In one of the many visits to the steamship office which his wife's
anxieties obliged him to make, March had discussed the question of seats
in the dining-saloon. At first he had his ambition for the captain's
table, but they convinced him more easily than he afterwards convinced
Mrs. March that the captain's table had become a superstition of the
past, and conferred no special honor. It proved in the event that the
captain of the Norumbia had the good feeling to dine in a lower saloon
among the passengers who paid least for their rooms. But while the
Marches were still in their ignorance of this, they decided to get what
adventure they could out of letting the head steward put them where he
liked, and they came in to breakfast with a careless curiosity to see
what he had done for them.

There seemed scarcely a vacant place in the huge saloon; through the oval
openings in the centre they looked down into the lower saloon and up into
the music-room, as thickly thronged with breakfasters. The tables were
brightened with the bouquets and the floral designs of ships, anchors,
harps, and doves sent to the lady passengers, and at one time the Marches
thought they were going to be put before a steam-yacht realized to the
last detail in blue and white violets. The ports of the saloon were open,
and showed the level sea; the ship rode with no motion except the tremor
from her screws. The sound of talking and laughing rose with the clatter
of knives and forks and the clash of crockery; the homely smell of the
coffee and steak and fish mixed with the spice of the roses and
carnations; the stewards ran hither and thither, and a young foolish joy
of travel welled up in the elderly hearts of the pair. When the head
steward turned out the swivel-chairs where they were to sit they both
made an inclination toward the people already at table, as if it had been
a company at some far-forgotten table d'hote in the later sixties. The