Lancy de Vere (as we shall now call him, though our
readers will be able at any moment to turn his name
backwards) has given it to be understood that he is
travelling merely as a gentleman anxious to see America.
This naturally baffles all those in contact with him.

The girl at his side--but perhaps we may best let her
speak for herself.

Somehow as they sat together on the deck of the great
steamer in the afterglow of the sunken sun, listening to
the throbbing of the propeller (a rare sound which neither
of them of course had ever heard before), de Vere felt
that he must speak to her. Something of the mystery of
the girl fascinated him. What was she doing here alone
with no one but her mother and her maid, on the bosom of
the Atlantic? Why was she here? Why was she not somewhere
else? The thing puzzled, perplexed him. It would not let
him alone. It fastened upon his brain. Somehow he felt
that if he tried to drive it away, it might nip him in
the ankle.

In the end he spoke.

"And you, too," he said, leaning over her deck-chair,
"are going to America?"

He had suspected this ever since the boat left Liverpool.
Now at length he framed his growing conviction into words.