III

The _Patagonia_ was slow, but she was spacious and comfortable, and

there was a kind of motherly decency in her long, nursing rock and her

rustling, old-fashioned gait. It was as if she wished not to present

herself in port with the splashed eagerness of a young creature. We were

not numerous enough to squeeze each other and yet we were not too few to

entertain--with that familiarity and relief which figures and objects

acquire on the great bare field of the ocean, beneath the great bright

glass of the sky. I had never liked the sea so much before, indeed I had

never liked it at all; but now I had a revelation of how, in a midsummer

mood, it could please. It was darkly and magnificently blue and

imperturbably quiet--save for the great regular swell of its

heart-beats, the pulse of its life, and there grew to be something so

agreeable in the sense of floating there in infinite isolation and

leisure that it was a positive satisfaction the _Patagonia_ was not a

racer. One had never thought of the sea as the great place of safety,

but now it came over one that there is no place so safe from the land.

When it does not give you trouble it takes it away--takes away letters

and telegrams and newspapers and visits and duties and efforts, all the

complications, all the superfluities and superstitions that we have

stuffed into our terrene life. The simple absence of the post, when the

particular conditions enable you to enjoy the great fact by which it is

produced, becomes in itself a kind of bliss, and the clean stage of the

deck shows you a play that amuses, the personal drama of the voyage, the

movement and interaction, in the strong sea-light, of figures that end

by representing something--something moreover of which the interest is

never, even in its keenness, too great to suffer you to go to sleep. I,

at any rate, dozed a great deal, lying on my rug with a French novel,

and when I opened my eyes I generally saw Jasper Nettlepoint passing

with his mother's _protegee_ on his arm. Somehow at these moments,

between sleeping and waking, I had an inconsequent sense that they were

a part of the French novel. Perhaps this was because I had fallen into

the trick, at the start, of regarding Grace Mavis almost as a married

woman, which, as every one knows, is the necessary status of the heroine

of such a work. Every revolution of our engine at any rate would

contribute to the effect of making her one.

In the saloon, at meals, my neighbour on the right was a certain little

Mrs. Peck, a very short and very round person whose head was enveloped

in a 'cloud' (a cloud of dirty white wool) and who promptly let me know

that she was going to Europe for the education of her children. I had

already perceived (an hour after we left the dock) that some energetic

step was required in their interest, but as we were not in Europe yet

the business could not be said to have begun. The four little Pecks, in

the enjoyment of untrammelled leisure, swarmed 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 chaperon?'

'Mrs. Nettlepoint--the lady under whose protection she is.'

'Protection?' Mrs. Peck stared at me a moment, moving some valued morsel

in her mouth; then she exclaimed, familiarly, 'Pshaw!' I was struck with

this and I was on the point of asking her what she meant by it when she

continued: 'Are we not going to see Mrs. Nettlepoint?'

'I am afraid not. She vows that she won't stir from her sofa.'

'Pshaw!' said Mrs. Peck again. 'That's quite a disappointment.'

'Do you know her then?'

'No, but I know all about her.' Then my companion added--'You don't

meant to say she's any relation?'

'Do you mean to me?'

'No, to Grace Mavis.'

'None at all. They are very new friends, as I happen to know. Then you

are acquainted with our young lady?' I had not noticed that any

recognition passed between them at luncheon.

'Is she yours too?' asked Mrs. Peck, smiling at me.

'Ah, when people are in the same boat--literally--they belong a little

to each other.'

'That's so,' said Mrs. Peck. 'I don't know Miss Mavis but I know all

about her--I live opposite to her on Merrimac Avenue. I don't know

whether you know that part.'

'Oh yes--it's very beautiful.'

The consequence of this remark was another 'Pshaw!' But Mrs. Peck went

on--'When you've lived opposite to people like that for a long time you

feel as if you were acquainted. But she didn't take it up to-day; she

didn't speak to me. She knows who I am as well as she knows her own

mother.'

'You had better speak to her first--she's shy,' I remarked.

'Shy? Why she's nearly thirty years old. I suppose you know where she's

going.'

'Oh yes--we all take an interest in that.'

'That young man, I suppose, particularly.'

'That young man?'

'The handsome one, who sits there. Didn't you tell me he is Mrs.

Nettlepoint's son?'

'Oh yes; he acts as her deputy. No doubt he does all he can to carry out

her function.'

