It is not too easy to appropriate a pretty girl on board ship. There are always young men who expect the voyage to offer a flirtation, and who spend much ingenuity in heading each other off from the companionship of the most attractive damsels. But the “English girl” was not in the “pretty” class. She was a beauty, of the grave and pure type which implies character. All the children knew her; all the women and men watched her; but few of the latter had ventured to speak to her, even before Stefan claimed her as his monopoly. For this he did, from the moment of their first encounter. To him nobody on the ship existed but her, and he assumed the right to show it.

He had trouble from only two people. One was the Scotchman, McEwan, whose hide seemed impervious to rebuffs, and who would charge into a conversation with the weight of a battering ram, planting himself implacably in a chair beside Miss Elliston, and occasionally reducing even Stefan to silence. The other was Miss Elliston herself. She was kind, she was friendly, she was boyishly frank. But occasionally she would withdraw into herself, and sometimes would disappear altogether into her cabin, to be found again, after long search, telling stories to some of the children. On such occasions Stefan roamed the decks and saloons very like a hungry wolf, snapping with intolerable rudeness at any one who spoke to him. This, however, few troubled to do, for he was cordially disliked, both for his own sake and because of his success with Miss Elliston. That success the ship could not doubt. Though she was invariably polite to every one, she walked and talked only with him or the children. She was, of course, above the social level of the second-class; but this the English did not resent, because they understood it, nor the Americans, because they were unaware of it. On the other hand, English and Americans alike resented Byrd, whom they could neither place nor understand. These two became the most conspicuous people in the cabin, and their every movement was eagerly watched and discussed, though both remained entirely oblivious to it. Stefan was absorbed in the girl, that was clear; but how far she might be in him the cabin could not be sure. She brightened when he appeared. She liked him, smiled at him, and listened to him. She allowed him to monopolize her. But she never sought him out, never snubbed McEwan for his intrusions into their tÊte-À-tÊtes, seemed not to be “managing” the affair in any way. Used to more obvious methods, most of the company were puzzled. They did not understand that they were watching the romance of a woman who added perfect breeding to her racial self-control. Mary Elliston would never wear her feelings nakedly, nor allow them to ride her out of hand.

Not so Stefan, who was, as yet unknowingly, experiencing romantic love for the first time. This girl was the most glorious creature he had ever known, and the most womanly. Her sex was the very essence of her; she had no need to wear it like a furbelow. She was utterly different from the feminine, adroit women he had known; there was something cool and deep about her like a pool, and withal winged, like the birds that fly over it. She was marvelous—marvelous! he thought. What a find!

His spirit flung itself, kneeling, to drink at the pool—his imagination reached out to touch the wings. For the first time in his life he was too deeply enthralled to question himself or her. He gloried in her openly, conspicuously.

On the morning of the fifth day they had their first dispute. They were sitting on the boat deck, aft, watching the wake of the ship as it twisted like an uncertain white serpent. Stefan was sketching her, as he had done already several times when he could get her apart from hovering children—he could not endure being overlooked as he worked. “They chew gum in my ear, and breathe down my neck,” he would explain.

He had almost completed an impression of her head against the sky, with a flying veil lifting above it, when a shadow fell across the canvas, and the voice of McEwan blared out a pleased greeting.

“Weel, here ye are!” exclaimed that mountain of tweed, lowering himself onto a huge iron cleat between which and the bulwarks the two were sitting cross-legged. “I was speerin' where ye'd both be.”

“Good Lord, McEwan, can't you speak English?” exclaimed Byrd, with quick exasperation.

“I hae to speak the New York lingo when I get back there, ye ken,” replied the Scot with imperturbable good humor, “so I like to use a wee bit o' the guid Scotch while I hae the chance.”

“A wee bit!” snorted Stefan, and “Good morning, Mr. McEwan, isn't it beautiful up here?” interposed Miss Elliston, pleasantly.

“It's grand,” replied the Scotchman, “and ye look bonnie i' the sun,” he added simply.

“So Mr. Byrd thinks. You see he has just been painting me,” she answered smilingly, indicating, with a touch of mischief, the drawing that Stefan had hastily slipped between them.

The Scotchman stooped, and, before Stefan could stop him, had the sketch in his hand.

“It's a guid likeness,” he pronounced, “though I dinna care mesel' for yon new-fangled way o' slappin' on the color. I'll mak'ye a suggestion—” But he got no further, for Stefan, incoherent with irritation, snatched the sketch from his hands and broke out at him in a stammering torrent of French of the Quarter, which neither of his listeners, he was aware, could understand. Having safely consigned all the McEwans of the universe to pig-sties and perdition, he walked off to cool himself, the sketch under his arm, leaving both his hearers incontinently dumb.

