that your shoes are fit to be seen." Is not that what you would say, if
you said what you thought?'

'Perhaps it is.'

'And if you said all that you thought, perhaps you would remind me that
a woman of whom nobody knows anything is always held to be disreputable.
That girl, no doubt, has her decent belongings. I have nobody.'

'You have your friends on board.'

'No, I have not. I have not a single friend on board. Those Cromptons
were very unwillingly persuaded to take a sort of interest in me, though
they really know nothing about me. And I have already lost any good
which might come from their protection. She told me yesterday, that I
ought not to walk about with Mr. Shand.'

'And what did you say?'

'Of course I told her to mind her own business. I had no alternative. A
woman has to show a little spirit or she will be trodden absolutely into
the dirt. It was something to have a woman to speak to, even though I
had not a thought in common with her;--though she was to my feeling as
inferior to myself as I no doubt am thought to be by that fat prancing
woman to herself. Even Mrs. Crompton's countenance was of value. But if
I had yielded she would have taken it out in tyranny. So now we don't
speak.'

'That is a pity.'