"Our deck chairs are in the most absurd spot!" said Miss Hutchinson. "I told the steward what I thought of him, and them. He said he would change them. Aren't you going to look at your flowers? Your state room is full of them. I stepped in. Your maid was putting some of them in your wash bowl. I told her that would never do. You will have to use it, you know, to brush your teeth, wash, and so on, and if you're sick—it is most inconvenient to have the stand cluttered with flowers. I—ah, happened to notice Lord Ashby's card on some flowers. Where did you meet him, dear?"
"Sunday school treat," replied Cecilia. "I poured tea down his neck." Her reply was made in an absent way. She was scrutinising the passengers. There was a fat woman near who looked lovely! She stood within earshot of Cecilia and Cecilia heard her address her husband as "Poppa," and then a very healthy and pleasantly loud-looking maiden as "Lotty." It made Cecilia feel as if she were in the warmth of a summer sun, just to hear them. So happily natural, they were.
"Horrid people!" said Miss Hutchinson loudly. She elevated a lorgnette, and looked "poppa" up and down critically. "Beer, Cincinnati," she decided in far-reaching tone. Cecilia squirmed.
"That dear baby in the steerage!" said Cecilia, to divert the offended Miss Hutchinson.
"Dirty!" commented the diverted. "So absolutely degrading the way the lower classes have children! One after the other!" ended Miss Hutchinson. Cecilia did not voice it, but she wondered what other mode of entrance into the world was possible, one at a time, rarely two, having been the style for a good many years.
The baby began to whimper. Its mother slapped it vigorously. Cecilia looked away. She hated to see a child slapped. Johnny had often been most trying. She had rarely slapped him.... Then she turned and quite forgot the hot, whimpering baby of the steerage.... K. Stuyvesant Twombly stood behind her. He recognised the impulsive girl who had spoken to him at the small tomb of "Jane Lister, dear child," and he raised his hat and smiled.
Cecilia gasped. Then, she went below, and very quickly, to see her flowers.
"Oh, but you are nice," said Cecilia, "if your name is not!" Then she looked away from K. Stuyvesant Twombly. She had not meant to say anything like that! It had simply come out!
The wind blew strongly and ruffled her hair. K. Stuyvesant Twombly watched her with a good deal of interest. She was quite different from any girl he'd ever met.... She watched first the rough sea which looked like a small boy's chewing gum, laid in a safe place waiting for the next chew ... grey, indented with the marks of small teeth. Then all the sea would slip below the rail, and all of the world would be sky.
"I was named," explained K. Stuyvesant, "Keefer, after a rich uncle. He died and left all his money for the support of Lutheran missions in China. After that my mother used to faint every time she'd think of my first name."