innocent pleasantry of mine provoked on the good lady'spart; the upshot of them at all events was to make her say: "Well, Inever asked her to come; I'm very glad of that. It's all their owndoing. " "'Their' own--you mean Jasper's and hers?" "No indeed. I mean her mother's and Mrs. Allen's; the girl's too ofcourse. They put themselves on us by main force. " "Oh yes, I can testify to that. Therefore I'm glad too. We should havemissed it, I think. " "How seriously you take it!" Mrs. Nettlepoint amusedly cried. "Ah wait a few days!"--and I got up to leave her. CHAPTER III The _Patagonia_ was slow, but spacious and comfortable, and there was amotherly decency in her long nursing rock and her rustling old-fashionedgait, the multitudinous swish, in her wake, as of a thousand properpetticoats. It was as if she wished not to present herself in port withthe splashed eagerness of a young creature. We weren't numerous enoughquite to elbow each other and yet weren't too few to support--with thatfamiliarity and relief which figures and objects acquire on the greatbare field of the ocean and under the great bright glass of the sky. Ihad never liked the sea so much before, indeed I had never liked it atall; but now I had a revelation of how in a midsummer mood it couldplease. It was darkly and magnificently blue and imperturbablyquiet--save for the great regular swell of its heartbeats, the pulse ofits life; and there grew to be something so agreeable in the sense offloating there in infinite isolation and leisure that it was a positivegodsend the _Patagonia_ was no racer. One had never thought of the seaas the great place of safety, but now it came over one that there's noplace so safe from the land. When it doesn't confer trouble it takestrouble away--takes away letters and telegrams and newspapers and visitsand duties and efforts, all the complications, all the superfluities andsuperstitions that we have stuffed into our terrene life. The simpleabsence of the post, when the particular conditions enable you to enjoythe great fact by which it's produced, becomes in itself a positivebliss, and the clean boards of the deck turn to the stage of a play thatamuses, the personal drama of the voyage, the movement and interaction, in the strong sea-light, of figures that end by representingsomething--something moreover of which the interest is never, even in itskeenness, too great to suffer you to slumber. I at any rate dozed toexcess, stretched on my rug with a French novel, and when I opened myeyes I generally saw Jasper Nettlepoint pass with the young womanconfided to his mother's care on his arm. Somehow at these moments, between sleeping and waking, I inconsequently felt that my French novelhad set them in motion. Perhaps this was because I had fallen into thetrick, at the start, of regarding Grace Mavis almost as a married woman, which, as every one knows, is the necessary status of the heroine of sucha work. Every revolution of our engine at any rate would contribute tothe effect of making her one. In the saloon, at meals, my neighbour on the right was a certain littleMrs. Peck, a very short and very round person whose head was enveloped ina "cloud" (a cloud of dirty white wool) and who promptly let me know thatshe was going to Europe for the education of her children. I had alreadyperceived--an hour after we left the dock--that some energetic measurewas required in their interest, but as we were not in Europe yet theredemption of the four little Pecks was stayed. Enjoying untrammelledleisure they swarmed about the ship as if they had been pirates boardingher, and their mother was as powerless to check their licence as if shehad been gagged and stowed away in the hold. They were especially to betrusted to dive between the legs of the stewards when these attendantsarrived with bowls of soup for the languid ladies. Their mother was toobusy counting over to her fellow-passengers all the years Miss Mavis hadbeen engaged. In the blank of our common detachment things that werenobody's business very soon became everybody's, and this was just one ofthose facts that are propagated with mysterious and ridiculous speed. Thewhisper that carries them is very small, in the great scale of things, ofair and space and progress, but it's also very safe, for there's nocompression, no sounding-board, to make speakers responsible. And thenrepetition at sea is somehow not repetition; monotony is in the air, themind is flat and everything recurs--the bells, the meals, the stewards'faces, the romp of children, the walk, the clothes, the very shoes andbuttons of passengers taking their exercise. These things finally growat once so circumstantial and so arid that, in comparison, lights on thepersonal history of one's companions become a substitute for the friendlyflicker of the lost fireside. Jasper Nettlepoint sat on my left hand when he was not upstairs seeingthat Miss Mavis had her repast comfortably on deck. His mother's placewould have been next mine had she shown herself, and then that of theyoung lady under her care. These companions, in other words, would havebeen between us, Jasper marking the limit of the party in that quarter. Miss Mavis was present at luncheon the first day, but dinner passedwithout her coming in, and when it was half over Jasper remarked that hewould go up and look after her. "Isn't that young lady coming--the one who was here to lunch?" Mrs. Peckasked of me as he left the saloon. "Apparently not. My friend tells me she doesn't like the saloon. " "You don't mean to say she's sick, do you?" "Oh no, not in this weather. But she likes to be above. " "And is that gentleman gone up to her?" "Yes, she's under his mother's care. " "And is his mother up there, too?" asked Mrs. Peck, whose processes werehomely and direct. "No, she remains in her cabin. People have different tastes. Perhapsthat's one reason why Miss Mavis doesn't come to table, " I added--"herchaperon not being able to accompany her. " "Her chaperon?" my fellow passenger echoed. "Mrs. Nettlepoint--the lady under whose protection she happens to be. " "Protection?" Mrs. Peck stared at me a moment, moving some valued morselin her mouth; then she exclaimed familiarly "Pshaw!" I was struck withthis and was on the point of asking her what she meant by it when shecontinued: "Ain't we going to see Mrs. Nettlepoint?" "I'm afraid not. She vows she won't stir from her sofa. " "Pshaw!" said Mrs. Peck again. "That's quite a disappointment. " "Do you know her then?" "No, but I know all about her. " Then my companion added: "You don't meanto say she's any real relation?" "Do you mean to me?" "No, to Grace Mavis. " "None at all. They're very new friends, as I happen to know. Thenyou're acquainted with our young lady?" I hadn't noticed the passage ofany recognition between them at luncheon. "Is she your young lady too?" asked Mrs. Peck with high significance. "Ah when people are in the same boat--literally--they belong a little toeach other. " "That's so, " said Mrs. Peck. "I don't know Miss Mavis, but I know allabout her--I live opposite to her on Merrimac Avenue. I don't knowwhether you know that part. " "Oh yes--it's very beautiful. " The consequence of this remark was another "Pshaw!" But Mrs. Peck wenton: "When you've lived opposite to people like that for a long time youfeel as if you had some rights in them--tit for tat! But she didn't takeit up today; she didn't speak to me. She knows who I am as well as sheknows her own mother. " "You had better speak to her first--she's constitutionally shy, " Iremarked. "Shy? She's constitutionally tough! Why she's thirty years old, " criedmy neighbour. "I suppose you know where she's going. " "Oh yes--we all take an interest in that. " "That young man, I suppose, particularly. " And then as I feigned avagueness: "The handsome one who sits _there_. Didn't you tell me he'sMrs. Nettlepoint's son?" "Oh yes--he acts as her deputy. No doubt he does all he can to carry outher function. " Mrs. Peck briefly brooded. I had spoken jocosely, but she took it with aserious face. "Well, she might let him eat his dinner in peace!" shepresently put forth. "Oh he'll come back!" I said, glancing at his place. The repastcontinued and when it was finished I screwed my chair round to leave thetable. Mrs. Peck performed the same