After the rest were gone, Miss Lamarque and I concluded to promenade on
the nearly-deserted deck, in the moonlight, and let the excitement of
the evening die away through the medium of more serious conversation.
She was a woman of forty-five, still graceful and fine-looking, but
bearing few traces of earlier beauty, probably better to behold, in her
overripe maturity, than in the unfolding of her less attractive time of
bud and blossom. Self had been laid aside now (which it never can be
until the effervescence of youth and hope are over). She had accepted
her position of old maid and universal benefactress, and sustained it
nobly, gracefully. She was thoroughly well-bred and agreeable, very
vivacious, astute, and intelligent, rather than intellectual, yet she
had the capacity (had her training been different) to have been both of
these.

I remember how it chanced that, after a long promenade, during which we
had discussed men, manners, books, customs, costumes, and politics, even
(that once tabooed subject for women, now free to all), with infinite
zest and responsiveness that charmed us mutually, so that we swore
allegiance on the strength of this one day's rencontre, like two
school-girls or knights of old--I remember how the dropping of her comb
at his feet caused Miss Lamarque to pause, compelling me to follow her
example, by reason of our intertwined arms, in front of the man at the
wheel, as he stooped to raise it and hand it to her with a seaman's bow.
His ready politeness, unusual for one in his station, determined us to
cultivate his maritime acquaintance, and in a short time we had drawn
forth the outlines of his story, simple and bare as this was of
incident.

His picturesque appearance had impressed us equally during the day, but