The cabin was very spacious, yet not more so than was proper, considering
that the rent of it came to about sixpence a minute. There was room, even
after all the packages were stowed, for both of them to lie down. But
instead of lying down they eagerly inspected the little abode. They found a
lavatory basin with hot and cold water taps, but no hot water and no cold
water, no soap and no towels. And they found a crystal water-bottle, but it
was empty. Then a steward came and asked them if they wanted anything, and
because they were miserable poltroons they smiled and said "No." They were
secretly convinced that all the other private cabins, inhabited by titled
persons and by financiers, were superior to their cabin, and that the
captain of the steamer had fobbed them off with an imitation of a real
cabin.

Then it was that Miss Ingate, who since Charing Cross had been a little
excited by a glimpsed newspaper contents-bill indicating suffragette riots
that morning, perceived, through the open door of the cabin, a most
beautiful and most elegant girl, attired impeccably in that ritualistic
garb of travel which the truly cosmopolitan wear on combined rail-and-ocean
journeys and on no other occasions. It was at once apparent that the
celestial creature had put on that special hat, that special veil, that
special cloak, and those special gloves because she was deeply aware of
what was correct, and that she would not put them on again until destiny
took her again across the sea, and that if destiny never did take her again
across the sea never again would she show herself in the vestments, whose
correctness was only equalled by their expensiveness.

The young woman, however, took no thought of her impressive clothes. She
was existing upon quite another plane. Miss Ingate, preoccupied by the
wrongs and perils of her sex, and momentarily softened out of her sardonic
irony, suspected that they might be in the presence of a victim of