Next morning Mr. Buel again searched the deck for the fair American, and this time he found her reading his book, seated very comfortably in her deck chair. The fact that she was so engaged put out of Buel’s mind the greeting he had carefully prepared beforehand, and he stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to say. He inwardly cursed his unreadiness, and felt, to his further embarrassment, that his colour was rising. He was not put more at his ease when Miss Jessop looked up at him coldly, with a distinct frown on her pretty face.

“Mr. Buel, I believe?” she said pertly.

“I—I think so,” he stammered.

She went on with her reading, ignoring him, and he stood there not knowing how to get away. When he pulled himself together, after a few moments’ silence, and was about to depart, wondering at the caprice of womankind, she looked up again, and said icily—

“Why don’t you ask me to walk with you? Do you think you have no duties, merely because you are on shipboard?”

“It isn’t a duty, it is a pleasure, if you will come with me. I was afraid I had offended you in some way.”

“You have. That is why I want to walk with you. I wish to give you a piece of my mind, and it won’t be pleasant to listen to, I can assure you. So there must be no listener but yourself.”

“Is it so serious as that?”

“Quite. Assist me, please. Why do you have to be asked to do such a thing? I don’t suppose there is another man on the ship who would see a lady struggling with her rugs, and never put out his hand.”

Before the astonished young man could offer assistance the girl sprang to her feet and stood beside him. Although she tried to retain her severe look of displeasure, there was a merry twinkle in the corner of her eye, as if she enjoyed shocking him.

“I fear I am very unready.”

“You are.”

“Will you take my arm as we walk?”

“Certainly not,” she answered, putting the tips of her fingers into the shallow pockets of her pilot jacket. “Don’t you know the United States are long since independent of England?”

“I had forgotten for the moment. My knowledge of history is rather limited, even when I try to remember. Still, independence and all, the two countries may be friends, may they not?”

“I doubt it. It seems to be natural that an American should hate an Englishman.”

“Dear me, is it so bad as that? Why, may I ask? Is it on account of the little trouble in 1770, or whenever it was?”

“1776, when we conquered you.”

“Were we conquered? That is another historical fact which has been concealed from me. I am afraid England doesn’t quite realise her unfortunate position. She has a good deal of go about her for a conquered nation. But I thought the conquering, which we all admit, was of much more recent date, when the pretty American girls began to come over. Then Englishmen at once capitulated.”

“Yes,” she cried scornfully. “And I don’t know which to despise most, the American girls who marry Englishmen, or the Englishmen they marry. They are married for their money.”

“Who? The Englishmen?”

The girl stamped her foot on the deck as they turned around.

“You know very well what I mean. An Englishman thinks of nothing but money.”

“Really? I wonder where you got all your cut-and-dried notions about Englishmen? You seem to have a great capacity for contempt. I don’t think it is good. My experience is rather limited, of course, but, as far as it goes, I find good and bad in all nations. There are Englishmen whom I find it impossible to like, and there are Americans whom I find I admire in spite of myself. There are also, doubtless, good Englishmen and bad Americans, if we only knew where to find them. You cannot sum up a nation and condemn it in a phrase, you know.”

“Can’t you? Well, literary Englishmen have tried to do so in the case of America. No English writer has ever dealt even fairly with the United States.”

“Don’t you think the States are a little too sensitive about the matter?”

“Sensitive? Bless you, we don’t mind it a bit.”

“Then where’s the harm? Besides, America has its revenge in you. Your scathing contempt more than balances the account.”

“I only wish I could write. Then I would let you know what I think of you.”

“Oh, don’t publish a book about us. I wouldn’t like to see war between the two countries.”

Miss Jessop laughed merrily for so belligerent a person.

“War?” she cried. “I hope yet to see an American army camped in London.”

“If that is your desire, you can see it any day in summer. You will find them tenting out at the MÉtropole and all the expensive hotels. I bivouacked with an invader there some weeks ago, and he was enduring the rigours of camp life with great fortitude, mitigating his trials with unlimited champagne.”

