“Oh they’ll keep it up, don’t you fear!” one of the gentlemen exclaimed.

“Dear madam, the Captain’s having his joke on you,” was, however, my own congruous reply.

“No, he ain’t—­he’s right down scandalised.  He says he regards us all as a real family and wants the family not to be downright coarse.”  I felt Mrs. Peck irritated by my controversial tone:  she challenged me with considerable spirit.  “How can you say I don’t know it when all the street knows it and has known it for years—­for years and years?” She spoke as if the girl had been engaged at least for twenty.  “What’s she going out for if not to marry him?”

“Perhaps she’s going to see how he looks,” suggested one of the gentlemen.

“He’d look queer—­if he knew.”

“Well, I guess he’ll know,” said Mrs. Gotch.

“She’d tell him herself—­she wouldn’t be afraid,” the gentleman went on.

“Well she might as well kill him.  He’ll jump overboard,” Mrs. Peck could foretell.

“Jump overboard?” cried Mrs. Gotch as if she hoped then that Mr. Porterfield would be told.

“He has just been waiting for this—­for long, long years,” said Mrs. Peck.

“Do you happen to know him?” I asked.

She replied at her convenience.  “No, but I know a lady who does.  Are you going up?”

I had risen from my place—­I had not ordered supper.  “I’m going to take a turn before going to bed.”

“Well then you’ll see!”

Outside the saloon I hesitated, for Mrs. Peck’s admonition made me feel for a moment that if I went up I should have entered in a manner into her little conspiracy.  But the night was so warm and splendid that I had been intending to smoke a cigar in the air before going below, and I didn’t see why I should deprive myself of this pleasure in order to seem not to mind Mrs. Peck.  I mounted accordingly and saw a few figures sitting or moving about in the darkness.  The ocean looked black and small, as it is apt to do at night, and the long mass of the ship, with its vague dim wings, seemed to take up a great part of it.  There were more stars than one saw on land and the heavens struck one more than ever as larger than the earth.  Grace Mavis and her companion were not, so far as I perceived at first, among the few passengers who lingered late, and I was glad, because I hated to hear her talked about in the manner of the gossips I had left at supper.  I wished there had been some way to prevent it, but I could think of none but to recommend her privately to reconsider her rule of discretion.  That would be a very delicate business, and perhaps it would be better to begin with Jasper, though that would be delicate too.  At any rate one might let him know, in a friendly spirit, to how much remark he exposed the young lady—­leaving this revelation to work its way upon him.  Unfortunately I couldn’t altogether believe that the pair were unconscious of