down at certain times to see his mother, and I
watched for one of these occasions (on the third day out) and took
advantage of it to go and sit by Miss Mavis. She wore a blue veil drawn
tightly over her face, so that if the smile with which she greeted me
was dim I could account for it partly by that.

'Well, we are getting on--we are getting on,' I said, cheerfully,
looking at the friendly, twinkling sea.

'Are we going very fast?'

'Not fast, but steadily. _Ohne Hast, ohne Rast_--do you know German?'

'Well, I've studied it--some.'

'It will be useful to you over there when you travel.'

'Well yes, if we do. But I don't suppose we shall much. Mr. Nettlepoint
says we ought,' my interlocutress added in a moment.

'Ah, of course _he_ thinks so. He has been all over the world.'

'Yes, he has described some of the places. That's what I should like. I
didn't know I should like it so much.'

'Like what so much?'

'Going on this way. I could go on for ever, for ever and ever.'

'Ah, you know it's not always like this,' I rejoined.

'Well, it's better than Boston.'

'It isn't so good as Paris,' I said, smiling.

'Oh, I know all about Paris. There is no freshness in that. I feel as if
I had been there.'

'You mean you have heard so much about it?'

'Oh yes, nothing else for ten years.'

I had come to talk with Miss Mavis because she was attractive, but I had
been rather conscious of the absence of a good topic, not feeling at
liberty to revert to Mr. Porterfield. She had not encouraged me, when I
spoke to her as we were leaving Boston, to go on with the history of my
acquaintance with this gentleman; and yet now, unexpectedly, she
appeared to imply (it was doubtless one of the disparities mentioned by
Mrs. Nettlepoint) that he might be glanced at without indelicacy.

'I see, you mean by letters,' I remarked.

'I shan't live in a good part. I know enough to know that,' she went on.

'Dear young lady, there are no bad parts,' I answered, reassuringly.

'Why, Mr. Nettlepoint says it's horrid.'

'It's horrid?'

'Up there in the Batignolles. It's worse than Merrimac Avenue.'

'Worse--in what way?'

'Why, even less where the nice people live.'

'He oughtn't to say that,' I returned. 'Don't you call Mr. Porterfield a
nice person?' I ventured to subjoin.

'Oh, it doesn't make any difference.' She rested her eyes on me a moment
through her veil, the texture of which gave them a suffused prettiness.
'Do