unanswerable excuse for shutting himself up at intervals in the lower
regions, and had then hit on the happy idea of tearing her trimmings,
and condemning herself to repair her own carelessness, as the
all-sufficient reason for similar acts of self-seclusion on her side.
In this way the lovers contrived, while the innocent ruling authorities
were on deck, to meet privately below them, on the neutral ground of the
main cabin; and there, by previous arrangement at the breakfast-table,
they were about to meet privately now.

Natalie's door was, as usual on these occasions, the first that opened;
for this sound reason, that Natalie's quickness was the quickness to be
depended on in case of accident.

She looked up at the sky-light. There were the legs of the two gentlemen
and the skirts of her aunt visible (and stationary) on the lee side of
the deck. She advanced a few steps and listened. There was a pause in
the murmur of the voices above. She looked up again. One pair of legs
(not her father's) had disappeared. Without an instant's hesitation,
Natalie darted back to her own door, just in time to escape Richard
Turlington descending the cabin stairs. All he did was to go to one
of the drawers under the main-cabin book-case and to take out a map,
ascending again immediately to the deck. Natalie's guilty conscience
rushed instantly, nevertheless, to the conclusion that Richard suspected
her. When she showed herself for the second time, instead of venturing
into the cabin, she called across it in a whisper,

"Launce!"

Launce appeared at his door. He was peremptorily checked before he could
cross the threshold.