mushy stage--'Look here, dearie,' he says,
'hadn't we better be gettin' on home? You'll tire those little feet of
yours all out trottin' around this way.' And when the hat turned around
there was a face under it as black as a crow. He'd been followin' a
darkey woman for ten minutes. She thought he was makin' fun of her feet
and was awful mad, and when Martha came along and found who he'd taken
for her she was madder still. Hezzy said, 'I couldn't help it, Martha.
Nobody could. I never saw two craft look more alike from twenty foot
astern. And she wears that hat just the way you do.' That didn't help
matters any, of course, and--Why, Hosy, where are you goin'? Why don't
you say somethin'? Hadn't we better sit down? All the good seats will be
gone if we don't."

I had been struggling through the crowd, trying my best to get a glimpse
of the man she had thought to be Herbert Bayliss. If it was he then my
suspicions were confirmed. Heathcroft's story of the girl who sang in
Paris had impressed him as it had me and he was on his way to see for
himself. But the man, whoever he might be, had disappeared.

"How the wind does blow," said Hephzy. "What are the people doin' with
those black tarpaulins?"

Sailors in uniform were passing among the seated passengers distributing
large squares of black waterproof canvas. I watched the use to which the
tarpaulins were put and I understood. I beckoned to the nearest sailor
and rented two of the canvases for use during the voyage.

"How much?" I asked.

"One franc each," said the man, curtly.

I had visited the money-changers near the Charing Cross station and was
prepared. Hephzy's eyes opened.

"A franc," she repeated. "That's French money, isn't it. Is he a
Frenchman?"

"Yes," said I. "This is a French boat, I think."

She watched the sailor for a moment. Then she sighed.

"And he's a Frenchman," she said. "I thought Frenchmen wore mustaches
and goatees and were awful polite. He was about as polite as a pig.
And all he needs is a hand-organ and a monkey to be an Italian. A body
couldn't tell the difference without specs. What did you get those
tarpaulins for, Hosy?"

I covered our traveling bags with one of the tarpaulins, as I saw our
fellow-passengers doing, and the other I tucked about Hephzy, enveloping
her from her waist down.

"I don't need that," she protested. "It isn't cold and it isn't rainin',
either. I tell you I don't need it, Hosy. Don't tuck me in any mo