“My goodness!” she exclaimed; “sit at HIS table! I guess not! There's another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van Hooks. I'd look pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there, wouldn't I! A hen is all right in her place, but she don't belong in a peacock cage. And they drink champagne ALL the time there; I've watched 'em. No thank you, I'll stay in the henyard along with the everyday fowls.”
“Odd that he should have known Father,” I observed. “Well, I suppose the proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that this is a small world. That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would say.”
“It's what I say, too,” declared Hephzy, with emphasis. “Well, it's awful encouraging for us, isn't it.”
“Encouraging? What do you mean?”
“Why, I mean about Little Frank. It makes me feel surer than ever that we shall run across him.”
I suppressed a groan. “Hephzy,” said I, “why on earth should the fact that Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe that we shall meet a person we never knew at all?”
“Hosy, how you do talk! If you and I, just cruisin' this way across the broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin Philander thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to suppose we'll meet a child who was born twenty-one years ago? I should say 'twas! Hosy, I've had a presentiment about this cruise of ours: We're SENT on it; that's what I think—we're sent. Oh, you can laugh! You'll see by and by. THEN you won't laugh.”
“No, Hephzy,” I admitted, resignedly, “I won't laugh then, I promise you. If I ever reach the stage where I see a Little Frank I promise you I sha'n't laugh. I'll believe diseases of the brain are contagious, like the measles, and I'll send for a doctor.”
The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening. He came over to our table and chatted for some time. His visit caused quite a sensation. Shipboard society is a little world by itself and the ship's captain is the head of it. Persons who would, very likely, have passed Captain Stone on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly without recognizing him now toadied to him as if he were a Czar, which, in a way, I suppose he is when afloat. His familiarity with us shed a sort of reflected glory upon Hephzy and me. Several of our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening for the first time.
A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues; the smoke-room was his accustomed haunt. But the next forenoon as I leaned over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the antics of the “Stokers' Band” which was performing for the benefit of the second-class with an eye toward pennies and small silver from all classes, Heathcroft sauntered up and leaned beside me. We exchanged good-mornings. I thanked him for the wine.