words her companion had disappeared and she was left alone. He had not
gone back in the direction whence they had come, but had taken the
deserted windward side of the ship, doubtless with the intention of
avoiding the crowd.

Margaret stood still for some time in the lee of the ventilator,
holding the novel in her hand and thinking. She wondered whether Mr.
Van Torp had planned the whole scene, including the sacrifice of the
novel. If he had not, it was certainly strange that he should have had
the second copy ready in his pocket. Lushington had once told her that
great politicians and great financiers were always great comedians,
and now that she remembered the saying it occurred to her that Mr. Van
Torp reminded her of a certain type of American actor, a type that
has a heavy jaw and an aggressive eye, and strongly resembles the
portraits of Daniel Webster. Now Daniel Webster had a wide reputation
as a politician, but there is reason to believe that the numerous
persons who lent him money and never got it back thought him a
financier of undoubted ability, if not a comedian of talent. There
were giants in those days.

The English girl, breathing the clean air of the ocean, felt as if
something had left a bad taste in her mouth; and the famous young
singer, who had seen in two years what a normal Englishwoman would
neither see, nor guess at, nor wish to imagine in a lifetime, thought
she understood tolerably well what the bad taste meant. Moreover,
Margaret Donne was ashamed of what Margarita da Cordova knew, and
Cordova had moments of sharp regret when she thought of the girl who
had been herself, and had lived under good Mrs. Rushmore's protection,
like a flower in a glass house.