he thought that if _she_ could stand it, _we_ might. There's
that point of view. But it takes all ease and comfort out of the
prospect. Here comes that blackguard." Staniford turned his back
towards Mr. Hicks, who was approaching, but Dunham could not quite
do this, though he waited for the other to speak first.

"Will you--would you oblige me with a light?" Mr. Hicks asked,
taking a cigar from his case.

"Certainly," said Dunham, with the comradery of the smoker.

Mr. Hicks seemed to gather courage from his cigar. "You didn't expect
to find a lady passenger on board, did you?" His poor disagreeable
little face was lit up with unpleasant enjoyment of the anomaly.
Dunham hesitated for an answer.

"One never can know what one's fellow passengers are going to be,"
said Staniford, turning about, and looking not at Mr. Hicks's face,
but his feet, with an effect of being, upon the whole, disappointed
not to find them cloven. He added, to put the man down rather than
from an exact belief in his own suggestion, "She's probably some
relation of the captain's."

"Why, that's the joke of it," said Hicks, fluttered with his superior
knowledge. "I've been pumping the cabin-boy, and he says the captain
never saw her till yesterday. She's an up-country school-marm, and she
came down here with her grandfather yesterday. She's going out to meet
friends of hers in Venice." The little man pulled at his cigar, and
coughed and chuckled, and waited confidently for the impression.