heart, and—­this very passionately—­his mouth.  The young American jackanapes was promenading with his Canadian, who looked very haughty and blase, yet much fresher.  The delicate creature seemed to be shivering with cold, though she was wearing an elegant coat of Canadian sable, which reached to her knees.  Frederick greeted the clothing manufacturer, whom his steward had helped up on deck.  He had been lying in his cabin more dead than alive, and his steward had been feeding him on nothing but Malaga grapes.

Ingigerd was holding court on the port side in front of her cabin, the door to which stood open, it flattering her vanity to have the many promenaders see and envy the privilege she was enjoying.

“If it is agreeable to you, Doctor Wilhelm, let us remain this side of the Rubicon.  That little girl slightly bores me.  By the way, can you tell me how I came to bring down on myself that shout when I entered the smoking-room and that man’s vulgar remark?  To be sure, as a physician and free-thinker it’s a matter of indifference to me.”

“Oh,” said Wilhelm, trying by an air of lightness to appease Frederick, “this is all it was.  Fuellenberg probably saw you coming out of Miss Hahlstroem’s cabin, and said something in the smoking-room.  You know his mischievous way.”

“I’ll box his ears,” said Frederick.

“The trouble is, the little girl is making herself generally conspicuous.  The worst rumours are afloat about her.  All men seem alike to her, whether stewards, firemen, sailors, or cabin-boys.  And that greasy Achleitner!  I assure you, all over the ship, in the forecastle, among the stewards when they polish the silver, and in the officers’ cabins, they do nothing but titter and laugh at her and Achleitner and anybody falling under suspicion on her account.”

“Don’t you think that’s slander?”

“Why, you and I are physicians.  I don’t care a fig one way or the other.”

Frederick laughed.  “I have set my all on nothing.”

Suddenly he said: 

“You’re right.  I’m of the same opinion.  I must really throw overboard that old idealistic German Adam sticking in me like a Sunday afternoon preacher.”

The two men laughed.  Their mood turned merrier, chiming in with the general atmosphere of hilarity.

One reason for this predominating sense of happiness was the fact that all the passengers, after struggling with nausea and sleeplessness during those miserable, crawling, endless hours in the doleful grave of their cabins, had learned to appreciate the value of mere healthy existence.  Merely to live, merely to live!  That was the cry that rang in every step, every laugh, every word, drowning all care.  None of those concerns which each of them had dragged on board, whether from Europe or America, now had the least might.  Merely to live was to win in the great lottery.  They knew sunshine follows rain, and they said to themselves, “If worse comes to worst, you will willingly put up with bread and salt and a hoe and a vegetable garden, and no one in the world will be a happier mortal than you.”