“England!”

“Take you on!”

“An English father for you?  For a subject of the King of Prussia?”

“I—­I’m afraid I—­I’m going to be sick,” gasped Anna-Felicitas suddenly.

“You’re never going to be sick in this bit of bathwater, Miss Twinkler?” exclaimed the young man, with the instant ungrudging admiration of one who is confronted by real talent.  “My, what a gift!”

Anna-Rose darted at Anna-Felicitas’s drooping head, that which she had been going to say back to the German ladies dissolving on her tongue.  “Oh no—­no—­” she wailed.  “Oh no—­not in your best hat, Columbus darling—­you can’t—­it’s not done—­and your hat’ll shake off into the water, and then there’ll only be one between us and we shall never be able to go out paying calls and things at the same time—­come away and sit down—­Mr. Twist—­Mr. Twist—­oh, please come—­”

Anna-Felicitas allowed herself to be led away, just in time as she murmured, and sat down on the nearest seat and shut her eyes.  She was thankful Anna-Rose’s attention had been diverted to her so instantly, for it would have been very difficult to be sick with the ship as quiet as one’s own bedroom.  Nothing short of the engine-room could have made her sick now.  She sat keeping her eyes shut and Anna-Rose’s attention riveted, wondering what she would do when there was no ship and Anna-Rose was on the verge of hasty and unfortunate argument.  Would she have to learn to faint?  But that would terrify poor Christopher so dreadfully.

Anna-Felicitas pondered, her eyes shut, on this situation.  Up to now in her life she had always found that situations solved themselves.  Given time.  And sometimes a little assistance.  So, no doubt, would this one.  Anna-Rose would ripen and mellow.  The German ladies would depart hence and be no more seen; and it was unlikely she and Anna-Rose would meet at such close quarters as a ship’s cabin any persons so peculiarly and unusually afflicting again.  All situations solved themselves; or, if they showed signs of not going to, one adopted the gentle methods that helped them to get solved.  Early in life she had discovered that objects which cannot be removed or climbed over can be walked round.  A little deviousness, and the thing was done.  She herself had in the most masterly manner when she was four escaped church-going for several years by a simple method, that seemed to her looking back very like an inspiration, of getting round it.  She had never objected to going, had never put into words the powerful if vague dislike with which it filled her when Sunday after Sunday she had to go and dangle her legs helplessly for two hours from the chair she was put on in the enclosed pew reserved for the hohe graefliche Herrschaften from the Slosh.