a piece of bread and jam. His
father said "Yes, of course," and went on eating. Marcella spread the
jam for him, and then turned to his father.

"I don't know many women," she said. "But I'd just like to see a man
treat me as a fragile flower."

"Ah, wasteful woman!" said Mr. Peters, smiling fatuously as he wrestled
with a hard piece of ham rather too big for his mouth. As soon as he had
swallowed it, he went on, "That's the thing a man loves in a woman--a
_real_ man, that is! 'Just like the ivy, I cling to thee' should be a
woman's motto, a true woman's motto. A woman's weakness, her trust in
man is her most womanly characteristic. It appeals to all that is best
and chivalrous in a man."

A fragile voice at his elbow said, "Mistah Petahs," and he turned
hurriedly towards it. Marcella said, "Pooh!" loudly and very rudely and
turned to Jimmy.

"Do you like cake?" she asked.

"Rather! Gran gives me cake."

"Well, you come with me into my little house after tea and we'll have
some. What number is your little house?"

"Fifteen."

"Mine is Number 9 so we are not very far away."

She looked round several times for Louis Farne, wondering if he would
consider it beneath his dignity to have his meals with the steerage
people, but could not see him. Even after she and Jimmy had explored her
cabin, eaten some cake and walked several times up and down the deck
talking, while the wind blew keenly in their faces, she saw nothing of
him and there was dead silence in his cabin. Her deck-chair, she
noticed, was where she had seen it put among a pile of others; later in
the day Knollys came along and stencilled her initials.

"If you don't have your name on, some of these blooming emigrants will
pinch it, or the deck-hands will hide it till we're a few days out and
sell it to someone else."

She began to think Knollys was a very useful person to know, for all his
superiority and pessimism.

As it grew dark, lights twinkled out ashore--lights rocked here and
there on passing ships and barges: tubes of light projected themselves
out from the portholes on to the blackening water, that swished and
washed past the sides with a sound of desolation; to the landward an
uncoiled serpent glittered out into the water and then seemed to cover
itself in a grey veil of darkness as the _Oriana_ passed the pier of
some little watering-place. Marcella went slowly along the deck, climbed
the fo'c'sle steps and sat down on the anchor. At L