Lady Betty Across the Water

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

I'm afraid I must have shown how surprised I was, and admiring, too, maybe (how can one keep from admiring what is fine and noble, whether it's a strange person's face, or the profile of a mountain against a sky at sunset?) for the handsome steerage passenger looked at me a long, long instant as if he were as much astonished as I was; and yet with such a nice look, that instead of being annoyed, I couldn't help being pleased.

In the meantime the little packet of money had fallen on the deck; but though it had struck him from behind, he seemed to realise exactly what had happened, and stooping down, he picked it up. Then he raised his hand high, so that I could see he had the crumpled ball of paper in it; and edging his way determinedly but not at all roughly, through the crowd, he opened the parcel and gave the money to the conductor.

"What a splendid-looking man!" I said in a low voice to Mrs. Ess Kay. "Isn't it extraordinary that he should be in the steerage?"

"Come away, my dear child," she answered. "I can't have you standing here to be stared at by low creatures like that. The fellow's not in the least splendid-looking. He's only a big, hulking animal. Don't take to making up romances about the steerage passengers, my love. They're not worth bothering your little head about, because if they weren't born for that sort of thing, they wouldn't be there, I assure you."

I didn't say anything more, though I was vexed with her, both for being so stupidly conventional, and for speaking to me in such a loud tone that she attracted people's attention.

We went back to our deck-chairs, and there was nothing to remind me of the little episode except the torn cover of my magazine, on which, I now remembered, Sally Woodburn had scrawled my name over and over again in pencil, just in idleness, while she and I had been talking that morning. If Mrs. Ess Kay had known, no doubt she would have been furious that a piece of paper with my name on it should have gone down into the steerage. But I didn't mind, for I remembered that the young man had opened the parcel, given the money to the conductor, and kept the cover, which probably he had soon after thrown overboard, or twisted up to light a pipe.

Nothing more happened that day; but there are two nice American girls on board, about my own age or a little older (they seem years older, for they are so charming and self-possessed) and Mrs. Ess Kay encourages me to like them, as they are in Mrs. Van der Windt's party. I grew quite well acquainted with them the third day out, and they asked me to go and watch the people in the steerage, who had a little trick dog which was lots of fun. I went, and saw the bronze young man again. He was standing with his arms folded across his blue-flannel-shirted chest, leaning against one of the supports of a kind of bridge, looking up towards the first-class deck. Our eyes met as they had before, and I was so absurd that I felt myself blushing. I could have boxed my own ears; and though the trained dog really was a pet, I didn't stay long.

It is strange how certain kinds of eyes haunt one. You, see them in the air, as if they were really looking at you--especially when you are just dropping off to sleep. I think grey ones do this more than others. Perhaps it is because they are more piercing.

But it was on the fourth day that the climax came,--the climax which has ended by upsetting me so much, and has made everything so uncomfortable.

The weather was glorious--all blue and gold after a sulky, leaden day--and there was dancing down on the steerage deck again. Though it was so fine, the water was not smooth like a floor as it had been at first, but broken into indigo waves ruffled irregularly with silver lace and edged with shimmering pearl fringe.