“Why, Mr. Buel,” cried the girl admiringly, “you’re beginning to talk just like an American yourself.”

“Oh, now, you are trying to make me conceited.”

Miss Jessop sighed, and shook her head.

“I had nearly forgotten,” she said, “that I despised you. I remember now why I began to walk with you. It was not to talk frivolously, but to show you the depth of my contempt! Since yesterday you have gone down in my estimation from 190 to 56.”

“Fahrenheit?”

“No, that was a Wall Street quotation. Your stock has ‘slumped,’ as we say on the Street.”

“Now you are talking Latin, or worse, for I can understand a little Latin.”

“‘Slumped’ sounds slangy, doesn’t it? It isn’t a pretty word, but it is expressive. It means going down with a run, or rather, all in a heap.”

“What have I done?”

“Nothing you can say will undo it, so there is no use in speaking any more about it. Second thoughts are best. My second thought is to say no more.”

“I must know my crime. Give me a chance to, at least, reach par again, even if I can’t hope to attain the 90 above.”

“I thought an Englishman had some grit. I thought he did not allow any one to walk over him. I thought he stood by his guns when he knew he was in the right. I thought he was a manly man, and a fighter against injustice!”

“Dear me! Judging by your conversation of a few minutes ago, one would imagine that you attributed exactly the opposite qualities to him.”

“I say I thought all this—yesterday. I don’t think so to-day.”

“Oh, I see! And all on account of me?”

“All on account of you.”

“Once more, what have I done?”

“What have you done? You have allowed that detestably selfish specimen of your race, Hodden, to evict you from your room.”

The young man stopped abruptly in his walk, and looked at the girl with astonishment. She, her hands still coquettishly thrust in her jacket-pockets, returned his gaze with unruffled serenity.

“What do you know about it?” he demanded at last.

“Everything. From the time you meekly told the steward to take out your valise until the time you meekly apologised to Hodden for having told him the truth, and then meekly followed the purser to a room containing three others.”

“But Hodden meekly, as you express it, apologised first. I suppose you know that too, otherwise I would not have mentioned it.”

“Certainly he did. That was because he found his overbearing tactics did not work. He apologised merely to get rid of you, and did. That’s what put me out of patience with you. To think you couldn’t see through his scheme!”

“Oh! I thought it was the lack of manly qualities you despised in me. Now you are accusing me of not being crafty.”

“How severely you say that! You quite frighten me! You will be making me apologise by-and-by, and I don’t want to do that.”

Buel laughed, and resumed his walk.

“It’s all right,” he said; “Hodden’s loss is my gain. I’ve got in with a jolly lot, who took the trouble last night to teach me the great American game at cards—and counters.”

Miss Jessop sighed.

“Having escaped with my life,” she said, “I think I shall not run any more risks, but shall continue with your book. I had no idea you could look so fierce. I have scarcely gotten over it yet. Besides, I am very much interested in that book of yours.”

“Why do you say so persistently ‘that book of mine’?”

“Isn’t it yours? You bought it, didn’t you? Then it was written by your relative, you know.”

“I said my namesake.”

“So you did. And now I’m going to ask you an impudent question. You will not look wicked again, will you?”

“I won’t promise. That depends entirely on the question.”

“It is easily answered.”

“I’m waiting.”

“What is your Christian name, Mr. Buel?”

“My Christian name?” he repeated, uncomfortably.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Why do you wish to know?”

“A woman’s reason—because.”

They walked the length of the deck in silence.

“Come, now,” she said, “confess. What is it?”

“John.”

Miss Jessop laughed heartily, but quietly.

“You think John commonplace, I suppose?”

“Oh, it suits you, Mr. Buel. Goodbye.”

As the young woman found her place in the book, she mused, “How blind men are, after all—with his name in full on the passage list.” Then she said to herself, with a sigh, “I do wish I had bought this book instead of Hodden’s.”

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