"I know no ladies on board," she said, "and I think I have met you before."
"Yes," answered Miss Earle, "I think we have met before."
"How good of you to have remembered me," said Blanche, kindly.
"I think," replied Miss Earle, "that it is more remarkable that you should remember me than that I should remember you. Ladies very rarely notice the shop-girls who wait upon them."
"You seemed so superior to your station," said Blanche, "that I could not help remembering you, and could not help thinking what a pity it was you had to be there."
"I do not think that there is anything either superior or inferior about the station. It is quite as honourable, or dishonourable, which ever it may be, as any other branch of business. I cannot see, for instance, why my station, selling ribbons at retail, should be any more dishonourable than the station of the head of the firm, who merely does on a very large scale what I was trying to do for him on a very limited scale."
"Still," said Blanche, with a yawn, "people do not all look upon it in exactly that light."
"Hardly any two persons look on any one thing in the same light. I hope you have enjoyed your voyage so far?"
"I have not enjoyed it very much," replied the young lady with a sigh.
"I am sorry to hear that. I presume your father has been ill most of the way?"
"My father?" cried the other, looking at her questioner.
"Yes, I did not see him at the table since the first day."
"Oh, he has had to keep his room almost since we left. He is a very poor sailor."
"Then that must make your voyage rather unpleasant?"
The blonde young lady made no reply, but, taking up the book which Miss Earle was reading, said, "You don't find Mr. Morris much of a reader, I presume? He used not to be."
"I know very little about Mr. Morris," said Miss Earle, freezingly.
"Why, you knew him before you came on board, did you not?" questioned the other, raising her eyebrows.
"No, I did not."
"You certainly know he is junior partner in the establishment where you work?"
"I know that, yes, but I had never spoken to him before I met him on board this steamer."
"Is that possible? Might I ask you if there is any probability of your becoming interested in Mr. Morris?"
"Interested! What do you mean?"
"Oh, you know well enough what I mean. We girls do not need to be humbugs with each other, whatever we may be before the men. When a young woman meets a young man in the early morning, and has coffee with him, and when she reads to him, and tries to cultivate his literary tastes, whatever they may be, she certainly shows some interest in the young man, don't you think so?"
Miss Earle looked for a moment indignantly at her questioner. "I do not recognise your right," she said, "to ask me such a question."
"No? Then let me tell you that I have every right to ask it. I assure you that I have thought over the matter deeply before I spoke. It seemed to me there was one chance in a thousand--only one chance in a thousand, remember--that you were acting honestly, and on that one chance I took the liberty of speaking to you. The right I have to ask such a question is this--Mr. George Morris has been engaged to me for several years."
"Engaged to _you_?"
"Yes. If you don't believe it, ask him."
"It is the very last question in the world I would ask anybody."
"Well, then, you will have to take my word for it. I hope you are not very shocked, Miss Earle, to hear what I have had to tell you."
"Shocked? Oh dear, no. Why should I be? It is really a matter of no interest to me, I assure you."
"Well, I am very glad to hear you say so. I did not know but you might have become more interested in Mr. Morris than you would care to own.
I think myself that he is quite a fascinating young gentleman; but I thought it only just to you that you should know exactly how matters stood."
"I am sure I am very much obliged to you."
This much of the conversation Miss Earle had thought over in her own room that morning. "Did it make a difference to her or not?" that was the question she was asking herself. The information had certainly affected her opinion of Mr. Morris, and she smiled to herself rather bitterly as she thought of his claiming to be so exceedingly truthful.
Miss Earle did not, however, go up on deck until the breakfast gong had rung.
"Good morning," said Morris, as he took his place at the little table.
"I was like the boy on the burning deck this morning, when all but he had fled. I was very much disappointed that you did not come up, and have your usual cup of coffee."
"I am sorry to hear that," said Miss Earle; "if I had known I was disappointing anybody I should have been here."
"Miss Katherine," he said, "you are a humbug. You knew very well that I would be disappointed if you did not come."
The young lady looked up at him, and for a moment she thought of telling him that her name was Miss Earle, but for some reason she did not do so.
"I want you to promise now," he continued, "that to-morrow morning you will be on deck as usual."
"Has it become a usual thing, then?"
"Well, that's what I am trying to make it," he answered. "Will you promise?"
"Yes, I promise."
"Very well, then, I look on that as settled. Now, about to-day. What are you going to do with yourself after breakfast?"
"Oh, the usual thing, I suppose. I shall sit in my steamer chair and read an interesting book."
"And what is the interesting book for to-day?"
"It is a little volume by Henry James, entitled 'The Siege of London.'"
"Why, I never knew that London had been besieged. When did that happen?"
"Well, I haven't got very far in the book yet, but it seems to have happened quite recently, within a year or two, I think. It is one of the latest of Mr. James's short stories. I have not read it yet."
"Ah, then the siege is not historical?"
"Not historical further than Mr. James is the historian."