some complications in her position. Was it not a complication that she should have wished to remain long enough to assuage a certain suspense, to learn whether or no Jasper were going to sail? Had not something particular passed between them on the occasion or at the period to which they had covertly alluded and did she really not know that her mother was bringing her to his mother's, though she apparently had thought it well not to mention the circumstance? Such things were complications on the part of a young lady betrothed to that curious cross-barred phantom of a Mr. Porterfield. But I am bound to add that she gave me no further warrant for suspecting them than by the simple fact of her encouraging her mother, by her immobility, to linger. Somehow I had a sense that she knew better. I got up myself to go, but Mrs. Nettlepoint detained me after seeing that my movement would not be taken as a hint, and I perceived she wished me not to leave my fellowvisitors on her hands. Jasper complained of the closeness of the room, said that it was not a night to sit in a room-—one ought to be out in the air, under the sky. He denounced the windows that overlooked the water for not opening upon a balcony or a terrace, until his mother, whom he had not yet satisfied about his telegram, reminded him that there was a beautiful balcony in front, with room for a dozen people. She assured him we would go and sit there if it would please him.

"It will be nice and cool to-morrow, when we steam into the great ocean," said Miss Mavis, expressing with more vivacity than she had yet thrown into any of her utterances my own thought of half an hour before. Mrs. Nettlepoint replied that it would probably be freezing cold, and her son murmured that he would go and try the drawing-room balcony and report upon 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?"

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Oh, well, we had better not stay all night!" her mother exclaimed, but without moving. The girl moved, after a moment's hesitation; she rose and accompanied Jasper into the other room. I observed that her slim tallness showed to advantage as she walked and that she looked well as she passed, with her head thrown back, into the darkness of the other part of the house. There was something rather marked, rather surprising (I scarcely knew why, for the act was simple enough) in her doing so, and perhaps it was our sense of this that held

the rest of us somewhat stiffly silent as she remained away. I was waiting for Mrs. Mavis to go, so that I myself might go; and Mrs. Nettlepoint was waiting for her to go so that I might not. This doubtless made the young lady's absence appear to both as longer than it really was; it was probably very brief. Her mother moreover, I think, had a vague consciousness of embarrassment. Jasper Nettlepoint presently returned to the back drawing-room to get a glass of syrup for his companion, and he took occasion to remark that it was lovely on the balcony; one really got some air, the breeze was from that quarter. I remembered, as he went away with his tinkling tumbler, that from my hand a few minutes before Miss Mavis had not been willing to accept this innocent offering. A little later Mrs. Nettlepoint said "Well, if it's so pleasant there we had better go ourselves." So we passed to the front and in the other room met the two young people coming in from the balcony. I wondered in the light of subsequent events exactly how long they had been sitting there together. (There were three or four cane chairs which had been placed there for the summer.) If it had been but five minutes that only made subsequent events more curious. "We must go, mother," Miss Mavis immediately said; and a moment later, with a little renewal of chatter as to our general meeting on the ship, the visitors had taken leave. Jasper went down with them to the door and as soon as they had gone out Mrs. Nettlepoint exclaimed—“ Ah, but she'll be a bore-she'll be a bore!"

"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, like everything else. A girl who tries to be statuesque at sea-that will act on one's nerves!" "I don't know what she tries to be, but she succeeds in being very handsome."

"So much the better for you. I'll leave her to you, for I shall be shut up. I like her being placed under my 'care.'" "She will be under Jasper's," I re

"The fiancé, the intended, the one she is going out to. He can't by the way be very young now."

"How odd it sounds!" said Mrs. Nettlepoint.

I was going to reply that it was not odd if you knew Mr. Porterfield, but I reflected that that perhaps only made it odder. I told my companion briefly who he was-that I had met him in the old days in Paris when I believed for a fleeting hour that I could learn to paint, when I lived with the jeunesse des écoles, 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 change her 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 said, smiling. have got my telegram."

"Oh, your telegram!" I ventured to exclaim. "It's that charming girl who has settled it."

He gave me a look, but in the dusk I could not make out very well what it conveyed. Then he bent over his mother, kissing her. "My telegram isn't particularly satisfactory. I am going for you."

"Oh, you humbug!" she rejoined. But of course she was delighted.

II.

PEOPLE usually spend the first hours of a Voyage in squeezing themselves into their cabins, taking their little precautions, either so excessive or so inadequate, wondering how they can pass so many days in such a hole and asking idiotic questions of the stewards, who appear in comparison such men of the world. My own initiations were rapid, as became an old sailor, and so it seemed were Miss Mavis's, for when I mounted to the deck at the end of half an hour I found her

there alone, in the stern of the ship, looking back at the dwindling continent. It dwindled very fast for so big a place. I accosted her, having had no conversation with her amid the crowd of leave-takers and the muddle of farewells before we put off; we talked a little about the boat, our fellow-passengers and our prospects and then I said "I think you mentioned last night a name I know— that of Mr. Porterfield."