McEwan recovered first. “The puir young mon suffers wi' his temper, there's nae dooting,” said he, addressing himself to the task of entertaining his rather absent-minded companion.

His advantage lasted but a few moments, however. Byrd, repenting his strategic error, returned, and in despair of other methods succeeded in summoning a candid smile.

“Look here, McEwan,” said he, with the charm of manner he knew so well how to assume, “don't mind my irritability; I'm always like that when I'm painting and any one interrupts—it sends me crazy. The light's just right, and it won't be for long. I can't possibly paint with anybody round. Won't you, like a good fellow, get out and let me finish?”

His frankness was wonderfully disarming, but in any case, the Scot was always good nature's self.

“Aye, I ken your nairves trouble ye,” he replied, lumbering to his feet, “and I'll no disobleege ye, if the leddy will excuse me?” turning to her.

Miss Elliston, who had not looked at Stefan since his outburst, murmured her consent, and the Scot departed.

Stefan exploded into a sigh of relief. “Thank heaven! Isn't he maddening?” he exclaimed, reassembling his brushes. “Isn't he the most fatuous idiot that ever escaped from his native menagerie? Did you hear him commence to criticize my work? The oaf! I'm afraid—” glancing at her face—“that I swore at him, but he deserved it for butting in like that, and he couldn't understand what I said.” His tone was slightly, very slightly, apologetic.

“I don't think that's the point, is it?” asked the girl, in a very cool voice. She was experiencing her first shock of disappointment in him, and felt unhappy; but she only appeared critical.

“What do you mean?” he asked, dashed.

“Whether he understood or not.” She was still looking away from him. “It was so unkind and unnecessary to break out at the poor man like that—and,” her voice dropped, “so horribly rude.”

“Well,” Stefan answered uncomfortably, “I can't be polite to people like that. I don't even try.”

“No, I know you don't. That's what I don't like,” Mary replied, even more coldly. She meant that it hurt her, obscured the ideal she was constructing of him, but she could not have expressed that.

He painted for a few minutes in a silence that grew more and more constrained. Then he threw down his brush. “Well, I can't paint,” he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone, “I'm absolutely out of tune. You'll have to realize I'm made like that. I can't change, can't hide my real self.” As she still did not speak, he added, with an edge to his voice, “I may as well go away; there's nothing I can do here.” He stood up.

“Perhaps you had better,” she replied, very quietly. Her throat was aching with hurt, so that she could hardly speak, but to him she appeared indifferent.

“Good-bye,” he exclaimed shortly, and strode off.

For some time she remained where he had left her, motionless. She felt very tired, without knowing why. Presently she went to her cabin and lay down.

Mary did not see Stefan again until after the midday meal, though by the time she appeared on deck he had been waiting and searching for her for an hour. When he found her it was in an alcove of the lounge, screened from the observation of the greater part of the room. She was reading, but as he came toward her she looked up and closed her book. Before he spoke both knew that their relation to each other had subtly changed. They were self-conscious; the hearts of both beat. In a word, their quarrel had taught them their need of each other.

He took her hand and spoke rather breathlessly.

“I've been looking for you for hours. Thank God you're here. I was abominable to you this morning. Can you possibly forgive me? I'm so horribly lonely without you.” He was extraordinarily handsome as he stood before her, looking distressed, but with his eyes shining.

“Of course I can,” she murmured, while a weight seemed to roll off her heart—and she blushed, a wonderful pink, up to the eyes.

He sat beside her, still holding her hand. “I must say it. You are the most beautiful thing in the world. The—most—beautiful!” They looked at each other.

“Oh!” he exclaimed with a long breath, jumping up again and half pulling her after him in a revulsion of relief, “come on deck and let's walk—and talk—or,” he laughed excitedly, “I don't know what I shall do next!”

She obeyed, and they almost sped round the deck, he looking spiritually intoxicated, and she, calm by contrast, but with an inward glow as though behind her face a rose was on fire. The deck watched them and nodded its head. There was no doubt about it now, every one agreed. Bets began to circulate on the engagement. A fat salesman offered two to one it was declared before they picked up the Nantucket light. The pursy little passenger snapped an acceptance. “I'll take you. Here's a dollar says the lady is too particular.” The high-bosomed matron confided her fears for the happiness of the girl, “who has been real kind to Johnnie,” to the spinster who had admired Stefan the first day out. Gossip was universal, but through it all the two moved radiant and oblivious.

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