CHAPTER TWO


A berugged, bedraggled bundle of apologies, Miss Ophelia Arthur lay
prone in her steamer chair, her cheeks pale, her eyes closed. Her
conscience, directed towards the interests of her charge, demanded
her presence on deck. Once on deck and apparently on guard, Miss
Arthur limply subsided into a species of coma. Her charge,
meanwhile, rosy and alert, sat in the lee of a friendly ventilating
shaft. Beside her, also in the lee of the ventilating shaft, sat Mr.
Harvard Weldon.

The past week had been full of the petty events which make up life
on shipboard. The trail of smoke from a passing steamer, the first
shoal of flying fish, the inevitable dance, the equally inevitable
concert and, most inevitable of all, the Sabbatic contest between
the captain and the fresh-water clergyman who insists upon reading
service: all these are old details, yet ever new. Throughout them
all, Weldon had sturdily maintained his place at Ethel's side. By
tacit consent, the girl had been transferred to the motherly care of
Mrs. Scott who, after a keen inspection of Weldon, had decided that
it was safe to take upon trust this clean-eyed, long-legged Canadian
who was so obviously well-born and well-bred.

Now and then Carew joined the group; but the handsome, dashing young
fellow had no mind to play the part of second violin. He would be
concertmaster or nothing. Accordingly, he withdrew to the rival
corner where a swarthy little French girl maintained her court