My interest in the captain’s stories came to an abrupt conclusion when I saw a lady emerge from the companion-way, look anxiously around for a moment, and then begin a slow promenade up and down the after deck. I bade good-night to the captain, and descended from the bridge. The lady paused as she saw me approach, and I thought for a moment she was about to retreat. But she did not do so. I had determined to speak to Miss Hemster on the first opportunity as if nothing had occurred. Ill-will is bad enough in any case, but nowhere is it more deplorable than on shipboard, because people have no escape from one another there. I was resolved that so far as I was concerned there should not be a continuance of the estrangement, which must affect more or less each one in our company, unless it was the captain, who seemed a true philosopher, taking whatever came with equal nonchalance. As I neared the lady, however, I saw she was not Gertrude Hemster, but Hilda Stretton.

“It is a lovely evening, Miss Stretton,” I ventured to say, “and I am glad to see you on deck to enjoy it.”

“I came up for a breath of fresh air,” she replied simply, with no enthusiasm for the loveliness of the night, which I had just been extolling. I surmised instinctively that she preferred to be alone, and was inwardly aware that the correct thing for me to do was to raise my yachting-cap and pass on, for she had evidently come to a standstill in her promenade, to give me no excuse for joining it. But, whether or not it was the glamour of the moonlight, her face was much more attractive than it had seemed when, for the first time, I had had a glimpse of it, and, be that as it may, I say this in excuse for my persistence. When has a young man ever been driven from his purpose by the unresponsiveness of the lady he is bold enough to address?

“If you do not mind, Miss Stretton, I should be very much gratified if you would allow me to join your evening saunter.”

“The deck belongs as much to you as it does to me,” was her cold rejoinder, “and I think I should tell you I am but the paid servant of its actual owner.”

I laughed, more to chase away her evident embarrassment than because there was anything really to laugh about. I have noticed that a laugh sometimes drives away restraint. It is the most useful of human ejaculations, and often succeeds where words would fail.

“A warning in exchange for your warning!” I exclaimed as cheerfully as I could. “I, too, am a paid servant of the owner of this yacht.”

“I did not expect to hear the cousin of Lord Tremorne admit as much,” she replied, thawing somewhat.

“Well, you have just heard the cousin of his lordship do so, and I may add on behalf of Lord Tremorne that if he were in my place I know his candour would compel him to say the same thing.”

“Englishmen think themselves very honest, do they not?” she commented, somewhat ungraciously, it seemed to me, for after all I was trying to make conversation, always a difficult task when there is veiled opposition.

“Oh, some Englishmen are honest, and some are not, as is the case with other nationalities. I don’t suppose a dishonest Englishman would have any delusions about the matter, and perhaps if you pressed him he would admit his delinquency. I hope you are not prejudiced against us as a nation; and, if you are, I sincerely trust you will not allow any impression you may have acquired regarding myself to deepen that prejudice, because I am far from being a representative Englishman.”

We were now walking up and down the deck together, but her next remark brought me to an amazed standstill.

“If you possess the candour with which you have just accredited yourself and your people, you would have said that you hoped I was not prejudiced against your nation, but you were certain, if such unfortunately was the case, the charm of your manner and the delight of your conversation would speedily remove it.”

“Good gracious, Miss Stretton,” I cried, “do you take me for a conceited ass?”

The lady condescended to laugh a little, very low and very sweetly, but it was an undeniable laugh, and so I was grateful for it.

“You mistake me,” she said. “I took you for a superior person, that was all, and I think superior persons sometimes make mistakes.”

“What mistake have I fallen into, if you will be so good as to tell me?”

“Well, as a beginning, Mr. Tremorne, I think that if I was an English lady you would not venture to accost me as you have done to-night, without a proper introduction.”

“I beg your pardon. I considered myself introduced to you by Miss Hemster to-day at luncheon; and if our host had not so regarded it, I imagine he would have remedied the deficiency.”

“Mr. Hemster, with a delicacy which I regret to say seems to be unappreciated, knowing me to be a servant in his employ, did not put upon me the embarrassment of an introduction.”

“Really, Miss Stretton, I find myself compelled to talk to you rather seriously,” said I, with perhaps a regrettable trace of anger in my voice. “You show yourself to be an extremely ignorant young woman.”

Again she laughed very quietly.

“Oh!” she cried, with an exultation that had hitherto been absent from her conversation; “the veneer is coming off, and the native Englishman stands revealed in the moonlight.”

