dressed, with hair of shining blackness arranged about her head in
dozens of little tight curls. She and the elderly man were talking
animatedly. The little boy pulled the man's arm several times gently,
and said "Father," but he did not notice.

There were piles of sliced bread at intervals up the table, and saucers
containing butter and jam. The stewards came to each person with an
enormous pair of pots and, murmuring "tea or coffee?" poured something
by sleight-of-hand into the thick, unbreakable cups.

"Father!" murmured the little boy again, pulling his father's sleeve.
The father shook his arm impatiently, as one jerks away an annoying fly.
He went on talking absorbedly. A steward asked if Marcella would have
ham or fish.

"Father," said the little boy, with quivering lips.

"What's to do, laddie?" said Marcella.

He stared at her, summed her up and decided.

"I'm thinking, shall I have ham or fish?" he said seriously.

"Which do you like?"

"Fish--only the bones are so worrying."

"I'll see to the bones for you. Have fish because I'm having it, and we
can keep each other company," she said. Knollys darted away.

"I'd advise you to make a good tea, miss," said Knollys with a firmly
respectful air. "There's nothing until breakfast at eight to-morrow."

Marcella nodded at him. Next minute she heard Ole Fred swearing at him
for not being quicker, but Knollys took it all with an impersonally
sarcastic air. She cut up the little boy's bread and butter into strips,
arranged his fish, and watched, with amusement, his father turn to him
with a jerk of remembrance.

"It's good of you to look after young Jimmy," he said, smiling at
Marcella. "He misses his mother."

"Is she dead?"

"Yes. He's only me. There are a surprising lot of lonely people in the
world, aren't there? The little lady next to me--she's a widow, I find.
It's hard when a woman has had a man to depend on and suddenly finds
herself left to battle with the world, isn't it? Women are such fragile
little flowers to me--they want protecting from the winds."

Marcella looked at him; he was rather fat: the excitement of his talk
with the little lady had made his forehead shine; when he smiled his
drooping moustache could not hide a row of blackened, broken teeth. He
smelt of stale tobacco, as though he carried old pipes in every pocket.
He ate quickly and noisily, his eyes on his plate, his shoulders moving.

Jimmy asked timidly if he might have