roach, and it was from this danger that Mrs.
Nettlepoint averted her face.

'It's just as we said,' she remarked to me as we sat there. 'It is like
the bucket in the well. When I come up that girl goes down.'

'Yes, but you've succeeded, since Jasper remains here.'

'Remains? I don't see him.'

'He comes and goes--it's the same thing.'

'He goes more than he comes. But _n'en parlons plus_; I haven't gained
anything. I don't admire the sea at all--what is it but a magnified
water-tank? I shan't come up again.'

'I have an idea she'll stay in her cabin now,' I said. 'She tells me
she has one to herself.' Mrs. Nettlepoint replied that she might do as
she liked, and I repeated to her the little conversation I had had with
Jasper.

She listened with interest, but 'Marry her? mercy!' she exclaimed. 'I
like the manner in which you give my son away.'

'You wouldn't accept that.'

'Never in the world.'

'Then I don't understand your position.'

'Good heavens, I have none! It isn't a position to be bored to death.'

'You wouldn't accept it even in the case I put to him--that of her
believing she had been encouraged to throw over poor Porterfield?'

'Not even--not even. Who knows what she believes?'

'Then you do exactly what I said you would--you show me a fine example
of maternal immorality.'

'Maternal fiddlesticks! It was she began it.'

'Then why did you come up to-day?'

'To keep you quiet.'

Mrs. Nettlepoint's dinner was served on deck, but I went into the
saloon. Jasper was there but not Grace Mavis, as I had half expected. I
asked him what had become of her, if she were ill (he must have thought
I had an ignoble pertinacity), and he replied that he knew nothing
whatever about her. Mrs. Peck talked to me about Mrs. Nettlepoint and
said it had been a great interest to her to see her; only it was a pity
she didn't seem more sociable. To this I replied that she had to beg to
be excused--she was not well.

'You don't mean to say she's sick, on this pond?'

'No, she's unwell in another way.'

'I guess I know the way!' Mrs. Peck laughed. And then she added, 'I
suppose she came up to look after her charge.'

'Her charge?'

'Why, Miss Mavis. We've talked enough about that.'

'Quite enough. I don't know what that had to do with it. Miss Mavis
hasn't been there to-day.'

'Oh, it goes on all the same.'

'It goes on?'

'Well, it's too late.'

'Too late?'

'Well, you'll see. There'll be a row.'