movement and we quitted the saloontogether. Outside of it was the usual vestibule, with several seats, from which you could descend to the lower cabins or mount to thepromenade-deck. Mrs. Peck appeared to hesitate as to her course and thensolved the problem by going neither way. She dropped on one of thebenches and looked up at me. "I thought you said he'd come back. " "Young Nettlepoint? Yes, I see he didn't. Miss Mavis then has given himhalf her dinner. " "It's very kind of her! She has been engaged half her life. " "Yes, but that will soon be over. " "So I suppose--as quick as ever we land. Every one knows it on MerrimacAvenue, " Mrs. Peck pursued. "Every one there takes a great interest init. " "Ah of course--a girl like that has many friends. " But my informant discriminated. "I mean even people who don't know her. " "I see, " I went on: "she's so handsome that she attracts attention--peopleenter into her affairs. " Mrs. Peck spoke as from the commanding centre of these. "She _used_ tobe pretty, but I can't say I think she's anything remarkable today. Anyhow, if she attracts attention she ought to be all the more carefulwhat she does. You had better tell her that. " "Oh it's none of my business!" I easily made out, leaving the terriblelittle woman and going above. This profession, I grant, was notperfectly attuned to my real idea, or rather my real idea was not quitein harmony with my profession. The very first thing I did on reachingthe deck was to notice that Miss Mavis was pacing it on JasperNettlepoint's arm and that whatever beauty she might have lost, accordingto Mrs. Peck's insinuation, she still kept enough to make one's eyesfollow her. She had put on a crimson hood, which was very becoming toher and which she wore for the rest of the voyage. She walked very well, with long steps, and I remember that at this moment the sea had a gentleevening swell which made the great ship dip slowly, rhythmically, givinga movement that was graceful to graceful pedestrians and a more awkwardone to the awkward. It was the loveliest hour of a fine day, the clearearly evening, with the glow of the sunset in the air and a purple colouron the deep. It was always present to me that so the waters ploughed bythe Homeric heroes must have looked. I became conscious on thisparticular occasion moreover that Grace Mavis would for the rest of thevoyage be the most visible thing in one's range, the figure that wouldcount most in the composition of groups. She couldn't help it, poorgirl; nature had made her conspicuous--important, as the painters say. She paid for it by the corresponding exposure, the danger that peoplewould, as I had said to Mrs. Peck, enter into her affairs. Jasper Nettlepoint went down at certain times to see his mother, and Iwatched for one of these occasions--on the third day out--and tookadvantage of it to go and sit by Miss Mavis. She wore a light blue veildrawn tightly over her face, so that if the smile with which she greetedme rather lacked intensity I could account for it partly by that. "Well, we're getting on--we're getting on, " I said cheerfully, looking atthe friendly twinkling sea. "Are we going very fast?" "Not fast, but steadily. _Ohne Hast, ohne Rast_--do you know German?" "Well, I've studied it--some. " "It will be useful to you over there when you travel. " "Well yes, if we do. But I don't suppose we shall much. Mr. Nettlepointsays we ought, " my young woman added in a moment. "Ah of course _he_ thinks so. He has been all over the world. " "Yes, he has described some of the places. They must be wonderful. Ididn't know I should like it so much. " "But it isn't 'Europe' yet!" I laughed. Well, she didn't care if it wasn't. "I mean going on this way. I couldgo on for ever--for ever and ever. " "Ah you know it's not always like this, " I hastened to mention. "Well, it's better than Boston. " "It isn't so good as Paris, " I still more portentously noted. "Oh I know all about Paris. There's no freshness in that. I feel as ifI had been there all the time. " "You mean you've heard so much of it?" "Oh yes, nothing else for ten years. " I had come to talk with Miss Mavis because she was attractive, but I hadbeen rather conscious of the absence of a good topic, not feeling atliberty to revert to Mr. Porterfield. She hadn't encouraged me, when Ispoke to her as we were leaving Boston, to go on with the history of myacquaintance with this gentleman; and yet now, unexpectedly, she appearedto imply--it was doubtless one of the disparities mentioned by Mrs. Nettlepoint--that he might be glanced at without indelicacy. "I see--you mean by letters, " I remarked. "We won't live in a good part. I know enough to know that, " she went on. "Well, it isn't as if there were any very bad ones, " I answeredreassuringly. "Why Mr. Nettlepoint says it's regular mean. " "And to what does he apply that expression?" She eyed me a moment as if I were elegant at her expense, but sheanswered my question. "Up there in the Batignolles. I seem to make outit's worse than Merrimac Avenue. " "Worse--in what way?" "Why, even less where the nice people live. " "He oughtn't to say that, " I returned. And I ventured to back it up. "Don't you call Mr. Porterfield a nice person?" "Oh it doesn't make any difference. " She watched me again a momentthrough her veil, the texture of which gave her look a suffusedprettiness. "Do you know him very little?" she asked. "Mr. Porterfield?" "No, Mr. Nettlepoint. " "Ah very little. He's very considerably my junior, you see. " She had a fresh pause, as if almost again for my elegance; but she wenton: "He's younger than me too. " I don't know what effect of the comicthere could have been in it, but the turn was unexpected and it made melaugh. Neither do I know whether Miss Mavis took offence at mysensibility on this head, though I remember thinking at the moment withcompunction that it had brought a flush to her cheek. At all events shegot up, gathering her shawl and her books into her arm. "I'm goingdown--I'm tired. " "Tired of me, I'm afraid. " "No, not yet. " "I'm like you, " I confessed. "I should like it to go on and on. " She had begun to walk along the deck to the companionway and I went withher. "Well, I guess _I_ wouldn't, after all!" I had taken her shawl from her to carry it, but at the top of the stepsthat led down to the cabins I had to give it back. "Your mother would beglad if she could know, " I observed as we parted. But she was proof against my graces. "If she could know what?" "How well you're getting on. " I refused to be discouraged. "And thatgood Mrs. Allen. " "Oh mother, mother! She made me come, she pushed me off. " And almost asif not to say more she went quickly below. I paid Mrs. Nettlepoint a morning visit after luncheon and another in theevening, before she "turned in. " That same day, in the evening, she saidto me suddenly: "Do you know what I've done? I've asked Jasper. " "Asked him what?" "Why, if _she_ asked him, you understand. " I wondered. "_Do_ I understand?" "If you don't it's because you 'regular' won't, as she says. If thatgirl really asked him--on the balcony--to sail with us. " "My dear lady, do you suppose that if she did he'd tell you?" She had to recognise my acuteness. "That's just what he says. But hesays she didn't. " "And do you consider the statement valuable?" I asked, laughing out. "Youhad better ask your young friend herself. " Mrs. Nettlepoint stared. "I couldn't do that. " On which I was the more amused that I had to explain I was only amused. "What does it signify now?" "I thought you thought everything signified. You were so full, " shecried, "of signification!" "Yes, but we're further out now, and somehow in mid-ocean everythingbecomes absolute. " "What else _can_ he do with decency?" Mrs. Nettlepoint went on. "If, asmy son, he were never to speak to her it would be very rude and you'dthink that stranger still. Then _you_ would do what he does, and wherewould be the difference?" "How do you know what he does? I haven't mentioned him for twenty-fourhours. " "Why, she told me herself. She came in this afternoon. " "What an odd thing to tell you!" I commented. "Not as she says it. She says he's full of attention, perfectlydevoted--looks after her all the time. She seems to want me to know it, so that I may approve him for