“No, I’m not ill.  I’m sick, though.  The Pater says I want stiffening.  This is my third trip in the stiffening process.  Like a bally collar in a laundry!  Oh, damn life!  What’s he know about it, anyway?  Have you got a deck-chair?”

“Yes, but—­”

“I’m going to put mine on the fo’c’sle presently.  If we don’t peg out claims they’ll all go, and the fo’c’sle is the best place in the steerage.  Where’s yours?  I’ll t-take it there, if you like.”

He had begun to stammer in the last sentence, suddenly self-conscious again.  She told him where her chair was on deck, and next minute, without another word, he was half-way along the alley-way, leaving the tea-things where they were.  Then he turned back and spoke from several yards away.

“I suppose you’re wondering what the devil I’m doing in the steerage, aren’t you?  A chap like me—­a medical student!  And I’ll t-tell you w-why it is!  The p-pater’s too mean to pay for me to go decently.”

He was looking down at his shoes as he spoke.  She noticed that the nice brown eyes were quite far apart; the forces that set them so had not meant them to be shifty.  His chin was strong, too, but his mouth was loose and much too mobile.  It quivered when he had finished speaking.  She reflected that if she had seen him in a train reading, and not speaking to anyone, she would have thought him very nice to look at.  Only his nervousness and his mannerisms made him unpleasant.

“He’d go first class himself if he was going to Hades!  Steerage is good enough for Louis—­as there’s no way of letting him run behind like a little dog!” He began to bite his lower lip, and his fingers twisted aimlessly.

“I hadn’t thought of the lack of dignity in it,” said Marcella calmly.  “I said I’d come steerage, and here I am.  I’m sure it’s going to be jolly.”

“I don’t suppose you’d notice, being a farmer’s daughter,” he said.

“I never notice anything, and I never worry about things.  I knew perfectly well aunt couldn’t afford to pay more for me, and I’m not such a fool as to pretend she could.”

“And I’m to consider myself squashed—­abso-bally-lutely pestle and mortared?” he said, turning away flushing and biting his lip.

“Quite.  I hate pretenders,” she said.  The next moment he heard her cabin trunk being pushed noisily inside and the door was banged to.

At five o’clock a steward came along to explain that he had looked for her at lunch-time, but could not find her.

“I’ve reserved you a place at my table, miss,” he said.  “You’d better get in early and take it.  These emigrants, they push and shove so—­and expect the best of everything.  And mind you, not a penny to be had out of them—­not one penny!  It’s ‘Knollys this’ and ‘Knollys that’ all day—­my name being Knollys, miss—­you’d think I was a dog.”

She went along the alley-way with him.  He went on, aggrievedly: