"I've got the feeling, Miss, that ... that it's him!"
"Him?"
"Yes, Miss. He's kept looking at me ever since we landed on the ship."
Susan shot a swift glance to her right, and then, with a modest blush, resumed her scrutiny of the pattern on the rug across her knees. I affected to take an interest in a fishing-smack which was fast dropping astern of us; and, in this way, I was able to examine the part of the boat whither Susan's glance had winged its coy flight.
No doubt, ever so many people have stayed in town for the Harvard and Cambridge Boat-race. Anyhow, there weren't many crossing this morning. We were sitting abaft the funnel, and there was hardly anybody between our two chairs and the gate leading to the second-class.
The second-class deck was fairly full. There the poor "seconds" sat, like animals in a zoo, behind a bar, for us superior mortals to stare at. They were seated oddly, on bags or undersized stools, so that they looked like wrong-doers in the stocks. The very funnel (which soared up from the midst of the first-class deck) showed its contempt by visiting them with a copious and increasing plague of large black grits, until they were sootier than the damned in hell. And after all, had not each and every one of them committed the deadly sin of being either unwilling or unable to pay the extra half-crown or so which would have made them, for three or four glorious hours, the equals of such notables as myself and the future Lady Ruddington? They had the air of accepting their punishment as just.
I picked out two unabashed and unassociated males, either of whom might be Susan's "Him." Keeping my eyes still on the second-class deck, but directing my voice towards Susan's cheek, I asked:
"Which?"
"The gentleman that's staring so, Miss."
"Can't you see there are two staring?" I said. "Which do you mean? Is it the one with the peaked cap and the gilt buttons--the one that's rubbing the back of his head against the side of the life-boat?"