“Well, if that isn’t putting us on an equality, what is?”
“I said, madam, that I did not put you on an equality. That was done by a celebrated document which you often fling in our faces. I refer to the Declaration of Independence, which, if I remember rightly, begins—‘All men are created equal,’ and I suppose, as the humourist puts it, that the men embrace the women.”
“Miss Stretton is my paid servant,” insisted Miss Hemster, evading the point; “and, as was said in the opera of ‘Pinafore,’ when one person has to obey the orders of another, equality is out of the question.”
“I didn’t think that made any difference in the United States.”
“But this isn’t the United States.”
“I beg your pardon, but this is the United States. We are on the high seas, aboard a steamer that is registered in New York, and so this deck is just as much a part of your country as is New York itself, and the laws of the United States would justify the captain in putting me in irons if he thought my conduct deserved such treatment.”
“Then you refuse to tell me what you and Miss Stretton were discussing!”
“My dear madam, if Miss Stretton asked me what you and I were discussing, I should certainly refuse to inform her. Should I not be justified in doing so? I leave it to yourself. Would you be pleased if I repeated our conversation to Miss Stretton?”
“Oh, I don’t know that I should mind,” replied Miss Hemster mildly, the storm subsiding as quickly as it had risen; “I have no doubt she told you that her father was a clergyman, and that my father had borrowed five hundred dollars from her father to get his start in life. And she doubtless hinted that her father was the founder of our fortune.”
“I assure you, Miss Hemster, that she said nothing at all about five hundred dollars or any other sum. She spoke mostly of your father, and she spoke very highly of him.”