at when she reported them March laughed in scornful
incredulity. But at breakfast the third day out, the Triscoes, with the
authority of people accustomed to social consideration, suddenly turned
to the Marches, and began to make themselves agreeable; the father
spoke to March of 'Every Other Week', which he seemed to know of in its
relation to him; and the young girl addressed herself to Mrs. March's
motherly sense not the less acceptably because indirectly. She spoke of
going out with her father for an indefinite time, as if it were rather
his wish than hers, and she made some inquiries about places in Germany;
they had never been in Germany. They had some idea of Dresden; but the
idea of Dresden with its American colony seemed rather tiresome; and did
Mrs. March know anything about Weimar?

Mrs. March was obliged to say that she knew nothing about anyplace in
Germany; and she explained perhaps too fully where and why she was
going with her husband. She fancied a Boston note in that scorn for the
tiresomeness of Dresden; but the girl's style was of New York rather
than of Boston, and her accent was not quite of either place. Mrs. March
began to try the Triscoes in this place and in that, to divine them and
to class them. She had decided from the first that they were society
people, but they were cultivated beyond the average of the few swells
whom she had met; and there had been nothing offensive in their manner
of holding themselves aloof from the other people at the table; they had
a right to do that if they chose.

When the young Lefferses came in to breakfast, the talk went on between
these and the Marches; the Triscoes presently left the table, and Mrs.
March rose soon after, eager for that discussion of their behavior which
March knew he should not be able to postpone.

He agreed with her that they were society people, but she could not at
once accept his theory that they had themselves been the objects of an
advance from them because of their neutral literary quality, through
which they were of no social world, but potentially common to any. Later
she admitted this, as she said, for the sake of argument, though what
she wanted him to see, now, was that this was all a step of the girl's
toward finding out something about Burnamy.

The same afternoon, about the time the deck-steward was making his
round with his cups, Miss Triscoe abruptly advanced upon her from a
neighboring corner of the bulkhead, and asked,