They went the whole length of the promenade deck, as if they were reviewing the passengers, bundled and packed in their chairs, and the passengers looked at them both with so much interest that the child made Margaret come all the way back again.

‘The sea has a voice, too, hasn’t it?’ Ida asked, as they paused and looked over the rail.

She glanced up quickly for the answer, but Margaret did not find one at once.

‘Because I’ve read poetry about the voices of the sea,’ Ida explained.  ’And in books they talk of the music of the waves, and then they say the sea roars, and thunders in a storm.  I can hear thunder, you know.  Did you know that I could hear thunder?’

Margaret smiled and looked interested.

‘It bangs in the back of my head,’ said the child gravely.  ’But I should like to hear the sea thunder.  I often watch the waves on the beach, as if they were lips moving, and I try to understand what they say.  Of course, it’s play, because one can’t, can one?  But I can only make out “Boom, ta-ta-ta-ta,” getting quicker and weaker to the end, you know, as the ripples run up the sand.’

‘It’s very like what I hear,’ Margaret answered.

‘Is it really?’ Little Ida was delighted.  ’Perhaps it’s a language after all, and I shall make it out some day.  You see, until I know the language people are speaking, their lips look as if they were talking nonsense.  But I’m sure the sea could not really talk nonsense all day for thousands of years.’

‘No, I’m sure it couldn’t!’ Margaret was amused.  ’But the sea is not alive,’ she added.

‘Everything that moves is alive,’ the child said, ’and everything that is alive can make a noise, and the noise must mean something.  If it didn’t, it would be of no use, and everything is of some use.  So there!’

Delighted with her own argument, the beautiful child laughed and showed her even teeth in the sun.

They were standing at the end of the promenade deck, which extended twenty feet abaft the smoking-room, and took the whole beam; above the latter, as in most modern ships, there was the boat deck, to the after-part of which passengers had access.  Standing below, it was easy to see and talk with any one who looked over the upper rail.

Ida threw her head back and looked up as she laughed, and Margaret laughed good-naturedly with her, thinking how pretty she was.  But suddenly the child’s expression changed, her face grew grave, and her eyes fixed themselves intently on some point above.  Margaret looked in the same direction, and saw that Mr. Van Torp was standing alone up there, leaning against the railing and evidently not seeing her, for he gazed fixedly into the distance; and as he stood there, his lips moved as if he were talking to himself.

Margaret gave a little start of surprise when she saw him, but the child watched him steadily, and a look of fear stole over her face.  Suddenly she grasped Margaret’s arm.