Although the Princess Colonna seemed to have nothing to do with anybody aboard the Martha Washington, by an odd coincidence she appeared to have previously met Captain Madden. Probably their acquaintance was a slight one, for they only bowed in passing and had never been seen talking to each other. Indeed, Jean's new friend was in a measure responsible for her prejudice against Jack's. She had hinted several times in a veiled fashion that the girls must remember not to become too intimate with strangers in traveling abroad. There was no direct reference to Captain Madden. So when Jean mentioned her own impression of the Princess' meaning to her cousin, Jack naturally suggested that the Princess was equally a stranger and so equally to be avoided.
However, it must not be supposed that this question of new friendships had become a really serious one during the early part of their ocean voyage. For after nine days, when the Martha Washington was to make her first stop at Gibraltar, the girls were equally delighted at the prospect of being shown over the great English fort by a British army officer. Also Captain Madden agreed to have any other friends that Ruth or the Ranch girls desired to join their party. And at Ruth's invitation the Princess Colonna consented to be one of them.
CHAPTER VII
GIBRALTAR
EARLY on the morning of their steamship's first landing during the voyage, Jack came up on deck. She had asked Olive to come with her, but she was at the moment engaged in writing to Miss Winthrop at Primrose Hall, who had become more like her mother than a friend. She promised to join her room-mate in a few moments.
It was an ideal morning, and Jack hoped to have a long look at the sea before the other passengers were about to distract her with conversation. In a short while their steamer was due to pass Cape Trafalgar, where Lord Nelson won his famous victory over the French and Spanish in 1805, and from then on every traveler aboard, except the ill ones, would be crowding about the ship's railing for the best views.
Jack felt wonderfully well. Only a few days more than a week at sea, and how much she had already improved! Not since the winter at the ranch when she was sixteen had she felt so vigorous and had such joy in living. Surely before their trip was over she would be her old self again. And if this part of their journey had been so unusually interesting, what would their trip through Italy mean, with Switzerland and England to follow in May?
"How much of my young heart, O Spain,
Went out to thee in days of yore,
What dreams romantic filled my brain
And summoned back to life again
The paladins of Charlemagne,
The Cid Campeador."