ell 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
on the deep. It was always present to me that so the waters ploughed by
the Homeric heroes must have looked. I became conscious on this
particular occasion moreover that Grace Mavis would for the rest of the
voyage be the most visible thing in one's range, 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 corresponding exposure, 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 light blue veil
drawn tightly over her face, so that if the smile with which she greeted
me rather lacked intensity I could account for it partly by that.

"Well, we're getting on--we're 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 young woman 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. They must be wonderful. I
didn't know I should like it so much."

"But it isn't 'Europe' yet!" I laughed.

Well, she didn't care if it wasn't. "I mean going on this way. I could
go on for ever--for ever and ever."

"Ah you know it's not always like this," I hastened to mention.

"Well, it's better than Boston."

"It isn't so good as Paris," I still more portentously noted.

"Oh I know all about Paris. There's no freshness in that. I feel as if
I had been there all the time."

"You mean you've heard so much of 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. Por