n began, though Frederick's thoughts were far away. He was
debating with himself how he should act at his first meeting with the
Hahlstroems.

He tried to find support in self-deception, telling himself he had
boarded the _Roland_, not for the sake of little Ingigerd Hahlstroem, but
because he wanted to see New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston,
Yellowstone Park, and Niagara Falls. That is what he would tell the
Hahlstroems--that a mere chance had brought them together on the _Roland_.

He observed that he was gaining in poise. Sometimes, when the adorer is
at a distance from the object of his devotion, the idolatry of love
assumes fateful proportions. During his stay in Paris, Frederick had
lived in a state of constant fever, and his yearning for his idol had
risen to an unendurable degree. About the image of little Ingigerd
Hahlstroem, a heavenly aureole had laid itself, so compelling in its
attraction that Frederick's mental vision was literally blinded to
everything else. That illusion had suddenly vanished. He felt ashamed of
himself. "I'm a ridiculous fool," he thought, and when he arose to go on
deck, he felt as if he had shaken off oppressive fetters. The salt sea
air blowing vigorously across the deck heightened his sense of
emancipation and convalescence and refreshed him to his inner being.

Men and women lay stretched out on steamer chairs with that green
expression of profound indifference which marks the dreaded seasickness.
To Frederick's astonishment, he himself felt not the least trace of
nausea, and only the sight of his fellow-passengers' misery caused him to
realise that the _Roland_ was not gliding through smooth waters, but was
distinctly pitching and rolling.

He walked around the ladies' parlour, past the entrance of an extra
cabin, and took his stand under the bridge, breasting the steely, salt
sea wind. On the deck below, the steerage passengers had settled
themselves as far as the bow. Though the _Roland_ was running under full
steam, it was not making its maximum speed, prevented by the long, heavy
swells that the wind raised and hurled against the bow. Across the
forward lower deck there was a second bridge, probably for emergency.
Frederick felt strongly tempted to stand up there on that empty bridge.

It aroused some attention, of course, when he descended down among the
steerage passengers and then crawled up the iron rungs of the ladder to
the windy height. But that did not trouble h