the amusements of the
evening. 'She dances about as well as any of them.'

'If you were among them would you dare to come out and ask me to join
them? That is a question which you won't even dare to answer.'

'It is a little personal.'

'"No," you ought to say. "I could not do that because your clothes are
so poor, and because of your ragged old hat, and I am not quite sure
that your shoes are fit to be seen." Is not that what you would say, if
you said what you thought?'

'Perhaps it is.'

'And if you said all that you thought, perhaps you would remind me that
a woman of whom nobody knows anything is always held to be disreputable.
That girl, no doubt, has her decent belongings. I have nobody.'

'You have your friends on board.'

'No, I have not. I have not a single friend on board. Those Cromptons
were very unwillingly persuaded to take a sort of interest in me, though
they really know nothing about me. And I have already lost any good
which might come from their protection. She told me yesterday, that I
ought not to walk about with Mr. Shand.'

'And what did you say?'

'Of course I told her to mind her own business. I had no alternative. A
woman has to show a little spirit or she will be trodden absolutely into
the dirt. It was something to have a woman to speak to, even though I
had not a thought in common with her;--though she was to my feeling as
inferior to myself as I no doubt am thought to be by that fat prancing
woman to herself. Even Mrs. Crompton's countenance was of value. But if
I had yielded she would have taken it out in tyranny. So now we don't
speak.'

'That is a pity.'

'It is a pity. You watch them all and see how they look at me,--the
women, I mean. They know that Mr. Shand speaks to me, and that you and
Mr. Shand are the two gentlemen we have among us. There are, no doubt, a
dozen of them watching me now, somewhere, and denouncing me for the
impropriety of my behaviour.'

'Is it improper?'

'What do you think?'

'Why may we not talk as well as others?'

'Exactly. But there are people who are tabooed. Look at that Miss Green
and the ship doctor.' At that moment the ship's doctor and the young
lady in question came close to them in the dance. 'There is no harm in
Miss Green talking by the hour together with the doctor, because she is
comfortably placed. She has got an old father and mother on board who
don't look after her, and everything is respectable. But if I show any
of the