R III

After a couple of minutes of silence which could be felt, Mrs. Van
Stuyler turned round and said angrily:

"Zaidie, you will excuse me, perhaps, if I say that your conduct is
not--I mean has not been what I should have expected--what I did,
indeed, expect from your uncle's niece when I undertook to take you to
Europe. I must say----"

"If I were you, Mrs. Van, I don't think I'd say much more about that,
because, you see, it's fixed and done. Of course, Lord Redgrave's only
an earl, and the other is a marquis, but, you see, he's a man, and I
don't quite think the other one is--and that's about all there is to
it."

Their host had just left the deck-saloon, taking the early coffee
apparatus with him, and Miss Zaidie, in the first flush of her pride and
re-found happiness, was taking a promenade of about twelve strides each
way, while Mrs. Van Stuyler, after partially relieving her feelings as
above, had seated herself stiffly in her wicker-chair, and was following
her with eyes which were critical and, if they had been twenty years
younger, might also have been envious.

"Well, at least I suppose I must congratulate you on your ability to
accommodate yourself to most extraordinary circumstances. I must say
that as far as that goes I quite envy you. I feel as though I ought to
choke or take poison, or something of that sort."

"Sakes, Mrs. Van, please don't talk like that!" said Zaidie, stopping in
her walk just in front of her chaperon's chair. "Can't you see that
there's nothing extraordinary about the circumstances except this
wonderful ship? I have told you how Pop and I met Lord Redgrave in our
tour through the Canadian Rockies two or three years ago. No, it's two
years and nine months next June; and how he took an interest in Pop's
theories and ideas about this same ship that we are on now----"

"Oh yes," said Mrs. Van Stuyler rather acidly, "and not only in the
abstract ideas, but apparently in a certain concrete reality."

"Mrs. Van," laughed Zaidie, with a cunning twist on her heel, "I know
you don't mean to be rude, but--well, now did any one ever call _you_ a
concrete reality? Of course it's correct just as a scientific
definition, perhaps--still, anyhow, I guess it's not much good going on
about that. The facts are just this way. I consented to marry that
Byfleet marquis just out of sheer spite and blank ignorance. Lord
Redgrave never actually asked me to marry him when we were in the
Rockies