“She only engaged with Nadine to work out her passage.”

“Oh!  They say girls from all over the world are bearing down on poor little old New York since Owen Johnson wrote ‘The Salamander.’”

“Jove, Ena, I never knew before you had anything of the cat in you!”

This, and a flash in the eyes which were bluer than hers, brought Miss Rolls to her bearings.  She remembered the reason for going softly with Peter.  Luckily she had done no great mischief yet.

“Can’t you take a joke, Petro?” she teased him, laughing “I’m not a cat, or a pig, either.  But you do scare me a little.  You don’t like this girl, do you?”

“Of course I like her.”

“You know what I mean by ‘like.’  And I hope I know what you mean.  You always yearn over every creature who hasn’t as much money as we have and needs ours. Sure it’s no more than that this time?  It would be—­just the limit, the outside edge and down the other side, if you fell in love with a dressmaker’s model.  It would be like—­like reverting to type.  We must climb, not—­root.”

Peter laughed—­nervously, his sister feared.  “What a girl you are!  You needn’t fash yourself about my feelings for Miss Child.  All I want is to help her to get on.”

“Oh!  To help her get on?  Well, then, you may introduce her to me, if it can be done without taking up too much time.  You know, Petro, it’s my last day on board, and I have my feelings as much as you.  How can we manage it?  Can you bring her here?”

“I can’t ‘bring’ her anywhere,” Peter retorted rather gruffly.  “She isn’t a servant looking for a place.  I’ve told you she’s a lady.”

“Oh, all right.  What do you suggest?”

“She hasn’t much time to herself.  Since the weather improved, business is brisker.  But after her dinner she gets in a walk down on B deck, where nobody else goes.  I could take you there about half-past eight.”

“Very well.  That’s the program.”  Ena spoke with regained cheerfulness, because no one need witness an introduction effected on B deck, and because a sentence of Peter’s had been like a bull’s-eye lantern directing a ray along the right track.  “I’ll be ever so nice to Miss Child to-night—­and afterward, too, in New York, if you can bring anything off with Lord Raygan about the visit.  Are you playing poker with him this afternoon?”

“Yes.  Some chaps wanted—–­”

“I know.  He told me.  But he didn’t mention you.  Afterward, will you work right up to the ‘good thing’ you can put him on to?  He’ll be in just the mood—­if he loses.  And he says he always does lose.”

“Yes.  I’ll let him see that he might do well for himself by staying.  Gee!  Think of a fellow needing a bribe to spend a couple of weeks in God’s country!”

“He doesn’t know yet that it is God’s country.  We must show him.  Oh, Peter, won’t the Van Raaltens and the Arlingtons fall over themselves with rage if the Earl of Raygan and his mother and sister stop with us for a fortnight!”