Thomas was not in love with Kitty. (Indeed, this isn’t a love story at all.) Stewards, three days out, are not in the habit of falling in love with their charges (Maundering and Drool notwithstanding).  He was afraid of her; she vaguely alarmed him; that was all.

For seven years he had dwelt in his “third floor back”; had breakfasted and dined with two old maids, their scrawny niece, and a muscular young stenographer who shouted militant suffrage and was not above throwing a brickbat whenever the occasion arrived.  There was a barmaid or two at the pub where he lunched at noon; but chaff was the alpha and omega of this acquaintance.  Thus, Thomas knew little or nothing of the sex.

The women with whom he conversed, played the gallant, the hero, the lover (we none of us fancy ourselves as rogues!) were those who peopled his waking dreams.  She was La Belle Isoude, Elaine, Beatrice, Constance; it all depended upon what book he had previously been reading.  It is when we men are confronted with the living picture of some one of our dreams of them that women cease to dwell in the abstract and become issues, to be met with more or less trepidation.  Back among some of his idle dreams there had been a Kitty, blue-eyed, black-haired, slender and elfish.

Kitty sat down in her chair.  “Well,” she said, “I have found him.”

“Found whom?” asked Mrs. Crawford.

“The private secretary.”

“What?” Killigrew swung his feet to the deck.  “What the dickens have you been doing now?  Who is it?”

“Webb.”

“The steward?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if that . . .” began Killigrew belligerently.

“Dad, either mother and I act as we please, or you may attend to the home-bureau yourself.  Mother, it was agreed and understood that I should select any employee we might happen to need.”

“It was, my dear.”

“Very good.  I want some one who will attend to the affairs honestly and painstakingly.  There must be no idler about the house; and any young man . . .”

“Wouldn’t an old one do?” suggested Killigrew.

“Whose set ideas would clash constantly with ours.  And any young man we know would idle and look on the whole affair as a fine joke.  I’ve had a talk with Webb.  He’s not a university man, but he’s educated.  I found him reading Morte d’Arthur.”

“Ah!”—­from Crawford.

“He became a steward because he could find nothing else to do at the present time.  He has been poor, and I dare say he has known the pinch of poverty.  You said only this morning, dad, that he was the most attentive steward you had ever met on shipboard.  Besides, there is a case in point.  Our butler was a steward before you engaged him, six years ago.”

Killigrew began to smile.  “How much have you offered him as a salary?”

“Two hundred a month, to be paid out of the funds.”