She suddenly realized that they were not, after all, such old friends as the night had seemed to make them.
“My first two names,” she said, “are Marie Louise.”
“Oh! Well, then we’ll call the ship Marie Louise.”
She saw that he was a little disappointed in the name, so she said:
“When I was a girl they called me Mamise.”
She was puzzled to see how this startled him.
He jumped audibly and fastened a searching gaze on her. Mamise! He had thought of Mamise when he saw her, and now she gave the name. Could she possibly be the Mamise he remembered? He started to ask her, but checked himself and blushed. A fine thing it would be to ask this splendid young princess, “Pardon me, Princess, but were you playing in cheap vaudeville a few years ago?” It was an improbable coincidence that he should meet her thus, but an almost impossible coincidence that she should wear both the name and the mien of Mamise and not be Mamise. But he dared not ask her.
She noted his blush and stammer, but she was afraid to ask their cause.
“Mamise it shall be,” he said.