The weather continued very stormy for two days, and during that time Miss Blake did not appear at table.  At any rate, if she breakfasted there it was either before or after his appearance, and he learned afterward that she had taken luncheon and dinner in her sister’s room.

The morning of the third day broke bright and clear.  There was a long swell upon the sea, but the motion of the boat was even and endurable to all but the most susceptible.  As the morning advanced the deck began to fill with promenaders, and to be lined with chairs, holding wrapped-up figures, showing faces of all shades of green and gray.

John, walking for exercise, and at a wholly unnecessary pace, turning at a sharp angle around the deck house, fairly ran into the girl about whom he had been wondering for the last two days.  She received his somewhat incoherent apologies, regrets, and self-accusations in such a spirit of forgiveness that before long they were supplementing their first conversation with something more personal and satisfactory; and when he came to the point of saying that half by accident he had found out her name, and begged to be allowed to tell her his own, she looked at him with a smile of frank amusement and said:  “It is quite unnecessary, Mr. Lenox.  I knew you instantly when I saw you at table the first night; but,” she added mischievously, “I am afraid your memory for people you have known is not so good as mine.”

“Well,” said John, “you will admit, I think, that the change from a little girl in short frocks to a tall young woman in a tailor-made gown might be more disguising than what might happen with a boy of fifteen or so.  I saw your name in the passenger list with Mr. and Mrs. Carling, and wondered if it could be the Mary Blake whom I really did remember, and the first night at dinner, when I heard your sister call Mr. Carling ‘Julius,’ and heard him call you ‘Mary,’ I was sure of you.  But I hardly got a fair look at your face, and, indeed, I confess that if I had had no clew at all I might not have recognized you.”

“I think you would have been quite excusable,” she replied, “and whether you would or would not have known me is ’one of those things that no fellow can find out,’ and isn’t of supreme importance anyway.  We each know who the other is now, at all events.”

“Yes,” said John, “I am happy to think that we have come to a conclusion on that point.  But how does it happen that I have heard nothing of you all these years, or you of me, as I suppose?”

“For the reason, I fancy,” she replied, “that during that period of short frocks with me my sister married Mr. Carling and took me with her to Chicago, where Mr. Carling was in business.  We have been back in New York only for the last two or three years.”

“It might have been on the cards that I should come across you in Europe,” said John.  “The beaten track is not very broad.  How long have you been over?”