strange
expression 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 compassion
for my simplicity. "That's a question the young lady may put to me any
moment 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've
enumerated 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 of
our young woman. At this, under the impression of it, he faced me again
and, looking at me from head to foot, demanded: "What is it you want me
to 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 only
clear result of my undertaking would probably have been to make it vivid
to him that she was in love with him. Mrs. Nettlepoint came up as she
had 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 her
chair and her shawls, saw she was protected from sun and wind, and for an
hour was very properly attentive. While this went on Grace Mavis was not
visible, nor did she reappear during the whole afternoon. I hadn't
observed that she had as yet been absent from the deck for so long a
period. Jasper left his mother, but came back at intervals to see how
she got on, and when she asked where Miss Mavis might be answered that he
hadn'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 make
their approach, so that I must act as a watch-dog. She was flurried and
fatigued with her migration, and I think that Grace Mavis's choosing this
occasion for retirement suggested to her a little that she had been made
a fool of. She remarked that the girl's not being there showed her for
the barbarian she only could be, and that she herself was really very
good so to have put herself out; her charge was a mere bore: that was the
end of it. I could see that my companion's advent quickened the
speculative activity of the other ladies they watched her from the
opposite side of