When Dan found his seat in the dining-saloon, that evening, he glanced up and down the long table, in the hope that Miss Vard and her father might be among his neighbours. But they were not, and it was not until he was half through the meal that he descried them at one of the tables on the other side of the room. At his own table there were the usual assorted types of the middle-class tourist, his wife and family, most of them frankly glad that they were homeward bound, with the greatest part of their pilgrimage accomplished.

The sea was smooth and the great boat forged ahead with scarcely any motion, so that every seat was occupied and every one in good spirits. There was a hum of talk and rattle of dishes; the white-coated stewards scuttled back and forth, and the scene was as pleasant as the wholesale human consumption of food can ever be.

Dan went on with his dinner with one eye on the far table where Miss Vard and her father were seated; but his attention was distracted for a time by a discussion which an Anglomaniac across the table started as to the relative merits of England and America, and to which he could not resist contributing a few remarks. When he glanced across the saloon again, he saw that Miss Vard and her father were no longer there. However, he finished his dinner with the comfortable consciousness that the second-class quarters were limited, and that she could not escape from them except by jumping overboard; and when the meal was ended, he made his way leisurely through the lounge and along the decks in search of her. There were girls, girls everywhere, but not the one he sought; and finally, with a little smile, he mounted the ladder which led to the after boat-deck.

Already other couples, scouting about the ship, had discovered the advantages of its dim seclusion, and most of the benches in the lee of the boats and about the little wireless-house were occupied; but, on that one bench, in the shadow of the after life-boat, Dan descried a solitary figure. He advanced without hesitation.

"I was hoping I should find you," he said.

She moved a little aside, as an invitation for him to share the bench.

"I like it up here," she said, "with no light but the stars, and that strange luminous glow along those wires up yonder."

Looking up, Dan saw that the gridiron of wires stretched between the masts was, indeed, faintly luminous against the sky.

"That's the wireless," he said. "Listen—you can hear it," and from the open window of the wireless-house came the vicious snap and crackle of electricity. "The operator is sending a message."

She looked up again at the glowing wires.

"I think it the most wonderful thing in the world!" she said. "I can't understand it—I can't believe it—and yet, there it is!"

"Yes—and I suppose it has become an every-day affair to the operator in there; it isn't wonderful to him any more. We forget how wonderful a lot of things are, when we get used to them."

"How wonderful everything is," she corrected; "the sunrise, the ocean...."

They sat for some time in silence, gazing out across the dark and restless water, touched here and there with white, as a wave combed and broke. Then Dan's gaze wandered to her face. Seen thus, in the dim light, framed by her dark hair, it, too, seemed wonderful to him; there was about it a mystic allusiveness, a subtle charm, far more compelling than mere beauty ever is; her eyes had depths to them....

She felt his gaze upon her and turned her face to him and smiled.

"You may smoke, if you wish," she said. "I can feel that at the back of your mind.""I believe I was thinking about it," Dan admitted, and got out his pipe; but he had himself been scarcely conscious of the thought, and it amazed him that she should have detected it. There was the flare of a match, and he sat back again, exhaling a long puff. "Now," he said, "you are going to begin my education. I am ready for the first lesson."

"How shall I begin?"

"I think an excellent way would be to tell me something about yourself," he suggested.

She considered him gravely.

"Are you really in earnest?" she asked.

"Indeed I am," he answered quickly, colouring a little under her searching eyes. "Forgive me if I seemed not to be. And please begin in any way you think best."

"I will tell you something about Poland," she said, "and then you will understand a little what I and all like me feel for America. You know, I suppose, that there is no longer any such land as Poland?"

"I know that Russia and one or two other powers divided it, about a hundred years ago."

"Yes; but you cannot know what that division meant! The Poles were a brave and patriotic people; they loved their country as few peoples do; and all at once, great armies were flung upon them; they were overwhelmed, and their country was taken away. They lost more than their country: they lost their language, their history, their national life. But in spite of it all, they remained Poles.

"I was born in Russian Poland, not far from Warsaw. From the very first, I was taught that I was a Pole, not a Russian. But only at home, under my own roof, could I be a Pole. The teaching of Polish was forbidden in any school—every word spoken must be Russian. If children were overheard talking in Polish, they were arrested by the police and their parents summoned and fined. On every public building there was a painted notice: 'It is forbidden to speak Polish.' All trials were conducted in Russian, although none of the peasants understood Russian, and so had no idea of what was being said. No official was permitted to answer a question in Polish—I have known a tramcar conductor to be heavily fined for doing so.

"We were taught history in which the name of our fatherland was never mentioned, but where Russia was treated as the wisest, best, and most powerful of nations, with the Czar second only to God himself. We could not leave our native village without permission from the police. No Pole could fill any public office. No Pole was permitted to publish a book or a newspaper or even a handbill, until a Russian censor had passed upon it. If you ever visit Poland, you will notice, here and there, groups of tall wooden crosses. They mark graves. But if one of those crosses decays or falls down, it may not be replaced without permission from the government. One night, the cross over the grave of my father's mother was struck by lightning; and for two years it lay there, until permission to replace it had come from Petersburg. It was among such surroundings that my childhood was passed."

Kasia did not seem to realise that, instead of telling about Poland, she was telling about herself; and Dan was deeply moved. He had listened, in his day, to many stories, but never to one like this. It was as though the dead wrappings of history were stripped away, and its seething, desperate, tragic heart laid bare.

"Go on," he said thickly, and folded his arms tightly across his breast.

