describing what sounded like grievances to an
official in buttons, who seemed indifferent. She stopped suddenly when
the man appeared, and the official took his hands out of his pockets and
became alert and attentive, and the stewardess hastily picked up a tray
she had set down and began to move away along a passage.

The man, however, briefly called "Hi," and she turned round and came
back even more quickly than she had tried to go.

"You see," explained Anna-Rose in a pleased whisper to Anna-Felicitas,
"it's Hi she answers to."

"Yes," agreed Anna-Felicitas. "It's waste of good circumlocutions to
throw them away on her."

"Show these young ladies the dining-room," said the man.

"Yes, sir," said the stewardess, as polite as you please.

He nodded to them with a smile that developed for some reason into a
laugh, and turned away and beckoned to the official to follow him, and
went out again into the night.

"Who was that nice man?" inquired Anna-Rose, following the stewardess
down a broad flight of stairs that smelt of india-rubber and machine-oil
and cooking all mixed up together.

"And please," said Anna-Felicitas with mild severity, "don't tell us to
ask the Captain, because we really do know better than that."

"I thought you must be relations," said the stewardess.

"We are," said Anna-Rose. "We're twins."

The stewardess stared. "Twins what of?" she asked.

"What of?" echoed Anna-Rose. "Why, of each other, of course."

"I meant relations of the Captain's," said the stewardess shortly,
eyeing them with more disfavour than ever.

"You seem to have the Captain greatly on your mind," said
Anna-Felicitas. "He is no relation of ours."

"You're not even friends, then?" asked the stewardess, pausing to stare
round at them at a turn in the stairs as they followed her down
arm-in-arm.

"Of course we're friends," said Anna-Rose with some heat. "Do you
suppose we quarrel?"

"No, I didn't suppose you quarrelled with the Captain," said the
stewardess tartly. "Not on board this ship anyway."

She didn't know which of the two she disliked most, the short girl or
the long girl.

"You seem to be greatly obsessed by the Captain," said Anna-Felicitas
gently. "Obsessed!" repeated the stewardess, tossing her head. She was
unacquainted with the word, but instantly suspected it of containing a
reflection on her respectability. "I've been a widow off and on for ten
years now," she said angrily, "and I guess it woul