"What a nice place!" she said, looking about her.
"Yes," said John; "I sit here a good deal when it isn't too windy."
"I have been wondering why I did not get a sight of you," she said. "I saw your name in the passenger list. Have you been ill?"
"I'm in the second cabin," he said, smiling.
She looked at him a little incredulously, and he explained.
"Ah, yes," she said, "I saw your name, but as you did not appear in the dining saloon, I thought you must either be ill or that you did not sail. Did you know that I was on board?" she asked.
It was rather an embarrassing question.
"I have been intending," he replied rather lamely, "to make myself known to you—that is, to—well, make my presence on board known to you. I got just a glimpse of you before we sailed, when you came up to speak to a man who had been saying good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Ruggles. I heard him speak their name, and looking over the passenger list I identified you as Mrs. Edward Ruggles."
"Ah," she said, looking away for an instant, "I did not know that you had seen me, and I wondered how you came to address me as Mrs. Ruggles just now."
"That was how," said John; and then, after a moment, "it seems rather odd, doesn't it, that we should be renewing an acquaintance on an ocean steamer as we did once before, so many years ago? and that the first bit of intelligence that I have had of you in all the years since I saw you last should come to me through the passenger list?"