it. " "That's charming; it shows her good conscience. " "Yes, or her great cleverness. " Something in the tone in which Mrs. Nettlepoint said this caused me toreturn in real surprise: "Why what do you suppose she has in her mind?" "To get hold of him, to make him go so far he can't retreat. To marryhim perhaps. " "To marry him? And what will she do with Mr. Porterfield?" "She'll ask me just to make it all right to him--or perhaps you. " "Yes, as an old friend"--and for a moment I felt it awkwardly possible. But I put to her seriously: "_Do_ you see Jasper caught like that?" "Well, he's only a boy--he's younger at least than she. " "Precisely; she regards him as a child. She remarked to me herselftoday, that is, that he's so much younger. " Mrs. Nettlepoint took this in. "Does she talk of it with you? That showsshe has a plan, that she has thought it over!" I've sufficiently expressed--for the interest of my anecdote--that Ifound an oddity in one of our young companions, but I was far fromjudging her capable of laying a trap for the other. Moreover my readingof Jasper wasn't in the least that he was catchable--could be made to doa thing if he didn't want to do it. Of course it wasn't impossible thathe might be inclined, that he might take it--or already have takenit--into his head to go further with his mother's charge; but to believethis I should require still more proof than his always being with her. Hewanted at most to "take up with her" for the voyage. "If you'vequestioned him perhaps you've tried to make him feel responsible, " I saidto my fellow critic. "A little, but it's very difficult. Interference makes him perverse. Onehas to go gently. Besides, it's too absurd--think of her age. If shecan't take care of herself!" cried Mrs. Nettlepoint. "Yes, let us keep thinking of her age, though it's not so prodigious. Andif things get very bad you've one resource left, " I added. She wondered. "To lock her up in her cabin?" "No--to come out of yours. " "Ah never, never! If it takes that to save her she must be lost. Besides, what good would it do? If I were to go above she could comebelow. " "Yes, but you could keep Jasper with you. " "_Could_ I?" Mrs. Nettlepoint demanded in the manner of a woman who knewher son. In the saloon the next day, after dinner, over the red cloth of thetables, beneath the swinging lamps and the racks of tumblers, decantersand wine-glasses, we sat down to whist, Mrs. Peck, to oblige, taking ahand in the game. She played very badly and talked too much, and whenthe rubber was over assuaged her discomfiture (though not mine--we hadbeen partners) with a Welsh rabbit and a tumbler of something hot. Wehad done with the cards, but while she waited for this refreshment shesat with her elbows on the table shuffling a pack. "She hasn't spoken to me yet--she won't do it, " she remarked in a moment. "Is it possible there's any one on the ship who hasn't spoken to you?" "Not that girl--she knows too well!" Mrs. Peck looked round our littlecircle with a smile of intelligence--she had familiar communicative eyes. Several of our company had assembled, according to the wont, the lastthing in the evening, of those who are cheerful at sea, for theconsumption of grilled sardines and devilled bones. "What then does she know?" "Oh she knows _I_ know. " "Well, we know what Mrs. Peck knows, " one of the ladies of the groupobserved to me with an air of privilege. "Well, you wouldn't know if I hadn't told you--from the way she acts, "said our friend with a laugh of small charm. "She's going out to a gentleman who lives over there--he's waiting thereto marry her, " the other lady went on, in the tone of authenticinformation. I remember that her name was Mrs. Gotch and that her mouthlooked always as if she were whistling. "Oh he knows--I've told him, " said Mrs. Peck. "Well, I presume every one knows, " Mrs. Gotch contributed. "Dear madam, is it every one's business?" I asked. "Why, don't you think it's a peculiar way to act?"--and Mrs. Gotch wasevidently surprised at my little protest. "Why it's right there--straight in front of you, like a play at thetheatre--as if you had paid to see it, " said Mrs. Peck. "If you don'tcall it public!" "Aren't you mixing things up? What do you call public?" "Why the way they go on. They're up there now. " "They cuddle up there half the night, " said Mrs. Gotch. "I don't knowwhen they come down. Any hour they like. When all the lights are outthey're up there still. " "Oh you can't tire them out. They don't want relief--like the ship'swatch!" laughed one of the gentlemen. "Well, if they enjoy each other's society what's the harm?" anotherasked. "They'd do just the same on land. " "They wouldn't do it on the public streets, I presume, " said Mrs. Peck. "And they wouldn't do it if Mr. Porterfield was round!" "Isn't that just where your confusion comes in?" I made answer. "It'spublic enough that Miss Mavis and Mr. Nettlepoint are always together, but it isn't in the least public that she's going to be married. " "Why how can you say--when the very sailors know it! The Captain knowsit and all the officers know it. They see them there, especially atnight, when they're sailing the ship. " "I thought there was some rule--!" submitted Mrs. Gotch. "Well, there is--that you've got to behave yourself, " Mrs. Peckexplained. "So the Captain told me--he said they have some rule. Hesaid they have to have, when people are too undignified. " "Is that the term he used?" I inquired. "Well, he may have said when they attract too much attention. " I ventured to discriminate. "It's we who attract the attention--bytalking about what doesn't concern us and about what we really don'tknow. " "She said the Captain said he'd tell on her as soon as ever we arrive, "Mrs. Gotch none the less serenely pursued. "_She_ said--?" I repeated, bewildered. "Well, he did say so, that he'd think it his duty to inform Mr. Porterfield when he comes on to meet her--if they keep it up in the sameway, " said Mrs. Peck. "Oh they'll keep it up, don't you fear!" one of the gentlemen exclaimed. "Dear madam, the Captain's having his joke on you, " was, however, my owncongruous reply. "No, he ain't--he's right down scandalised. He says he regards us all asa real family and wants the family not to be downright coarse. " I feltMrs. Peck irritated by my controversial tone: she challenged me withconsiderable spirit. "How can you say I don't know it when all thestreet knows it and has known it for years--for years and years?" Shespoke as if the girl had been engaged at least for twenty. "What's shegoing out for if not to marry him?" "Perhaps she's going to see how he looks, " suggested one of thegentlemen. "He'd look queer--if he knew. " "Well, I guess he'll know, " said Mrs. Gotch. "She'd tell him herself--she wouldn't be afraid, " the gentleman went on. "Well she might as well kill him. He'll jump overboard, " Mrs. Peck couldforetell. "Jump overboard?" cried Mrs. Gotch as if she hoped then that Mr. Porterfield would be told. "He has just been waiting for this--for long, long years, " said Mrs. Peck. "Do you happen to know him?" I asked. She replied at her convenience. "No, but I know a lady who does. Areyou going up?" I had risen from my place--I had not ordered supper. "I'm going to takea turn before going to bed. " "Well then you'll see!" Outside the saloon I hesitated, for Mrs. Peck's admonition made me feelfor a moment that if I went up I should have entered in a manner into herlittle conspiracy. But the night was so warm and splendid that I hadbeen intending to smoke a cigar in the air before going below, and Ididn't see why I should deprive myself of this pleasure in order to seemnot to mind Mrs. Peck. I mounted accordingly and saw a few figuressitting or moving about in the darkness. The ocean looked black andsmall, as it is apt to do at night, and the long mass of the ship, withits vague dim wings, seemed to take up a great part of it. There weremore stars than one saw on land and the heavens struck one more than everas larger than the earth. Grace Mavis and her companion were not, so faras I perceived at first, among the few passengers who lingered late, andI was glad, because I hated to hear her talked about in the manner of thegossips I had left at supper. I wished there had been some way toprevent it, but I could think of none but to recommend her privately toreconsider her rule of discretion. That would be a very delicatebusiness, and perhaps it would be better to begin with Jasper, thoughthat would be delicate too. At any rate one might let him know, in afriendly spirit, to how much remark he exposed the young lady--leavingthis revelation to work its way upon him. Unfortunately I couldn'taltogether believe that the pair were unconscious of the observation andthe opinion of the passengers. They weren't boy and girl; they had acertain social perspective in their eye. I was meanwhile at any rate inno possession of the details of that behaviour which had madethem--according to the version of my good friends in the saloon--ascandal to the ship; for though I had taken due note of them, as willalready have been gathered, I had taken really no such ferocious, or atleast such competent, note as Mrs. Peck. Nevertheless the probabilitywas that they knew what was thought of them--what naturally would be--andsimply didn't care. That made our heroine out rather perverse and evenrather shameless; and yet somehow if these were her leanings I didn'tdislike her for them. I don't know what strange secret excuses I foundfor her. I presently indeed encountered, on the spot, a need for any Imight have at call, since, just as I was on the point of going belowagain, after several restless turns and--within the limit where smokingwas allowed--as many puffs at a cigar as I cared for, I became aware of acouple of figures settled together behind one of the lifeboats thatrested on the deck. They were so placed as to be visible only to aperson going close to the rail and peering a little sidewise. I don'tthink I peered, but as I stood a moment beside the rail my eye wasattracted by a dusky object that protruded beyond the boat and that I sawat a second glance to be the tail of a lady's dress. I bent forward aninstant, but even then I saw very little more; that scarcely matteredhowever, as I easily concluded that the persons tucked away in so snug acorner were Jasper Nettlepoint and Mr. Porterfield's intended. Tuckedaway was the odious right expression, and I deplored the fact so betrayedfor the pitiful bad taste in it. I immediately turned away, and the nextmoment found myself face to face with our vessel's skipper. I hadalready had some conversation with him--he had been so good as to inviteme, as he had invited Mrs. Nettlepoint and her son and the young ladytravelling with them, and also Mrs. Peck, to sit at his table--and hadobserved with pleasure that his seamanship had the grace, not universalon the Atlantic liners, of a fine-weather manner. "They don't waste much time--your friends in there, " he said, nodding inthe direction in which he had seen me looking. "Ah well, they haven't much to lose. " "That's what I mean. I'm told _she_ hasn't. " I wanted to say something exculpatory, but scarcely knew what note tostrike. I could only look vaguely about me at the starry darkness andthe sea that seemed to sleep. "Well, with these splendid nights and thisperfect air people are beguiled into late hours. " "Yes, we want a bit of a blow, " the Captain said. I demurred. "How much of one?" "Enough to clear the decks!" He was after all rather dry and he went about his business. He had mademe uneasy, and instead of going below I took a few turns more. The otherwalkers dropped off pair by pair--they were all men--till at last I wasalone. Then after a little I quitted the field. Jasper and hiscompanion were still behind their lifeboat. Personally I greatlypreferred our actual conditions, but as I went down I found myselfvaguely wishing, in the interest of I scarcely knew what, unless it hadbeen a mere superstitious delicacy, that we might have half a gale. Miss Mavis turned out, in sea-phrase, early; for the next morning I sawher come up only a short time after I had finished my breakfast, aceremony over which I contrived not to dawdle. She was alone and JasperNettlepoint, by a rare accident, was not on deck to help her. I went tomeet her--she was encumbered as usual with her shawl, her sun-umbrellaand a book--and laid my hands on her chair, placing it near the stern ofthe ship, where she liked best to be. But I proposed to her to walk alittle before she sat down, and she took my arm after I had put heraccessories into the chair. The deck was clear at that hour and themorning light gay; one had an extravagant sense of good omens andpropitious airs. I forget what we spoke of first, but it was because Ifelt these things pleasantly; and not to torment my companion nor to testher, that I couldn't help exclaiming cheerfully after a moment, as I havementioned having done the first day: "Well, we're getting on, we'regetting on!" "Oh yes, I count every hour. " "The last days always go quicker, " I said, "and the last hours--!" "Well, the last hours?" she asked; for I had instinctively checkedmyself. "Oh one's so glad then that it's almost the same as if one had arrived. Yet we ought to be grateful when the elements have been so kind to us, " Iadded. "I hope you'll have enjoyed the voyage. " She hesitated ever so little. "Yes, much more than I expected. " "Did you think it would be very bad?" "Horrible, horrible!" The tone of these words was strange, but I hadn't much time to reflectupon it, for turning round at that moment I saw Jasper Nettlepoint cometoward us. He was still distant by the expanse of the white deck, and Icouldn't help taking him in from head to foot as he drew nearer. I don'tknow what rendered me on this occasion particularly sensitive to theimpression, but it struck me that I saw him as I had never seen himbefore, saw him, thanks to the intense sea-light, inside and out, in hispersonal, his moral totality. It was a quick, a vivid revelation; if itonly lasted a moment it had a simplifying certifying effect. He wasintrinsically a pleasing apparition, with his handsome young face andthat marked absence of any drop in his personal arrangements which, morethan any one I've ever seen, he managed to exhibit on shipboard. He hadnone of the appearance of wearing out old clothes that usually prevailsthere, but dressed quite straight, as I heard some one say. This gavehim an assured, almost a triumphant air, as of a young man who would comebest out of any awkwardness. I expected to feel my companion's handloosen itself on my arm, as an indication that now she must go to him, and I was almost surprised she didn't drop me. We stopped as we met andJasper bade us a friendly good-morning. Of course the remark that we hadanother lovely day was already indicated, and it led him to exclaim, inthe manner of one to whom criticism came easily, "Yes, but with this sortof thing consider what one of the others would do!" "One of the other ships?" "We should be there now, or at any rate tomorrow. " "Well then I'm glad it isn't one of the others"--and I smiled at theyoung lady on my arm. My words offered her a chance to say somethingappreciative, and gave him one even more; but neither Jasper nor GraceMavis took advantage of the occasion. What they did do, I noticed, wasto look at each other rather fixedly an instant; after which she turnedher eyes silently to the sea. She made no movement and uttered no sound, contriving to give me the sense that she had all at once become perfectlypassive, that she somehow declined responsibility. We remained standingthere with Jasper in front of us, and if the contact of her arm didn'tsuggest I should give her up, neither did it intimate that we had betterpass on. I had no idea of giving her up, albeit one of the things Iseemed to read just then into Jasper's countenance was a fine implicationthat she was his property. His eyes met mine for a moment, and it wasexactly as if he had said to me "I know what you think, but I don't carea rap. " What I really thought was that he was selfish beyond the limits:that was the substance of my little revelation. Youth is almost alwaysselfish, just as it is almost always conceited, and, after all, when it'scombined with health and good parts, good looks and good spirits, it hasa right to be, and I easily forgive it if it be really youth. Still it'sa question of degree, and what stuck out of Jasper Nettlepoint--if, ofcourse, one had the intelligence for it--was that his egotism had ahardness, his love of his own way an avidity. These elements were jauntyand prosperous, they were accustomed to prevail. He was fond, very fond, of women; they were necessary to him--that was in his type; but he wasn'tin the least in love with Grace Mavis. Among the reflexions I quicklymade this was the one that was most to the point. There was a degree ofawkwardness, after a minute, in the way we were planted there, though theapprehension of it was doubtless not in the least with himself. Todissimulate my own share in it, at any rate, I asked him how his mothermight be. His answer was unexpected. "You had better go down and see. " "Not till Miss Mavis is tired of me. " She said nothing to this and I made her walk again. For some minutes shefailed to speak; then, rather abruptly, she began: "I've seen you talkingto that lady who sits at our table--the one who has so many children. " "Mrs. Peck? Oh yes, one has inevitably talked with Mrs. Peck. " "Do you know her very well?" "Only as one knows people at sea. An acquaintance makes itself. Itdoesn't mean very much. " "She doesn't speak to me--she might if she wanted. " "That's just what she says of you--that you might speak to her. " "Oh if she's waiting for that!" said my companion with a laugh. Then sheadded: "She lives in our street, nearly opposite. " "Precisely. That's the reason why she thinks you coy or haughty. Shehas seen you so often and seems to know so much about you. " "What does she know about me?" "Ah you must ask her--I can't tell you!" "I don't care what she knows, " said my young lady. After a moment shewent on: "She must have seen I ain't very sociable. " And then, "What areyou laughing at?" she asked. "Well"--my amusement was difficult to explain--"you're not very sociable, and yet somehow you are. Mrs. Peck is, at any rate, and thought thatought to make it easy for you to enter into conversation with her. " "Oh I don't care for her conversation--I know what it amounts to. " Imade no reply--I scarcely knew what reply to make--and the girl went on:"I know what she thinks and I know what she says. " Still I was silent, but the next moment I saw my discretion had been wasted, for Miss Mavisput to me straight: "Does she make out that she knows Mr. Porterfield?" "No, she only claims she knows a lady who knows him. " "Yes, that's it--Mrs. Jeremie. Mrs. Jeremie's an idiot!" I wasn't in aposition to controvert this, and presently my young lady said she wouldsit down. I left her in her chair--I saw that she preferred it--andwandered to a distance. A few minutes later I met Jasper again, and hestopped of his own accord to say: "We shall be in about six in theevening of our eleventh day--they promise it. " "If nothing happens, of course. " "Well, what's going to happen?" "That's just what I'm wondering!" And I turned away and went below withthe foolish but innocent satisfaction of thinking I had mystified him. CHAPTER IV "I don't know what to do, and you must help me, " Mrs. Nettlepoint said tome, that evening, as soon as I looked in. "I'll do what I can--but what's the matter?" "She has been crying here and going on--she has quite upset me. " "Crying? She doesn't look like that. " "Exactly, and that's what startled me. She came in to see me thisafternoon, as she has done before, and we talked of the weather and therun of the ship and the manners of the stewardess and other such trifles, and then suddenly, in the midst of it, as she sat there, on no visiblepretext, she burst into tears. I asked her what ailed her and tried tocomfort her, but she didn't explain; she said it was nothing, the effectof the sea, of the monotony, of the excitement, of leaving home. I askedher if it had anything to do with her prospects, with her marriage;whether she finds as this draws near that her heart isn't in it. I toldher she mustn't be nervous, that I could enter into that--in short I saidwhat I could. All she replied was that she _is_ nervous, very nervous, but that it was already over; and then she jumped up and kissed me andwent away. Does she look as if she has been crying?" Mrs. Nettlepointwound up. "How can I tell, when she never quits that horrid veil? It's as if shewere ashamed to show her face. " "She's keeping it for Liverpool. But I don't like such incidents, " saidMrs. Nettlepoint. "I think I ought to go above. " "And is that where you want me to help you?" "Oh with your arm and that sort of thing, yes. But I may have to look toyou for something more. I feel as if something were going to happen. " "That's exactly what I said to Jasper this morning. " "And what did he say?" "He only looked innocent--as if he thought I meant a fog or a storm. " "Heaven forbid--it isn't that! I shall never be good-natured again, "Mrs. Nettlepoint went on; "never have a girl put on me that way. Youalways pay for it--there are always tiresome complications. What I'mafraid of is after we get there. She'll throw up her engagement; therewill be dreadful scenes; I shall be mixed up with them and have to lookafter her and keep her with me. I shall have to stay there with her tillshe can be sent back, or even take her up to London. Do you see allthat?" I listened respectfully; after which I observed: "You're afraid of yourson. " She also had a pause. "It depends on how you mean it. " "There are things you might say to him--and with your manner; because youhave one, you know, when you choose. " "Very likely, but what's my manner to his? Besides, I _have_ saideverything to him. That is I've said the great thing--that he's makingher immensely talked about. " "And of course in answer to that he has asked you how you know, andyou've told him you have it from me. " "I've had to tell him; and he says it's none of your business. " "I wish he'd say that, " I remarked, "to my face. " "He'll do so perfectly if you give him a chance. That's where you canhelp me. Quarrel with him--he's rather good at a quarrel; and that willdivert him and draw him off. " "Then I'm ready, " I returned, "to discuss the matter with him for therest of the voyage. " "Very well; I count on you. But he'll ask you, as he asks me, what thedeuce you want him to do. " "To go to bed!"--and I'm afraid I laughed. "Oh it isn't a joke. " I didn't want to be irritating, but I made my point. "That's exactlywhat I told you at first. " "Yes, but don't exult; I hate people who exult. Jasper asks of me, " shewent on, "why he should mind her being talked about if she doesn't mindit herself. " "I'll tell him why, " I replied; and Mrs. Nettlepoint said she should beexceedingly obliged to me and repeated that she would indeed take thefield. I looked for Jasper above that same evening, but circumstances didn'tfavour my quest. I found him--that is I gathered he was again ensconcedbehind the lifeboat with Miss Mavis; but there was a needless violence inbreaking into their communion, and I put off our interview till the nextday. Then I took the first opportunity, at breakfast, to make sure ofit. He was in the saloon when I went in and was preparing to leave thetable; but I stopped him and asked if he would give me a quarter of anhour on deck a little later--there was something particular I wanted tosay to him. He said "Oh yes, if you like"--with just a visible surprise, but I thought with plenty of assurance. When I had finished my breakfastI found him smoking on the forward-deck and I immediately began: "I'mgoing to say something you won't at all like; to ask you a questionyou'll probably denounce for impertinent. " "I certainly shall if I find it so, " said Jasper Nettlepoint. "Well, of course my warning has meant that I don't care if you do. I'm agood deal older than you and I'm a friend--of many years--of your mother. There's nothing I like less than to be meddlesome, but I think thesethings give me a certain right--a sort of privilege. Besides which myinquiry will speak for itself. " "Why so many damned preliminaries?" my young man asked through his smoke. We looked into each other's eyes a moment. What indeed was his mother'smanner--her best manner--compared with his? "Are you prepared to beresponsible?" "To you?" "Dear no--to the young lady herself. I'm speaking of course of MissMavis. " "Ah yes, my mother tells me you have her greatly on your mind. " "So has your mother herself--now. " "She's so good as to say so--to oblige you. " "She'd oblige me a great deal more by reassuring me. I know perfectly ofyour knowing I've told her that Miss Mavis is greatly talked about. " "Yes, but what on earth does it matter?" "It matters as a sign. " "A sign of what?" "That she's in a false position. " Jasper puffed his cigar with his eyes on the horizon, and I had, a littleunexpectedly, the sense of producing a certain effect on him. "I don'tknow whether it's _your_ business, what you're attempting to discuss butit really strikes me it's none of mine. What have I to do with thetattle with which a pack of old women console themselves for not beingsea-sick?" "Do you call it tattle that Miss Mavis is in love with you?" "Drivelling. " "Then, " I retorted, "you're very ungrateful. The tattle of a pack of oldwomen has this importance, that she suspects, or she knows, it exists, and that decent girls are for the most part very sensitive to that sortof thing. To be prepared not to heed it in this case she must have areason, and the reason must be the one I've taken the liberty to callyour attention to. " "In love with me in six days, just like that?"--and he still looked awaythrough narrowed eyelids. "There's no accounting for tastes, and six days at sea are equivalent tosixty on land. I don't want to make you too proud. Of course if yourecognise your responsibility it's all right and I've nothing to say. " "I don't see what you mean, " he presently returned. "Surely you ought to have thought of that by this time. She's engaged tobe married, and the gentleman she's engaged to is to meet her atLiverpool. The whole ship knows it--though _I_ didn't tell them!--andthe whole ship's watching her. It's impertinent if you like, just as Iam myself, but we make a little world here together and we can't blinkits conditions. What I ask you is whether you're prepared to allow herto give up the gentleman I've just mentioned for your sake. " Jasper spoke in a moment as if he didn't understand. "For my sake?" "To marry her if she breaks with him. " He turned his eyes from the horizon to my own, and I found a strangeexpression in them. "Has Miss Mavis commissioned you to go into that?" "Not in the least. " "Well then, I don't quite see--!" "It isn't as from another I make it. Let it come from yourself--_to_yourself. " "Lord, you must think I lead myself a life!" he cried as in compassionfor my simplicity. "That's a question the young lady may put to me anymoment it pleases her. " "Let me then express the hope that she will. But what will you answer?" "My dear sir, it seems to me that in spite of all the titles you'veenumerated you've no reason to expect I'll tell you. " He turned away, and I dedicated in perfect sincerity a deep sore sigh to the thought ofour young woman. At this, under the impression of it, he faced me againand, looking at me from head to foot, demanded: "What is it you want meto do?" "I put it to your mother that you ought to go to bed. " "You had better do that yourself!" he replied. This time he walked off, and I reflected rather dolefully that the onlyclear result of my undertaking would probably have been to make it vividto him that she was in love with him. Mrs. Nettlepoint came up as shehad announced, but the day was half over: it was nearly three o'clock. She was accompanied by her son, who established her on deck, arranged herchair and her shawls, saw she was protected from sun and wind, and for anhour was very properly attentive. While this went on Grace Mavis was notvisible, nor did she reappear during the whole afternoon. I hadn'tobserved that she had as yet been absent from the deck for so long aperiod. Jasper left his mother, but came back at intervals to see howshe got on, and when she asked where Miss Mavis might be answered that hehadn't the least idea. I sat with my friend at her particular request:she told me she knew that if I didn't Mrs. Peck and Mrs. Gotch would maketheir approach, so that I must act as a watch-dog. She was flurried andfatigued with her migration, and I think that Grace Mavis's choosing thisoccasion for retirement suggested to her a little that she had been madea fool of. She remarked that the girl's not being there showed her forthe barbarian she only could be, and that she herself was really verygood so to have put herself out; her charge was a mere bore: that was theend of it. I could see that my companion's advent quickened thespeculative activity of the other ladies they watched her from theopposite side of the deck, keeping their eyes fixed on her very much asthe man at the wheel kept his on the course of the ship. Mrs. Peckplainly had designs, and it was from this danger that Mrs. Nettlepointaverted her face. "It's just as we said, " she remarked to me as we sat there. "It's likethe buckets in the well. When I come up everything else goes down. " "No, not at all everything else--since Jasper remains here. " "Remains? I don't see him. " "He comes and goes--it's the same thing. " "He goes more than he comes. But _n'en parlons plus_; I haven't gainedanything. I don't admire the sea at all--what is it but a magnifiedwater-tank? I shan't come up again. " "I've an idea she'll stay in her cabin now, " I said. "She tells me shehas one to herself. " Mrs. Nettlepoint replied that she might do as sheliked, and I repeated to her the little conversation I had had withJasper. She listened with interest, but "Marry her? Mercy!" she exclaimed. "Ilike the fine freedom with which you give my son away. " "You wouldn't accept that?" "Why in the world should I?" "Then I don't understand your position. " "Good heavens, I _have_ none! It isn't a position to be tired of thewhole thing. " "You wouldn't accept it even in the case I put to him--that of herbelieving she had been encouraged to throw over poor Porterfield?" "Not even--not even. Who can know what she believes?" It brought me back to where we had started from. "Then you do exactlywhat I said you would--you show me a fine example of maternalimmorality. " "Maternal fiddlesticks! It was she who began it. " "Then why did you come up today?" I asked. "To keep you quiet. " Mrs. Nettlepoint's dinner was served on deck, but I went into the saloon. Jasper was there, but not Grace Mavis, as I had half-expected. I soughtto learn from him what had become of her, if she were ill--he must havethought I had an odious pertinacity--and he replied that he knew nothingwhatever about her. Mrs. Peck talked to me--or tried to--of Mrs. Nettlepoint, expatiating on the great interest it had been to see her;only it was a pity she didn't seem more sociable. To this I made answerthat she was to be excused on the score of health. "You don't mean to say she's sick on this pond?" "No, she's unwell in another way. " "I guess I know the way!" Mrs. Peck laughed. And then she added: "Isuppose she came up to look after her pet. " "Her pet?" I set my face. "Why Miss Mavis. We've talked enough about that. " "Quite enough. I don't know what that has had to do with it. MissMavis, so far as I've noticed, hasn't been above today. " "Oh it goes on all the same. " "It goes on?" "Well, it's too late. " "Too late?" "Well, you'll see. There'll be a row. " This wasn't comforting, but I didn't repeat it on deck. Mrs. Nettlepointreturned early to her cabin, professing herself infinitely spent. Ididn't know what "went on, " but Grace Mavis continued not to show. Ilooked in late, for a good-night to my friend, and learned from her thatthe girl hadn't been to her. She had sent the stewardess to her room fornews, to see if she were ill and needed assistance, and the stewardesshad come back with mere mention of her not being there. I went aboveafter this; the night was not quite so fair and the deck almost empty. Ina moment Jasper Nettlepoint and our young lady moved past me together. "Ihope you're better!" I called after her; and she tossed me over hershoulder--"Oh yes, I had a headache; but the air now does me good!" I went down again--I was the only person there but they, and I wanted notto seem to dog their steps--and, returning to Mrs. Nettlepoint's room, found (her door was open to the little passage) that she was stillsitting up. "She's all right!" I said. "She's on the deck with Jasper. " The good lady looked up at me from her book. "I didn't know you calledthat all right. " "Well, it's better than something else. " "Than what else?" "Something I was a little afraid of. " Mrs. Nettlepoint continued to lookat me; she asked again what that might be. "I'll tell you when we'reashore, " I said. The next day I waited on her at the usual hour of my morning visit, andfound her not a little distraught. "The scenes have begun, " she said;"you know I told you I shouldn't get through without them! You made menervous last night--I haven't the least idea what you meant; but you mademe horribly nervous. She came in to see me an hour ago, and I had thecourage to say to her: 'I don't know why I shouldn't tell you franklythat I've been scolding my son about you. ' Of course she asked what Imeant by that, and I let her know. 'It seems to me he drags you aboutthe ship too much for a girl in your position. He has the air of notremembering that you belong to some one else. There's a want of tasteand even a want of respect in it. ' That brought on an outbreak: shebecame very violent. " "Do you mean indignant?" "Yes, indignant, and above all flustered and excited--at my presuming tosuppose her relations with my son not the very simplest in the world. Imight scold him as much as I liked--that was between ourselves; but shedidn't see why I should mention such matters to herself. Did I think sheallowed him to treat her with disrespect? That idea wasn't much of acompliment to either of them! He had treated her better and been kinderto her than most other people--there were very few on the ship who hadn'tbeen insulting. She should be glad enough when she got off it, to herown people, to some one whom nobody would have a right to speak of. Whatwas there in her position that wasn't perfectly natural? what was theidea of making a fuss about her position? Did I mean that she took ittoo easily--that she didn't think as much as she ought about Mr. Porterfield? Didn't I believe she was attached to him--didn't I believeshe was just counting the hours till she saw him? That would be thehappiest moment of her life. It showed how little I knew her if Ithought anything else. " "All that must have been rather fine--I should have liked to hear it, " Isaid after quite hanging on my friend's lips. "And what did you reply?" "Oh I grovelled; I assured her that I accused her--as regards my son--ofnothing worse than an excess of good nature. She helped him to pass histime--he ought to be immensely obliged. Also that it would be a veryhappy moment for me too when I should hand her over to Mr. Porterfield. " "And will you come up today?" "No indeed--I think she'll do beautifully now. " I heaved this time a sigh of relief. "All's well that ends well!" Jasper spent that day a great deal of time with his mother. She had toldme how much she had lacked hitherto proper opportunity to talk over withhim their movements after disembarking. Everything changes a little thelast two or three days of a voyage; the spell is broken and newcombinations take place. Grace Mavis was neither on deck nor at dinner, and I drew Mrs. Peck's attention to the extreme propriety with which shenow conducted herself. She had spent the day in meditation and judged itbest to continue to meditate. "Ah she's afraid, " said my implacable neighbour. "Afraid of what?" "Well, that we'll tell tales when we get there. " "Whom do you mean by 'we'?" "Well, there are plenty--on a ship like this. " "Then I think, " I returned, "we won't. " "Maybe we won't have the chance, " said the dreadful little woman. "Oh at that moment"--I spoke from a full experience--"universal genialityreigns. " Mrs. Peck however knew little of any such law. "I guess she's afraid allthe same. " "So much the better!" "Yes--so much the better!" All the next day too the girl remained invisible, and Mrs. Nettlepointtold me she hadn't looked in. She herself had accordingly inquired bythe stewardess if she might be received in Miss Mavis's own quarters, andthe young lady had replied that they were littered up with things andunfit for visitors: she was packing a trunk over. Jasper made up for hisdevotion to his mother the day before by now spending a great deal of histime in the smoking-room. I wanted to say to him "This is much better, "but I thought it wiser to hold my tongue. Indeed I had begun to feel theemotion of prospective arrival--the sense of the return to Europe alwayskept its intensity--and had thereby the less attention for other matters. It will doubtless appear to the critical reader that my expenditure ofinterest had been out of proportion to the vulgar appearances of which mystory gives an account, but to this I can only reply that the event wasto justify me. We sighted land, the dim yet rich coast of Ireland, aboutsunset, and I leaned on the bulwark and took it in. "It doesn't looklike much, does it?" I heard a voice say, beside me; whereupon, turning, I found Grace Mavis at hand. Almost for the first time she had her veilup, and I thought her very pale. "It will be more tomorrow, " I said. "Oh yes, a great deal more. " "The first sight of land, at sea, changes everything, " I went on. "Italways affects me as waking up from a dream. It's a return to reality. " For a moment she made me no response; then she said "It doesn't look veryreal yet. " "No, and meanwhile, this lovely evening, one can put it that the dream'sstill present. " She looked up at the sky, which had a brightness, though the light of thesun had left it and that of the stars hadn't begun. "It _is_ a lovelyevening. " "Oh yes, with this we shall do. " She stood some moments more, while the growing dusk effaced the line ofthe land more rapidly than our progress made it distinct. She saidnothing more, she only looked in front of her; but her very quietnessprompted me to something suggestive of sympathy and service. It wasdifficult indeed to strike the right note--some things seemed too wide ofthe mark and others too importunate. At last, unexpectedly, she appearedto give me my chance. Irrelevantly, abruptly she broke out: "Didn't youtell me you knew Mr. Porterfield?" "Dear me, yes--I used to see him. I've often wanted to speak to you ofhim. " She turned her face on me and in the deepened evening I imagined her morepale. "What good would that do?" "Why it would be a pleasure, " I replied rather foolishly. "Do you mean for you?" "Well, yes--call it that, " I smiled. "Did you know him so well?" My smile became a laugh and I lost a little my confidence. "You're noteasy to make speeches to. " "I hate speeches!" The words came from her lips with a force thatsurprised me; they were loud and hard. But before I had time to wondershe went on a little differently. "Shall you know him when you see him?" "Perfectly, I think. " Her manner was so strange that I had to notice itin some way, and I judged the best way was jocularly; so I added: "Shan'tyou?" "Oh perhaps you'll point him out!" And she walked quickly away. As Ilooked after her there came to me a perverse, rather a provokingconsciousness of having during the previous days, and especially inspeaking to Jasper Nettlepoint, interfered with her situation in somedegree to her loss. There was an odd pang for me in seeing her moveabout alone; I felt somehow responsible for it and asked myself why Icouldn't have kept my hands off. I had seen Jasper in the smoking-roommore than once that day, as I passed it, and half an hour before this hadobserved, through the open door, that he was there. He had been with herso much that without him she now struck one as bereaved and forsaken. This was really better, no doubt, but superficially it moved--and I admitwith the last inconsequence--one's pity. Mrs. Peck would doubtless haveassured me that their separation was gammon: they didn't show together ondeck and in the saloon, but they made it up elsewhere. The secret placeson shipboard are not numerous; Mrs. Peck's "elsewhere" would have beenvague, and I know not what licence her imagination took. It was distinctthat Jasper had fallen off, but of course what had passed between them onthis score wasn't so and could never be. Later on, through his mother, Ihad _his_ version of that, but I may remark that I gave it no credit. Poor Mrs. Nettlepoint, on the other hand, was of course to give it all. Iwas almost capable, after the girl had left me, of going to my young manand saying: "After all, do return to her a little, just till we get in!It won't make any difference after we land. " And I don't think it wasthe fear he would tell me I was an idiot that prevented me. At any ratethe next time I passed the door of the smoking-room I saw he had left it. I paid my usual visit to Mrs. Nettlepoint that night, but I troubled herno further about Miss Mavis. She had made up her mind that everythingwas smooth and settled now, and it seemed to me I had worried her, andthat she had worried herself, in sufficiency. I left her to enjoy thedeepening foretaste of arrival, which had taken possession of her mind. Before turning in I went above and found more passengers on deck than Ihad ever seen so late. Jasper moved about among them alone, but Iforbore to join him. The coast of Ireland had disappeared, but the nightand the sea were perfect. On the way to my cabin, when I came down, Imet the stewardess in one of the passages, and the idea entered my headto say to her: "Do you happen to know where Miss Mavis is?" "Why she's in her room, sir, at this hour. " "Do you suppose I could speak to her?" It had come into my mind to askher why she had wanted to know of me if I should recognise Mr. Porterfield. "No sir, " said the stewardess; "she has gone to bed. " "That's all right. " And I followed the young lady's excellent example. The next morning, while I dressed, the steward of my side of the shipcame to me as usual to see what I wanted. But the first thing he saidto, me was: "Rather a bad job, sir--a passenger missing. " And while Itook I scarce know what instant chill from it, "A lady, sir, " he wenton--"whom I think you knew. Poor Miss Mavis, sir. " "_Missing_?" I cried--staring at him and horror-stricken. "She's not on the ship. They can't find her. " "Then where to God is she?" I recall his queer face. "Well sir, I suppose you know that as well asI. " "Do you mean she has jumped overboard?" "Some time in the night, sir--on the quiet. But it's beyond every one, the way she escaped notice. They usually sees 'em, sir. It must havebeen about half-past two. Lord, but she was sharp, sir. She didn't somuch as make a splash. They say she '_ad_ come against her will, sir. " I had dropped upon my sofa--I felt faint. The man went on, liking totalk as persons of his class do when they have something horrible totell. She usually rang for the stewardess early, but this morning ofcourse there had been no ring. The stewardess had gone in all the sameabout eight o'clock and found the cabin empty. That was about an hourprevious. Her things were there in confusion--the things she usuallywore when she went above. The stewardess thought she had been a bit oddthe night before, but had waited a little and then gone back. Miss Mavishadn't turned up--and she didn't turn up. The stewardess began to lookfor her--she hadn't been seen on deck or in the saloon. Besides, shewasn't dressed--not to show herself; all her clothes were in her room. There was another lady, an old lady, Mrs. Nettlepoint--I would knowher--that she was sometimes with, but the stewardess had been with _her_and knew Miss Mavis hadn't come near her that morning. She had spoken to_him_ and they had taken a quiet look--they had hunted everywhere. Aship's a big place, but you did come to the end of it, and if a personwasn't there why there it was. In short an hour had passed and the younglady was not accounted for: from which I might judge if she ever wouldbe. The watch couldn't account for her, but no doubt the fishes in thesea could--poor miserable pitiful lady! The stewardess and he had ofcourse thought it their duty to speak at once to the Doctor, and theDoctor had spoken immediately to the Captain. The Captain didn't likeit--they never did, but he'd try to keep it quiet--they always did. By the time I succeeded in pulling myself together and getting on, aftera fashion, the rest of my clothes I had learned that Mrs. Nettlepointwouldn't yet have been told, unless the stewardess had broken it to herwithin the previous few minutes. Her son knew, the young gentleman onthe other side of the ship--he had the other steward; my man had seen himcome out of his cabin and rush above, just before he came in to me. He_had_ gone above, my man was sure; he hadn't gone to the old lady'scabin. I catch again the sense of my dreadfully seeing something at thatmoment, catch the wild flash, under the steward's words, of JasperNettlepoint leaping, with a mad compunction in his young agility, overthe side of the ship. I hasten to add, however, that no such incidentwas destined to contribute its horror to poor Grace Mavis's unwitnessedand unlighted tragic act. What followed was miserable enough, but I canonly glance at it. When I got to Mrs. Nettlepoint's door she was therewith a shawl about her; the stewardess had just told her and she wasdashing out to come to me. I made her go back--I said I would go forJasper. I went for him but I missed him, partly no doubt because it wasreally at first the Captain I was after. I found this personage andfound him highly scandalised, but he gave me no hope that we were inerror, and his displeasure, expressed with seamanlike strength, was adefinite settlement of the question. From the deck, where I merelyturned round and looked, I saw the light of another summer day, the coastof Ireland green and near and the sea of a more charming colour than ithad shown at all. When I came below again Jasper had passed back; he hadgone to his cabin and his mother had joined him there. He remained theretill we reached Liverpool--I never saw him. His mother, after a little, at his request, left him alone. All the world went above to look at theland and chatter about our tragedy, but the poor lady spent the day, dismally enough, in her room. It seemed to me, the dreadful day, intolerably long; I was thinking so of vague, of inconceivable yetinevitable Porterfield, and of my having to face him somehow on themorrow. Now of course I knew why she had asked me if I should recognisehim; she had delegated to me mentally a certain pleasant office. I gaveMrs. Peck and Mrs. Gotch a wide berth--I couldn't talk to them. I could, or at least I did a little, to Mrs. Nettlepoint, but with too manyreserves for comfort on either side, since I quite felt how little itwould now make for ease to mention Jasper to her. I was obliged toassume by my silence that he had had nothing to do with what hadhappened; and of course I never really ascertained what he _had_ had todo. The secret of what passed between him and the strange girl who wouldhave sacrificed her marriage to him on so short an acquaintance remainsshut up in his breast. His mother, I know, went to his door from time totime, but he refused her admission. That evening, to be human at aventure, I requested the steward to go in and ask him if he should careto see me, and the good man returned with an answer which he candidlytransmitted. "Not in the least!"--Jasper apparently was almost asscandalised as the Captain. At Liverpool, at the dock, when we had touched, twenty people came onboard and I had already made out Mr. Porterfield at a distance. He waslooking up at the side of the great vessel with disappointmentwritten--for my strained eyes--in his face; disappointment at not seeingthe woman he had so long awaited lean over it and wave her handkerchiefto him. Every one was looking at him, every one but she--his identityflew about in a moment--and I wondered if it didn't strike him. He usedto be gaunt and angular, but had grown almost fat and stooped a little. The interval between us diminished--he was on the plank and then on thedeck with the jostling agents of the Customs; too soon for my equanimity. I met him instantly, however, to save him from exposure--laid my hand onhim and drew him away, though I was sure he had no impression of havingseen me before. It was not till afterwards that I thought this rathercharacteristically dull of him. I drew him far away--I was conscious ofMrs. Peck and Mrs. Gotch, looking at us as we passed--into the emptystale smoking-room: he remained speechless, and that struck me as likehim. I had to speak first, he couldn't even relieve me by saying "Isanything the matter?" I broke ground by putting it, feebly, that she wasill. It was a dire moment.