To-day she was facing the first problem of her young life, epochal.
She was, as it were, to stop and begin life anew. And she didn't know,
she wasn't sure.

There were few passengers aboard. There were three fussy old English
maidens under the protection of a still fussier old colonel, who
disagreed with everybody because his liver disagreed with him. Twenty
years of active service in Upper India had seriously damaged that
physiological function, and "pegs" no longer mellowed him. The quartet
greatly amused Elsa. Their nods were abrupt, and they spoke in the
most formal manner. She was under grave suspicion; in the first place,
she was traveling alone, in the second place, she was an American. At
table there was generally a desultory conversation, and many a barb of
malice Elsa shot from her bow. Figuratively, the colonel walked about
like a porcupine, bristling with arrows instead of quills. Elsa could
have shouted at times, for the old war-dog was perfectly oblivious.
There was, besides, the inevitable German tourist, who shelled with
questions every man who wore brass-buttons, until there was some
serious talk of dropping him astern some day. He had shelled the
colonel, but that gentleman was snugly encased in the finest and most
impenetrable Bessemer, complacency.

Upon these Irrawaddy boats the purser is usually the master of
ceremonies in the dining-saloon. The captain and his officers rarely
condescended. Perhaps it was too much trouble to dress; perhaps
tourists had disgusted them with life; at any rate, they remained in
obscurity.

Elsa usually sat at the purser's right, and to-night she found the
stranger sitting quietly at her side. The chair had been vacant since