; her
propellers lash the sea to suds; a wedge-shaped wake spreads out behind
her, and the voyage is on in earnest.

Reno, Roosevelt, Trusts, Wall Street, High Buildings, High Tariff, High
Cost of Living, Graft, Yellow Journals, Family Hotels, the Six Best
Sellers, the Sixty Worst Writers, the Four Hundred, the Hundred Million,
all the things which go to make home sweet, lie astern, enveloped in the
haze at the horizon. You are on the sea at last!--the vast and tireless
sea which has been the inspiration of painter, poet, and pirate; the
cradle of Columbus, Nelson, Paul Jones, Dewey, Hobson, and Annette
Kellerman!

What is there like the sea? What is there like the free swing of a
gallant ship breasting the Atlantic? Nothing! Let's sit down. No, I
don't want to go and get my coat. I'm not so terribly cold yet, and my
state-room smells of rubber and fresh paint. I like it better up here
in the air, don't you? I'm very fond of the fresh air. I really adore
it. No, it doesn't always give me a good colour. Not always. If I'm
pale it is only because I sat up late last night at that farewell
dinner. Perhaps I ate too much. Let's just stay here quietly in our
deckchairs and watch the people.

But, goodness! How they've changed! Where are all those pretty,
fashionable women who were on deck before we sailed? Where, for
instance, is the adorable blonde with the seal coat, orchids, low shoes,
silk stockings, and cough?

A certain cynical friend of mine would answer this inquiry by declaring
that all the attractive women go ashore, having only come to see their
homely relatives and friends depart. But I don't think so. I believe the
pretty ones are here, though in seclusion or disguise.

Nothing of them that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change

at the first touch of Neptune's hand. Only the professional mermaid can
look well at sea. The other women either lie on deck in pale green rows
and live throughout the voyage on sea biscuits and sherry, or, giving up
completely, seek burrows in the ship and hibernate like animals awaiting
spring. Yes, even now I think I recognise the blonde divinity. She's the
third one from the end in that row of steamer-chairs in the wide part of
the deck. Her orchids lie disconsolate upon her chest, her eyes are
closed, her hair blows in straight, strawlike strings across her
colourless face, her hat is on one ear, and she is wrapped like a mummy
in an atrocious rug of pink and olive plaid