"Oh no, I never uttered it," she replied, smiling at me through her closely-drawn veil.

"Then it was your mother."

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Very likely it was my mother." And she continued to smile, as if I ought to have known the difference.

"I venture to allude to him because I have an idea I used to know him," I went on.

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'Oh, I see.' Beyond this remark she manifested no interest in my having known him.

"That is if it's the same one." It seemed to me it would be silly to say nothing more; so I added "My Mr. Porterfield was called David." "Ours" struck me

"Well, so is ours."

as clever.

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suppose I shall see him again if he is to meet you at Liverpool," I continued. "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 I had not seen him for so many years that it was very possible I should not know him.

“Well, I have not seen him for a great many years, but I expect I shall know him all the same."

"Oh, with you it's different," I rejoined, smiling at her. "Hasn't he been back since those days?"

"I don't know what days you mean."

"When I knew him in Paris-ages ago. He was a pupil of the École des Beaux Arts. He was studying architecture."

"Well, he is 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: "Architecture is very difficult and he is tremendously thorough."

"Oh, yes, I remember that. He was an admirable worker. But he must have become quite a foreigner if it's so many years since he has been at home."

"Oh, he is not changeable. If he were changeable" But here my interlocutress paused. I suspect she had been going

to say that if he were changeable he would have given her up long ago. After an instant she went on: "He wouldn't have stuck: so to his profession. You can't make much by it."

"You can't make much?"

"It doesn't make you rich."

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Oh, of course you have 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 so serene an implication that the gentleman in question did not live up to his principles. But I checked myself, asking my companion if she expected to remain in Europe long-to live. there.

"Well, it will be a good while if it takes me as long to come back as it has taken me to go out."

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She judged this to be a limited privilege, for on the deck before we left the wharf she had taken a view of our fellow-passengers.

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Oh, I'm an inveterate, almost a professional observer," I replied, " and with that vice I am as well occupied as an old woman in the sun with her knitting. It puts it in my power, in any situation, to see things. I shall see them even here and I shall come down very often and tell you about them. You are not interested to-day but you will be to-morrow, for a ship is a great school of gossip. You won't believe the number of researches and problems you will be engaged in by the middle of the voyage."

" I?

Never in the world-lying here with my nose in a book and never seeing anything."

"You will participate at second hand. You will see through my eyes, hang upon my

Miss Mavis looked at me a moment. "Didn't mother talk?"

"It was all very interesting."

She continued to look at me. "You don't think that."

"What have I to gain by saying it if I don't?"

"Oh, men have always something to gain." "You make me feel a terrible failure, then! I hope at any rate that it gives you pleasure the idea of seeing foreign lands." Mercy-I should think so!"

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"It's a pity our ship is not one of the fast ones, if you are impatient."

She was silent a moment, then she exclaimed, "Oh, I guess it will be fast 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 nine o'clock but not quite dark, as our northward course had already taken us into the latitude of the longer days. She had made her nest admirably and lay upon her sofa in a becoming dressing-gown and cap, resting from her labours. It was her regular practice to spend the voyage in her cabin, which smelt good (such was the refinement of her art), and she had a secret peculiar to herself for keeping her port open without shipping seas. She hated what she called the mess of the ship and the idea, if she should go above, of meeting stewards with plates of supererogatory food. She professed to be content with her situation (we promised to lend each other books and I assured her familiarly that I should be in and out of her room a dozen times a day), and pitied me for having to mingle in society.

pathies and indignations. I have an idea that your young lady is the person on board who will interest me most."

"Mine, indeed! She has not been near me since we left the dock."

“Well, she is very curious."

"You have such cold-blooded terms," Mrs. Nettlepoint murmured. "Elle ne sait pas se conduire; she ought to have come to ask about me."

"Yes, since you are under her care,” I said, smiling. "As for her not knowing how to behave-well, that's exactly what we shall

see."

"You will, but not I! I wash my hands of her."

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'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 will tell you before we land. And have you seen much of your son?"

"Oh yes, he has come in several times. He seems very much pleased. He has got a cabin to himself."

"That's great luck,” I said, “but I have an idea he is always in luck. I was 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," Mrs. Nettlepoint took upon herself to say.

"What put that into your head?"

was for your sake?"

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"Are you sure it

Ah, perhaps it was for yours!" "When he went out on the balcony with that girl perhaps she asked him to come," I continued.

"Perhaps she did. But why should he do everything she asks him?"

"I don't know yet, but perhaps I shall know later. Not that he will tell me-for he will never tell me anything; he is not 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 protect her," I continued, smiling.

"You are cold-blooded-it's uncanny!" my companion exclaimed.

"Ah, this is nothing yet! Wait a whileyou'll see. At sea in general I'm awful -I pass the limits. If I have outraged her in thought I will jump overboard. There are ways of asking (a man doesn't need to tell a woman that) without the crude words."

"I don't know what you suppose between them," said Mrs. Nettlepoint.

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Nothing but what was visible on the surface. It transpired, as the newspapers say, that they were old friends."

"He met her at some promiscuous partyI asked him about it afterwards. She is not a person he could ever think of seriously."

"That's exactly what I believe.'

"You don't observe-you imagine," Mrs. Nettlepoint pursued. "How do you reconcile her laying a trap for Jasper with her going out to Liverpool on an errand of love?"

"I don't for an instant suppose she laid a trap; I believe she acted on the impulse of the moment. She is going out to Liverpool on an errand of marriage; that is not necessarily the same thing as an errand of love, especially for one who happens to have had a personal impression of the gentleman she is engaged to."

"Well, there are certain decencies which in such a situation the most abandoned of her sex would still observe. You apparently judge her capable on no evidence of violating them."

6

"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 was cold-blooded. On the afternoon of the morrow we had another talk, and she told me that in the morning Miss Mavis had paid her a long visit. She knew nothing about anything, but her intentions were good and she was evidently in her own eyes conscientious and decorous. And Mrs. Nettlepoint concluded these remarks with the exclamation "Poor young thing!"

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You think she is a good deal to be pitied, then?"

'Well, her story sounds dreary—she told me a great deal of it. She fell to talking little by little and went from one thing to another. She's in that situation when a girl must open herself-to some woman."

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"Hasn't she got Jasper?" I inquired. 'He isn't a woman. You strike me as jealous of him," my companion added. "I dare say he thinks so- or will before the end. Ah no-ah no!" And I asked Mrs. Nettlepoint if our young lady struck her as a flirt. She gave me no answer but went on to remark that it was odd and interesting to her to see the way a girl like Grace Mavis resembled the girls of the kind she herself knew better, the girls of "society," at the same time that she differed from them; and the way the differences and resemblances were mixed up, so that on certain questions you couldn't tell where you would find her. You would think she would feel as you did because you had found her feeling so, and then suddenly, in regard to some other matter (which was yet quite the same) she would be terribly wanting. Nettlepoint proceeded to observe (to such idle speculations does the vanity of a sea-voyage give encouragement) that she wondered whether it were better to be an ordinary girl

Mrs.

'Precisely; and that's bad."

"I see what you mean. But isn't it rather hard? If your mother doesn't know anything it is better you should be independent of her, and yet if you are that constitutes a bad note.' I added that Mrs. Mavis had appeared to count sufficiently two nights before. She had said and done everything she wanted while the girl sat silent and respectful. Grace's attitude (so far as her mother was concerned) had been eminently decent.

"Yes, but she couldn't bear it," said Mrs. Nettlepoint.

"Ah, if you know it I she has told me as much."

may confess that

Mrs. Nettlepoint stared. “Told you? There's one of the things they do!"

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Well, it was only a word.

Won't you let me know whether you think she's a flirt?"

"Find out for yourself, since you pretend to study folks."

"Oh, your judgment would probably not at all determine mine. It's in regard to yourself that I ask it."

"In regard to myself?"

"To see the length of maternal immorality."

Mrs. Nettlepoint continued to 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 make it all right. He will have no responsibility."

"Heavens, how you analyse! I haven't in the least your passion for making up my mind."

"Then if you chance it you'll be more immoral still."

"Your reasoning is strange," said the poor lady; "when it was you who tried to put it into my head yesterday that she had asked him to come."

"Yes, but in good faith."

"How do you mean in good faith?”

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"Why, as girls of that sort do. Their allowance and measure in such matters is much larger than that of young ladies who have been, as you say, very well brought up; and yet I am not sure that on the whole I don't think them the more innocent. Miss Mavis is engaged, 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 be photographed. So her usual life goes on, and her usual life consists (and that of those young ladies in general) in having plenty of gentlemen's society. Having it I mean without having any harm from it."

"The great point?"

"I mean, to be settled."

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'Mercy, we are not trying them! How can we settle it?"

"I mean of course in our minds. There will be nothing more interesting for the next ten days for our minds to exercise themselves upon.'

"They will get very tired of it," said Mrs. Nettlepoint.

"No, no, because the interest will increase and the plot will thicken. It can't help it." She looked at me as if she thought me slightly Mephistophelean, and I went on-" So she told you everything in her life was dreary?" Not everything but most things. And she didn't tell me so much as I guessed it. She'll tell me more the next time. She will behave properly now about coming in to see me; I told her she ought to."

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"I am glad of that," I said. with you as much as possible."

"Keep her