the deck, keeping their eyes fixed on her very much as
the man at the wheel kept his on the course of the ship. Mrs. Peck
plainly had designs, and it was from this danger that Mrs. Nettlepoint
averted her face.

"It's just as we said," she remarked to me as we sat there. "It's like
the 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 gained
anything. I don't admire the sea at all--what is it but a magnified
water-tank? I shan't come up again."

"I've an idea she'll stay in her cabin now," I said. "She tells me she
has one to herself." Mrs. Nettlepoint replied that she might do as she
liked, and I repeated to her the little conversation I had had with
Jasper.

She listened with interest, but "Marry her? Mercy!" she exclaimed. "I
like 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 the
whole thing."

"You wouldn't accept it even in the case I put to him--that of her
believing 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 exactly
what I said you would--you show me a fine example of maternal
immorality."

"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 sought
to learn from him what had become of her, if she were ill--he must have
thought I had an odious pertinacity--and he replied that he knew nothing
whatever 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 answer
that 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: "I
suppose she came up to look after her pet."

"Her pet?" I set m