direction of my glances, said: "Have you known Mrs.
Falchion long?"

"No, not long," I replied. "Only since she came on board."

"She is very clever, I believe."

I felt my face flushing, though, reasonably, there was no occasion for
it, and I said: "Yes, she is one of the ablest women I have ever met."

"She is beautiful, too--very beautiful." This very frankly.

"Have you talked with her?" asked I.

"Yes, a little this morning, for the first time. She did not speak much,
however." Here Miss Treherne paused, and then added meditatively: "Do
you know, she impressed me as having singular frankness and singular
reserve as well? I think I admired it. There is no feeling in her
speech, and yet it has great candour. I never before met any one like
her. She does not wear her heart upon her sleeve, I imagine."

A moment of irony came over me; that desire to say what one really does
not believe (a feminine trait), and I replied: "Are both those articles
necessary to any one? A sleeve?--well, one must be clothed. But a
heart?--a cumbrous thing, as I take it."

Belle Treherne turned, and looked me steadily in the eyes for an
instant, as if she had suddenly awakened from abstraction, and slowly
said, while she drew back slightly: "Dr. Marmion, I am only a girl,
I know, and inexperienced, but I hoped most people of education and
knowledge of life were free from that kind of cynicism to be read of
in books." Then something in her thoughts seemed to chill her words and
manner, and her father coming up a moment after, she took his arm, and
walked away with a not very cordial bow to me.

The fact is, with a woman's quick intuition, she had read in my tone
something suggestive of my recent experience with Mrs. Falchion. Her
fine womanliness awoke; the purity of her thoughts, rose in opposition
to my flippancy and to me; and I knew that I had raised a prejudice not
easy to destroy.

This was on a Friday afternoon.

On the Saturday evening following, the fancy-dress ball was to occur.
The accident to the machinery and our delay were almost forgotten in the
preparations therefor. I had little to do; there was only one sick man
on board, and my hand could not cure his sickness. How he fared, my
uncomfortable mind, now bitterly alive to a sense of duty, almost
hesitated to inquire. Yet a change had come. A reaction had set in for
me. Would it be permanent? I dared scarcely answer that question, with
Mrs. Falchion at my right ha