il, they start in to snub you, you!
I'll go back to my old seat at the table. You mustn't walk with me any
more."

"Don't be silly. If you return to your chair, if you no longer walk
with me, they'll find a thousand things to talk about. Since I do not
care, why should you?"

"Can't I make it clear to you?" desperately.

"I see with reasonable eyes, if that is what you mean. The people I
know, mine own people, understand Elsa Chetwood."

So her name was Elsa? He repeated it over and over in his mind.

She continued her exposition. "There are but few, gently born. They
are generous and broad-minded. They could not be mine own people
otherwise. They are all I care about. I shun mediocrity as I would
the plague. I refuse to permit it to touch me, either with words or
with deeds. The good opinion of those I love is dear to me; as for the
rest of the world!" She snapped her fingers to illustrate how little
she cared.

"I am a man under a cloud, to be avoided."

"Perhaps that cloud has a silver lining," with a gentle smile. "I do
not believe you did anything wrong, premeditatively. All of us, one
time or another, surrender to wild impulse. Perhaps in the future
there awaits for me such a moment. I cannot recollect the name of
Warrington in a _cause celebre_," thoughtfully.

He could only gaze at her dumbly.

"Don't you suppose there is a vast difference between you and this man
Craig? Could you commit the petty crime of cheating at cards, of
taking advantage of a woman's kindness, of betraying a man's
misfortune? I do not think you could. No, Mr. Warrington, I do not
care what they say, on board here or elsewhere."

"My name is not Warrington," finding his voice. God in heaven, what
would happen when she found out what his name was? "But my first name
is Paul."

"Paul. I have had my suspicions that your name was not Warrington.
But tell me nothing more. What good would it do? I did not read that
man's letter. I merely noted your name and his. You doubtless knew
him somewhere in the past."

"Might there not be danger in your kindness to me?"

"In what way?"

"A man under a cloud is often reckless and desperate. There is always
an invisible demon calling out to him: What's the use of being good?
You are the first woman of your station who has treated me as a human
being; I do not say as an equal. You have given me back some of my
self-respect. It throws my world upside down. It'