Perhaps
Weiss would see something suggestive in the presence of this child upon
the steamer!
* * * * *
"So you have found one friend on board," Mildmay remarked, pausing
before her chair.
"He is not a friend," she answered, "and I do not like him. That is why
I told him that it made my head ache to talk."
"Then I suppose--" he began.
"You are to suppose nothing, but to sit down," she said. "Talk to me
about London, please, or anything, or any place. I am a little tired
to-day. I suppose I should say really a little depressed. I cannot read,
and I don't like my thoughts."
"You are such a child," he said softly, "to talk like that."
"I am nineteen," she answered, "and sometimes I feel thirty-nine."
"Nineteen!" he repeated, "and coming across to a strange country all by
yourself. The American spirit is a wonderful thing."
She shook her head.
"It isn't the American spirit," she said simply. "It is necessity. I
think that any girl, English or American, would prefer having some one
to take care of her, to going about alone."
"You make one feel inclined--" he began, bending forward and looking
into her eyes.
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