He laughed again.  John Vanderlyn was clean and healthy-souled.  He did not always take his mother (whom he idolized) too seriously.

“I didn’t say she was a princess,” he replied, “but she might well be.  It was, however, rather the old man than the girl, though she is very beautiful and quite as much misplaced upon the steerage-deck as he is, that I wished to have you see.”  He was, it will be noted, learning something of diplomacy.  “He has a magnificent old face—­the face of a fine nature which has suffered terribly.  I have seen him as he stood at the ship’s rail, astern, watching the white wake as if every bubble on it was a marker on a tragic path.  It is as if all he loved on earth except the girl—­you ought to see him look at her!—­lies at the far end of that frothy, watery trail.”

“You become almost poetic!” she said without enthusiasm.

But, a day afterwards, she went with him and looked down at the steerage passengers, singling out the pair he meant without the slightest difficulty.

“What a distinguished-looking man he is!” said she, involuntarily.

“Isn’t he?” said her delighted son.

The daughter was not on the deck, just then, and young Vanderlyn was politic enough to say nothing of her, merely talking of the old man’s impressive bearing, asking his mother to help him speculate about his history.

“I don’t wonder he attracted you,” she granted.  “He looks very interesting.  I am sure he has a history.”

Her gaze was so intent, that, in a few moments, it attracted the attention of Herr Kreutzer, and the youth, observing that he seemed annoyed and shamed, hurried her away.  Instinctively he had felt the old man flinch; instinctively he knew his pride, already, had been sorely hurt by the necessity of “traveling steerage”; that as they gazed at him the handsome, white-haired, emigrant had felt that his dire poverty had made of him a curiosity.

The young man led his mother back to her rug-padded deck-chair, pleased by the result of the first step in what he had resolved must be a strategy of worth.  In some way he must fix things so that properly and pleasantly he could get acquainted with that girl.  This, he thought (not being a born prophet), could only be accomplished through his mother, and already he had plans for it indefinitely sketched out in his mind.  Events were fated to assist him and do better for him than his mother could have done for him, but, of course, he did not know that then.

From the moment when he saw the dignified old German shrink before his mother’s gaze the youth was careful to avoid appearances of curiosity.  If either old man or young girl came into view while he stood at the rail, above the steerage-deck, he went away, though other passengers, attracted by the beauty of the girl, and the distinguished look of the old man, were less considerate and stared, to their distress.  When, later, the young man saw his mother staring as the others did and as he had, himself, at first, he hesitantly spoke to her about it.