med about the ship as if
they had been pirates boarding her, and their mother was as powerless to
check their license as if she had been gagged and stowed away in the
hold. They were especially to be trusted to run between the legs of the
stewards when these attendants arrived with bowls of soup for the
languid ladies. Their mother was too busy recounting to her
fellow-passengers how many years Miss Mavis had been engaged. In the
blank of a marine existence things that are nobody's business very soon
become everybody's, and this was just one of those facts that are
propagated with a mysterious and ridiculous rapidity. The whisper that
carries them is very small, in the great scale of things, of air and
space and progress, but it is also very safe, for there is no
compression, no sounding-board, to make speakers responsible. And then
repetition at sea is somehow not repetition; monotony is in the air, the
mind is flat and everything recurs--the bells, the meals, the stewards'
faces, the romp of children, the walk, the clothes, the very shoes and
buttons of passengers taking their exercise. These things grow at last
so insipid that, in comparison, revelations as to the personal history
of one's companions have a taste, even when one cares little about the
people.

Jasper Nettlepoint sat on my left hand when he was not upstairs seeing
that Miss Mavis had her repast comfortably on deck. His mother's place
would have been next mine had she shown herself, and then that of the
young lady under her care. The two ladies, in other words, would have
been between us, Jasper marking the limit of the party on that side.
Miss Mavis was present at luncheon the first day, but dinner passed
without her coming in, and when it was half over Jasper remarked that he
would go up and look after her.

'Isn't that young lady coming--the one who was here to lunch?' Mrs. Peck
asked 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 were
homely and direct.

'No, she remains in her cabin. People have different tastes. Perhaps
that's one reason why Miss Mavis doesn't come to table,' I added--'her
chaperon not being able to accompany her.'

'Her c