"My father had hoped to be a student of science," she went on; "but he was refused admission to the university because of some absurd suspicion, and after that he could study only secretly. When he married, he rented a little farm near Warsaw; and there he and mother toiled all day long, and the children too, as soon as they were old enough. There were four children—two boys and two girls. I was the youngest. Twice every year, my mother, my sister and I walked in to Warsaw, and spent a week there helping to clean the streets; this service was required of all families in the villages about Warsaw, and could be escaped only by paying a heavy tax. We had also to assist in keeping the roads in repair, and for this, too, the women and children were employed, since the men could not be spared from the work of the farm. At nightfall we were always exhausted, and would swallow our soup and black bread hastily, and then fling ourselves down, dressed as we were, on a heap of straw in one corner. We were very poor, and yet not so poor as we seemed; but to have added one little comfort to our home would have meant a visit from the tax-inquisitor, and perhaps a search. The only way to escape this was to live in miserable poverty.

"In spite of all this, my father still kept up his studies. At night, after carefully closing the shutters and stuffing the cracks with rags, so that no ray of light could be seen outside, he would light a little tallow dip and sit reading for hours. He read the same books over and over, for books were very hard to get. The ones he wanted were almost always forbidden. To be found possessing one meant banishment. So all of his books he kept concealed even more carefully than he did his money. Indeed, he valued them more!

"Sundays he devoted to the education of his children, always with one of us on guard outside the door. It was then that I learned to read English. Father had taught himself with great thoroughness, because he was determined some day to go to America. America—that was his dream! But how to get there! It seemed certain that he could never save money enough to pay for so many. That problem was soon to be settled."

She paused and put her hand to her throat, shivering a little.

"Are you cold?" Dan asked.

"No; I am trembling at the thought of what remains to tell. A case of cholera appeared in our village. It was reported to the magistrate. At once all the Russian officials removed to Warsaw, and a cordon of Russian troops was thrown about the village. No one was permitted to enter or to leave. The cholera spread. The people were ignorant; they did not know what to do, and there was no one to tell them; they could only wait and pray. At the end of a month, the disease had spent itself, but of those who had lived in the village, only one in ten remained. Of our family, there were left only my father and myself."

Dan's hand went out to hers. She did not draw away.

"For a time," she went on, "father was stunned by the blow; I have always believed that he was very near madness. But he shook off his sorrow and decided that the time had come to seek America. We could not depart openly; that was not permitted; so one night he dug up the little hoard of money he had concealed, cut off my hair and dressed me in boys' clothes, arrayed himself in the rags of a goat-herd, and about midnight we set off. I was eleven years old at the time, and I remember every incident distinctly. We could travel only at night, hiding at every sound. By day, we concealed ourselves under culverts, in ditches, under heaps of brush. Luckily, Polish people are eager to help each other, so we did not starve, and we got forward a little every night. At the end of six weeks, we crossed the frontier and were safe.

"There is not much more to tell. We reached New York; and I was placed in school—I wish you could realise all that meant to me! For a long time, I could not go out into the street without being afraid. It seemed impossible that there was no longer anything to fear. When at last I understood, it was as though a great load were lifted. That was ten years ago. For the past three years, I have been a teacher in the Hester Street school."

She sat silent for a moment, then with a long breath, drew her hand away.

"Do you wonder that I love America?" she asked.

"No," said Dan; "and you have made me a better patriot."She turned to him, with a little smile.

"And now I think of it," she added, "it was my story I told you, after all!"

"Your story helps me to understand Poland's. That is the way history should be written."

"I think so, too. There is not enough in most histories of the common people. And my father says it is only they who really matter. He has thought very deeply. It is his dream to make all other countries like America—free, peaceful, industrious—only better than America has yet become, in that poverty and inequality and injustice will be abolished."

"A magnificent dream," Dan agreed, with a smile; "but impossible of accomplishment, I'm afraid."

"No, it is not impossible!" she cried quickly. "It will be accomplished, and by him!"

Dan looked at her curiously. Her eyes were blazing, and she spoke with a conviction, with an enthusiasm, which puzzled him.

"Tell me something about your father," he suggested. "You said he was the most wonderful man in the world."

"And I meant it. Could anything be more wonderful than to force all the nations of the earth to break up their navies, to dismantle their forts, to disband their armies? Could anything be more wonderful than to put an end, once for all, to this waste of life and treasure, which is eating at the heart of the world? Could anything be more wonderful than to turn all these armies of useless men back into honest and useful labour? Then no longer would you see women gathering the harvest, or struggling under cruel burdens, or cleaning the streets, or spreading manure over the fields! No, nor walking the pavements of the cities! Would you not say that the man who brought all this about was a wonderful man?"

"Wonderful!" echoed Dan. "Why, wonderful would be no name for it! But it is something that no man can ever do."

"It will be done, believe me," she said, solemnly, "and by my father."

Dan could only stare at her. It seemed absurd to suppose that she could be in earnest; but certainly her face was earnest to solemnity. It shone with consecration.

"But I don't understand," he stammered. "It's too big for me. How is it to be accomplished? How can one man bring it about? I can see how the Czar or Kaiser might set to work, but even they could not hope to succeed. The Czar did try something of the sort, didn't he?"

"Yes; but he was not in earnest, and the other nations laughed. At my father they will not laugh, for he is in deadly earnest. As to how this is to be done, I may not tell you, not yet—some day, perhaps. But one thing I may tell you, and it is this—my father holds the nations of the world in the hollow of his hand!"

For a moment there was silence between them. The moon had risen as they talked, and the dark sea was illumined by a broad path of silver. The boat-deck was almost deserted; the snapping of the wireless had ceased. Miss Vard looked about her with a little start.

"It must be very late," she said. "I must be going."

As Dan followed her across the deck, he noticed a dark figure on the bench next to the one where he and Miss Vard had sat. And as they passed, the stranger struck a match and lighted a cigarette. By the glare of the flame, Dan saw that it was his roommate, Chevrial.