Mrs. Peck was silent a moment. I had spoken jocosely, but she received

my pleasantry with a serious face. 'Well, she might let him eat his

dinner in peace!' she presently exclaimed.

'Oh, he'll come back!' I said, glancing at his place. The repast

continued and when it was finished I screwed my chair round to leave the

table. Mrs. Peck performed the same movement and we quitted the saloon

together. Outside of it was a kind of vestibule, with several seats,

from which you could descend to the lower cabins or mount to the

promenade-deck. Mrs. Peck appeared to hesitate as to her course and then

solved the problem by going neither way. She dropped upon one of the

benches and looked up at me.

'I thought you said he would come back.'

'Young Nettlepoint? I see he didn't. Miss Mavis then has given him half

of her dinner.'

'It's very kind of her! She has been engaged for ages.'

'Yes, but that will soon be over.'

'So I suppose--as quick as we land. Every one knows it on Merrimac

Avenue. Every one there takes a great interest in it.'

'Ah, of course, a girl like that: she has many friends.'

'I mean even people who don't know her.'

'I see,' I went on: 'she is so handsome that she attracts attention,

people enter into her affairs.'

'She _used_ to be pretty, but I can't say I think she's anything

remarkable to-day. Anyhow, if she attracts attention she ought to be all

the more careful what she does. You had better tell her that.'

'Oh, it's none of my business!' I replied, leaving Mrs. Peck and going

above. The exclamation, I confess, was not perfectly in accordance with

my feeling, or rather my feeling was not perfectly in harmony with the

exclamation. The very first thing I did on reaching the deck was to

notice that Miss Mavis was pacing it on Jasper Nettlepoint's arm and

that whatever beauty she might have lost, according to Mrs. Peck's

insinuation, she still kept enough to make one's eyes follow her. She

had put on a sort of crimson hood, which was very becoming to her and

which she wore for the rest of the voyage. She walked very well, with

long steps, and I remember that at this moment the ocean had a gentle

evening swell which made the great ship dip slowly, rhythmically, giving

a movement that was graceful to graceful pedestrians and a more awkward

one to the awkward. It was the loveliest hour of a fine day, the clear

early evening, with the glow of the sunset in the air and a purple

colour in the sea. I always thought that the waters ploughed by the

Homeric heroes must have looked like that. I perceived on that

particular occasion moreover that Grace Mavis would for the rest of the

voyage be the most visible thing on the ship; the figure that would

count most in the composition of groups. She couldn't help it, poor

girl; nature had made her conspicuous--important, as the painters say.

She paid for it by the exposure it brought with it--the danger that

people would, as I had said to Mrs. Peck, enter into her affairs.

Jasper Nettlepoint went 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 you know him very well?' she asked.

'Mr. Porterfield?'

'No, Mr. Nettlepoint.'

'Ah, very little. He's a good deal younger than I.'

She was silent a moment; after which she said: 'He's younger than me,

too.' I know not what drollery there was in this but it was unexpected

and it made me laugh. Neither do I know whether Miss Mavis took offence

at my laughter, though I remember thinking at the moment with

compunction that it had brought a certain colour to her cheek. At all

events she got up, gathering her shawl and her books into her arm. 'I'm

going down--I'm tired.'

'Tired of me, I'm afraid.'

'No, not yet.'

'I'm like you,' I pursued. 'I should like it to go on and on.'

She had begun to walk along the deck to the companion-way and I went

with her. 'Oh, no, I shouldn't, after all!'

I had taken her shawl from her to carry it, but at the top of the steps

that led down to the cabins I had to give it back. 'Your mother would be

glad if she could know,' I observed as we parted.

'If she could know?'

'How well you are getting on. And that good Mrs. Allen.'

'Oh, mother, mother! She made me come, she pushed me off.' And almost as

if not to say more she went quickly below.

I paid Mrs. Nettlepoint a morning visit after luncheon and another in

the evening, before she 'turned in.' That same day, in the evening, she

said to me suddenly, 'Do you know what I have done? I have asked

Jasper.'

'Asked him what?'

'Why, if _she_ asked him, you know.'

'I don't understand.'

'You do perfectly. If that girl really asked him--on the balcony--to

sail with us.'

'My dear friend, do you suppose that if she did he would tell you?'

'That's just what he says. But he says she didn't.'

'And do you consider the statement valuable?' I asked, laughing out.

'You had better ask Miss Gracie herself.'