“Much lower, I suppose, than Ole Fred, and those drinkers in New Zealand, isn’t he?” she said calmly, her eyes glinting.  He flushed hotly and looked hurt.  Immediately she was sorry.

“There, I’m sorry, Louis.  I ought not to have said a thing like that.  It was unforgivable.  But you do talk like an idiot.  How on earth can one make mistakes in breeding?  Oh, you and I talk different languages, that’s all, and it’s not any use at all trying to think and talk the same.”

“Well, I know more of the world than you do, and you must let me teach you, Marcella.  Oh, I know you’re—­you’re braver and stronger morally than I. But, you know, when we get to Sydney and are married we’ll have to stay in hotels and—­and—­I don’t want my wife making faux pas.  It’d be just like you—­you’re such a dear, really—­to go doing things servants ought to do—­in public, I mean, and make a fool of me.”

She looked at him and smiled reminiscently and rather cruelly.  But he looked so solemn, so serious that, in sheer mischief, she told him that she would be very careful not to make him conspicuous by her blunders.  And then she asked him an unexpected question.

“Louis, did you write and tell your father you didn’t want any more money?”

He took out his packet of cigarettes—­he never possessed a cigarette case, such things were to be turned into money too easily.  His hands were trembling as he struck a match.

“Yes—­I—­t-told him,” he said jerkily.

“What did you say about me?” she asked curiously.

He pondered for a moment.  At last he decided to be honest.

“I didn’t tell him.”

“Didn’t you, Louis?” she said, looking hurt.  “Why?”

“He’d only think you were a waster.  He wouldn’t think anyone but a waster would marry me.  If I told him you were a Scotch farmer’s daughter he’d picture something in short skirts, red cheeks and bare legs that talked like Harry Lauder.  Or else he’d think I was lying, and had got off with a barmaid and wasn’t married at all, and was living on some girl.  They’d always think the worst of me, at home.  I’m not even going to tell the Mater—­”

She thought for some minutes.

“I don’t much care,” she said at last.  “I think your father’s rather a horrible man, but I may be wrong about him.  My impressions of him are formed from yours, you see.  It seems that no one but a most inhuman man could kick his son out.  But then—­well, I don’t know just how much you worried him.  But I’d have liked you to tell your mother.  She looked so grieved that day on the tender, and she was crying so miserably.  I’d have liked her to know you were taken care of.”

“She wouldn’t believe it, either, Marcella,” he said gloomily.  “And you don’t know my Mater.  The very fact that you were in the steerage would make her think you couldn’t possibly be any good in the world.  If I told her you cleaned spoons and forks for a steward she’d think you did it from habit because you’d been someone’s servant.  They’ve no imagination—­”