“Then I’m ready,” I returned, “to discuss the matter with him for the rest of the voyage.”

“Very well; I count on you.  But he’ll ask you, as he asks me, what the deuce you want him to do.”

“To go to bed!”—­and I’m afraid I laughed.

“Oh it isn’t a joke.”

I didn’t want to be irritating, but I made my point.  “That’s exactly what I told you at first.”

“Yes, but don’t exult; I hate people who exult.  Jasper asks of me,” she went on, “why he should mind her being talked about if she doesn’t mind it herself.”

“I’ll tell him why,” I replied; and Mrs. Nettlepoint said she should be exceedingly obliged to me and repeated that she would indeed take the field.

I looked for Jasper above that same evening, but circumstances didn’t favour my quest.  I found him—­that is I gathered he was again ensconced behind the lifeboat with Miss Mavis; but there was a needless violence in breaking into their communion, and I put off our interview till the next day.  Then I took the first opportunity, at breakfast, to make sure of it.  He was in the saloon when I went in and was preparing to leave the table; but I stopped him and asked if he would give me a quarter of an hour on deck a little later—­there was something particular I wanted to say to him.  He said “Oh yes, if you like”—­with just a visible surprise, but I thought with plenty of assurance.  When I had finished my breakfast I found him smoking on the forward-deck and I immediately began:  “I’m going to say something you won’t at all like; to ask you a question you’ll probably denounce for impertinent.”

“I certainly shall if I find it so,” said Jasper Nettlepoint.

“Well, of course my warning has meant that I don’t care if you do.  I’m a good deal older than you and I’m a friend—­of many years—­of your mother.  There’s nothing I like less than to be meddlesome, but I think these things give me a certain right—­a sort of privilege.  Besides which my inquiry will speak for itself.”

“Why so many damned preliminaries?” my young man asked through his smoke.

We looked into each other’s eyes a moment.  What indeed was his mother’s manner—­her best manner—­compared with his?  “Are you prepared to be responsible?”

“To you?”

“Dear no—­to the young lady herself.  I’m speaking of course of Miss Mavis.”

“Ah yes, my mother tells me you have her greatly on your mind.”

“So has your mother herself—­now.”

“She’s so good as to say so—­to oblige you.”

“She’d oblige me a great deal more by reassuring me.  I know perfectly of your knowing I’ve told her that Miss Mavis is greatly talked about.”

“Yes, but what on earth does it matter?”

“It matters as a sign.”

“A sign of what?”

“That she’s in a false position.”

Jasper puffed his cigar with his eyes on the horizon, and I had, a little unexpectedly, the sense of producing a certain effect on him.  “I don’t know whether it’s your business, what you’re attempting to discuss but it really strikes me it’s none of mine.  What have I to do with the tattle with which a pack of old women console themselves for not being sea-sick?”