* * * * *
Among the few children was a boy of five or six who enjoyed great popularity among the passengers. The child, attracted to Mademoiselle Duvernoy by childhood’s instinct to those who have borne pain, passed and repassed a dozen times a day before her chair, seeking by every artifice to catch her eye.
The fourth morning out, when we were stretched languidly in our steamer chairs, Master Jack, enveloped in leggings, sweater and muffler, wabbled down like a rolling ball of cotton and, after the usual preliminary skirmishes, rallying his courage, stopped directly between our chairs and said timidly:
“How do?”
The piping voice startled her from her mechanical contemplation. She dropped her book and her body seemed to shrink back.
“I talk to you a little while—yes?”
The smile of the young suppliant would have won over a jury, yet to my surprise she did not unbend and the greeting was forced and perfunctory.
“Good-morning.”
Determined, the youngster sidled up and stood gazing in adoration.
“Why you wear that ugly veil all the time?”