“You are quite right, the veneer is coming off. And now, if you have the courage of your statements, you will hear the truth about them. On the other hand, if you like to say sharp things and then run away from the consequences, there is the saloon, or there is the other side of the deck. Take your choice.”

“I shall borrow a piece of English brag and say I am no coward. Go on.”

“Very well. I came down from the bridge after a most friendly and delightful talk with the captain, having no other thought in my mind than to make myself an agreeable comrade to you when I saw you on deck.”

“That was a very disingenuous beginning for a truthful lecture, Mr. Tremorne. When you saw me, you thought it was Miss Hemster, and you found out too late that it was I; so you approached me with the most polite and artful covering of your disappointment.”

We were walking up and down the deck again, and took one or two turns before I spoke once more.

“Yes, Miss Stretton, you are demoniacally right. I shall amend the beginning of my lecture, then, by alluding to an incident which I did not expect to touch upon. At luncheon Miss Hemster received my greeting with what seemed to me unnecessary insolence. We are to be housed together for some time aboard this yacht; therefore I came down to greet her as if the incident to which I have alluded had not taken place.”

“How very good of you!” said Miss Stretton sarcastically.

“Madam, I quite agree with you. Now we will turn to some of your own remarks, if you don’t mind. In the first place, you said I would not address an English lady to whom I had not been properly introduced. In that statement you were entirely wrong. Five years ago, on an Atlantic liner, I, without having been introduced, asked the Countess of Bayswater to walk the deck with me, and she graciously consented. Some time after that, the deck steward being absent, her Grace the Duchess of Pentonville, without a formal introduction to me, asked me to tuck her up in her steamer chair; then she requested me to sit down beside her, which I did, and we entered into the beginning of a very pleasant acquaintance which lasted during the voyage.”

“Dear me!” said Miss Stretton, evidently unimpressed, “how fond you are of citing members of the nobility!”

“Many of them are, or have been, friends of my own; so why should I not cite them? However, my object was entirely different. If I had said that Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Smith were the people in question, you might very well have doubted that they were ladies, and so my illustration would have fallen to the ground. You said English ladies, and I have given you the names of two who are undoubtedly ladies, and undoubtedly English, for neither of them is an American who has married a member of our nobility.”

If ever fire flashed from a woman’s eyes, it was upon this occasion. Miss Stretton’s face seemed transformed with anger.

“Sir!” she flashed, “that last remark was an insult to my countrywomen, and was intended as such. I bid you good-night, and I ask you never to speak to me again.”

“Exactly as I thought,” said I; “the moment shells begin to fly, you beat a retreat.”

Miss Stretton had taken five indignant steps toward the companion-way when my words brought her to a standstill. After a momentary pause she turned around with a proud motion of her figure which elicited my utmost admiration, walked back to my side, and said very quietly:

“Pardon me; pray proceed.”

“I shall not proceed, but shall take the liberty of pausing for a moment to show you the futility of jumping to a conclusion. Now, try to comprehend. You said, English ladies. My illustration would have been useless if the Countess and the Duchess had been Americans. Do you comprehend that, or are you too angry?”

I waited for a reply but none came.

“Let me tell you further,” I went on, “that I know several American women who possess titles; and if any man in my presence dared to hint that one or other of them was not a lady I should knock him down if I could, and if no one but men were about. So you see I was throwing no disparagement on your countrywomen, but was merely clenching my argument on the lines you yourself had laid down.”

“I see; I apologize. Pray go on with the lecture.”

“Thank you for the permission, and on your part please forgive any unnecessary vehemence which I have imported into what should be a calm philosophical pronouncement. When you accuse an Englishman of violating some rule of etiquette, he is prone to resent such an imputation, partly because he has an uneasy feeling that it may be true. He himself admits that nearly every other nation excels his in the arts of politeness. It is really not at all to his discredit that he fondly hopes he has qualities of heart and innate courtesy which perhaps may partly make up for his deficiency in outward suavity of manner. Now, madam, etiquette is elastic. It is not an exact science, like mathematics. The rules pertaining to decimal fractions are the same the world over, but the etiquette of the Court differs from the etiquette of the drawing-room, and dry-land etiquette differs from the etiquette on board ship.”

“I don’t see why it should,” interrupted Miss Stretton.

