, or that she could note any break
in the reserve of the father and daughter. The signs of this were so fine
that when she reported them March laughed in scornful incredulity. But at
breakfast the third day out, the Triscoes, with the authority of people
accustomed to social consideration, suddenly turned to the Marches, and
began to make themselves agreeable; the father spoke to March of 'Every
Other Week', which he seemed to know of in its relation to him; and the
young girl addressed herself to Mrs. March's motherly sense not the less
acceptably because indirectly. She spoke of going out with her father for
an indefinite time, as if it were rather his wish than hers, and she made
some inquiries about places in Germany; they had never been in Germany.
They had some idea of Dresden; but the idea of Dresden with its American
colony seemed rather tiresome; and did Mrs. March know anything about
Weimar?

Mrs. March was obliged to say that she knew nothing about anyplace in
Germany; and she explained perhaps too fully where and why she was going
with her husband. She fancied a Boston note in that scorn for the
tiresomeness of Dresden; but the girl's style was of New York rather than
of Boston, and her accent was not quite of either place. Mrs. March began
to try the Triscoes in this place and in that, to divine them and to
class them. She had decided from the first that they were society people,
but they were cultivated beyond the average of the few swells whom she
had met; and there had been nothing offensive in their manner of holding
themselves aloof from the other people at the table; they had a right to
do that if they chose.

When the young Lefferses came in to breakfast, the talk went on between
these and the Marches; the Triscoes presently left the table, and Mrs.
March rose soon after, eager for that discussion of their behavior which
March knew he should not be able to postpone.

He agreed with her that they were society people, but she could not at
once accept his theory that they had themselves been the objects of an
advance from them because of their neutral literary quality, through
which they were of no social world, but potentially common to any. Later
she admitted this, as she said, for the sake of argument, though what she
wanted him to see, now, was that this was all a step of the girl's toward
finding out something about Burnamy.

The same afternoon, about the time the deck-steward was making his rou