"Papa told me you were here," the little miss said to him, adjusting the blue silk cap on her doll's head. "Won't you sit down with us? Mr. Achleitner, please go and get a chair for Doctor von Kammacher." She turned to Doctor Wilhelm. "Your treatment was summary, but I am grateful to you. I feel very well sitting here, watching the sun set. You're fond of nature, aren't you, Doctor von Kammacher?"
"Nur für Natur hegte sie Sympathie," trolled Doctor Wilhelm, swaying on tip-toe.
"Oh, you are impudent," Ingigerd reproved him. "Doctor Wilhelm is impudent, you know," she added to Frederick. "I saw he was the very instant he looked at me and the way he took hold of me."
"But, my dear young lady, so far as I know, I never took hold of you."
"If you please, you did—going up the stairs. I have blue marks as the result."
The chatter ran on for a while in a similar strain. Frederick, without betraying it, was on the alert for every word she uttered, noted every play of feature, watched for her glances, for the rise and fall of her lashes. He jealously studied the others, too, and caught every expression, every movement, every glance that was meant for her. He even noticed how Max Pander, the handsome cabin-boy, still standing at his post, held his eyes fixed upon her, a broad smile on his lips.
Ingigerd's pleasure in receiving the homage of three men and being the centre of general interest was evident. She plucked at her little doll and her odd, checked jacket, and gave herself up to coquettish whimsies. Her affected voice filled Frederick with the delight of a long, cool drink to a thirsty man. At the same time, his whole being was inflamed with jealousy. The first mate, Von Halm, a magnificent young man of twenty-eight, a perfect tower of a man, joined the group and was favoured by Ingigerd with looks and pointed remarks, which indicated to her admirers that this weather-tanned officer was not an object of indifference to her.
"How many miles, Lieutenant, since we left the Needles?" asked Achleitner, who was pale and evidently chilly.
"We're making better time now," Von Halm replied; "but for the last twenty-two or twenty-three hours, we haven't made more than two hundred miles."
"At that rate it will take two weeks to reach New York," cried Hans Füllenberg, somewhat too forwardly, from where he was sitting a little distance away. He was still flirting with the English lady from Southampton; but now, irresistibly drawn to Mara's sphere, he jumped up and left her, bringing the tone that was agreeable to Mara and all her admirers, except Frederick von Kammacher. The jolliness of the little group communicated itself to the rest of the promenade deck.