now, and
you'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 can
help me. Quarrel with him--he's rather good at a quarrel; and that will
divert him and draw him off."

"Then I'm ready," I returned, "to discuss the matter with him for the
rest of the voyage."

"Very well; I count on you. But he'll ask you, as he asks me, what the
deuce 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 exactly
what I told you at first."

"Yes, but don't exult; I hate people who exult. Jasper asks of me," she
went on, "why he should mind her being talked about if she doesn't mind
it herself."

"I'll tell him why," I replied; and Mrs. Nettlepoint said she should be
exceedingly obliged to me and repeated that she would indeed take the
field.

I looked for Jasper above that same evening, but circumstances didn't
favour my quest. I found him--that is I gathered he was again ensconced
behind the lifeboat with Miss Mavis; but there was a needless violence in
breaking into their communion, and I put off our interview till the next
day. Then I took the first opportunity, at breakfast, to make sure of
it. He was in the saloon when I went in and was preparing to leave the
table; but I stopped him and asked if he would give me a quarter of an
hour on deck a little later--there was something particular I wanted to
say 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 breakfast
I found him smoking on the forward-deck and I immediately began: "I'm
going to say something you won't at all like; to ask you a question
you'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 a
good 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 these
things give me a certain right--a sort of privilege. Besides which my
inquiry 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's