She stared at him in amazement; he really was a phenomenon to her—­the first young man she had ever seen, with the exception of the peasant lads.  She blinked her own dry eyes and frowned at him reflectively.

“Did it hurt you as much as that?  Anyway, I’m very sorry,” she said.

“D’you think I’m blubbing for that, idiot?” said the boy in a jerky voice, and, bending almost double, darted down the companion-way.

She stared at him, and turned to the ship’s rail again, drowning in surprise.  She was surprised at Tilbury now that she had time to look about her.  It was so utterly unromantic ashore—­docks, wharves, miserable buildings and brown fields, very distant.  She remembered that Queen Elizabeth had reviewed her troops at Tilbury when she was getting ready for the Armada to land; she had expected that the glamour of that ancient pageant would hang about Tilbury.  And there was no glamour at all—­except, perhaps, in the ships that lay at anchor and the barges that glided by; they were glamorous enough with their aura of far lands and strange merchandise.

She became aware that the girl with the consumptive sister was looking at her, and must have heard the boy’s remark.

“People here seem very rude,” she remarked.

“That they are!  Saying she had consumption—­I know it was consumption though they wrote it down in funny words.  Other folks said she had consumption too—­sauce!  And now she’s all alone there, and I’m here.”

“What made you come,” asked Marcella, “if you didn’t want to leave her?”

“I do’ know.  Fed up, that’s about it,” said the girl resignedly.  “I wisht I hadn’t come an’ left her now, though.  Her not being strong—­mind you, it’s all my eye to talk about consumption, but her best friend couldn’t say as she was strong.  Oh, dear, I do wisht I hadn’t left her.”

For half an hour the thin girl argued with Marcella—­a very one-sided argument—­explaining in detail that her sister could not possibly have consumption, but that the doctor who had refused to pass her as an emigrant must have had a spite against her—­simply must have had.  Otherwise why didn’t he pass her?  What was it to him?  Marcella was very sympathetic but quite unhelpful, and after a while got away and went below to arrange her things in her cabin.

It fascinated her; it was quite the smallest thing she had ever seen, much smaller than Wullie’s hut, and the shining whiteness of the new enamel particularly appealed to her, though the smell of it was not very pleasing.  The clamps that held the water-bottle and glass gave an exhilarating hint of rough weather; the top bunk, about on the level of her eyes, promised thrilling acrobatic feats at bedtime, and she decided to sleep in that one, leaving the other as a receptacle for her baggage.