“Then, madam, it shall be my privilege to explain. Imagine us cast on a desert shore. If, for instance, our captain were less worthy than he is, and ran us on the rocks of Quelpaerd Island, which is some distance ahead of us, you would find that all etiquette would disappear.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because we should each have to turn around and mutually help the others. Whether I had been introduced to you or not, I should certainly endeavour to provide you with food and shelter; whereas if I contracted one of the island’s justly celebrated fevers, your good heart would prompt you to do what you could for my restoration. Now a ship is but a stepping-stone between the mainland of civilization and the desert island of barbarism. This fact, unconsciously or consciously, seems to be recognized, and so the rules of etiquette on board ship relax, and I maintain, with the brutal insistance of my race, that I have not infringed upon them.”

“I think that is a very capital and convincing illustration, Mr. Tremorne,” confessed the lady generously.

Now, look you, how vain a creature is man. That remark sent a glow of satisfaction through my being such as I had not experienced since a speech of my youth was applauded by my fellow-students at the Union in Oxford. Nevertheless, I proceeded stubbornly with my lecture, which I had not yet finished.

“Now, madam, I am going to give you the opportunity to charge me with inconsistency. I strenuously object to the application of the term ‘servant’ as applied to yourself or to me. I am not a servant.”

“But, Mr. Tremorne, you admitted it a while ago, and furthermore said that your distinguished cousin would also have confessed as much if in your place.”

“I know I said so; but that was before the veneer fell away.”

“Then what becomes of the candour of which you boasted? Has it gone with the veneer?”

“They are keeping each other company on the ocean some miles behind us. I have thrown them overboard.”

Miss Stretton laughed with rather more of heartiness than she had yet exhibited.

“Well, I declare,” she cried; “this is a transformation scene, all in the moonlight!”

“No, I am not Mr. Hemster’s servant. Mr. Hemster desires to use my knowledge of the Eastern languages and my experience in Oriental diplomacy. For this he has engaged to pay, but I am no more his servant than Sir Edward Clark is a menial to the client who pays him for the knowledge he possesses; and, if you will permit me the English brag, which you utilized a little while since, I say I am a gentleman and therefore the equal of Mr. Silas K. Hemster, or any one else.”

“You mean superior, and not equal.”

“Madam, with all due respect, I mean nothing of the sort.”

“Nevertheless, that is what is in your mind and in your manner. By the way, is your lecture completed?”

“Yes, entirely so. It is your innings now. You have the floor, or the deck rather.”

“Then I should like to say that Silas K. Hemster, as you call him, is one of the truest gentlemen that ever lived.”

“Isn’t that his name?”

“You were perfectly accurate in naming him, but you were certainly supercilious in the tone in which you named him.”

“Oh, I say!”

“No, you don’t; it is my say, if you please.”

“Certainly, certainly; but at first you try to make me out a conceited ass, and now you endeavour to show that I am an irredeemable cad. I have the utmost respect for Mr. Hemster.”

“Have you? Well, I am very glad to hear it, and I wish to give you a firmer basis for that opinion than you have been able to form from your own observation. Mr. Hemster may not be learned in books, but he is learned in human nature. He is the best of men, kind, considerate, and always just. He was a lifelong friend of my father, now, alas, no more in life. They were schoolboys together. It was inevitable that Mr. Hemster should become very wealthy, and equally inevitable that my father should remain poor. My father was a dreamy scholar, and I think you will admit that he was a gentleman, for he was a clergyman of the Episcopal Church. He was not of the money-making order of men, and, if he had been, his profession would have precluded him from becoming what Mr. Hemster is. Although Mr. Hemster grew very rich, it never in the least interfered with his friendship for my father nor with his generosity to my father’s child. If I cared to accept that generosity it would be unstinted. As it is, he pays me much more than I am worth. He is simple and honest, patient and kind. Patient and kind,” she repeated, with a little tremor of the voice that for a moment checked her utterance, – “a true gentleman, if ever there was one.”

“My dear Miss Stretton,” I said, “what you say of him is greatly to the credit of both yourself and Mr. Hemster; but it distresses me that you should intimate that I have failed to appreciate him. He has picked me up, as I might say, from the gutters of Nagasaki without even a line of recommendation or so much as a note of introduction.”

“That is what I said to you; he is a judge of men rather than of literature and the arts; and it is entirely to your credit that he has taken you without credentials. You may be sure, were it otherwise, I should not have spent so much time with you as I have done this evening. But his quick choice should have given you a better insight into his character than that which you possess?”

“There you go again, Miss Stretton. What have I said or done which leads you to suppose I do not regard Mr. Hemster with the utmost respect?”

“It is something exceedingly difficult to define. It cannot be set down as lucidly as your exposition of etiquette. It was your air, rather than your manner at luncheon time. It was a very distant and exalted air, which said as plainly as words that you sat down with a company inferior to yourself.”