The next day I waited on her at the usual hour of my morning visit, and found her not a little distraught.  “The scenes have begun,” she said; “you know I told you I shouldn’t get through without them!  You made me nervous last night—­I haven’t the least idea what you meant; but you made me horribly nervous.  She came in to see me an hour ago, and I had the courage to say to her:  ’I don’t know why I shouldn’t tell you frankly that I’ve been scolding my son about you.’  Of course she asked what I meant by that, and I let her know.  ’It seems to me he drags you about the ship too much for a girl in your position.  He has the air of not remembering that you belong to some one else.  There’s a want of taste and even a want of respect in it.’  That brought on an outbreak:  she became very violent.”

“Do you mean indignant?”

“Yes, indignant, and above all flustered and excited—­at my presuming to suppose her relations with my son not the very simplest in the world.  I might scold him as much as I liked—­that was between ourselves; but she didn’t see why I should mention such matters to herself.  Did I think she allowed him to treat her with disrespect?  That idea wasn’t much of a compliment to either of them!  He had treated her better and been kinder to her than most other people—­there were very few on the ship who hadn’t been insulting.  She should be glad enough when she got off it, to her own people, to some one whom nobody would have a right to speak of.  What was there in her position that wasn’t perfectly natural? what was the idea of making a fuss about her position?  Did I mean that she took it too easily—­that she didn’t think as much as she ought about Mr. Porterfield?  Didn’t I believe she was attached to him—­didn’t I believe she was just counting the hours till she saw him?  That would be the happiest moment of her life.  It showed how little I knew her if I thought anything else.”

“All that must have been rather fine—­I should have liked to hear it,” I said after quite hanging on my friend’s lips.  “And what did you reply?”

“Oh I grovelled; I assured her that I accused her—­as regards my son—­of nothing worse than an excess of good nature.  She helped him to pass his time—­he ought to be immensely obliged.  Also that it would be a very happy moment for me too when I should hand her over to Mr. Porterfield.”

“And will you come up today?”

“No indeed—­I think she’ll do beautifully now.”

I heaved this time a sigh of relief.  “All’s well that ends well!”

Jasper spent that day a great deal of time with his mother.  She had told me how much she had lacked hitherto proper opportunity to talk over with him their movements after disembarking.  Everything changes a little the last two or three days of a voyage; the spell is broken and new combinations take place.  Grace Mavis was neither on deck nor at dinner, and I drew Mrs. Peck’s attention to the extreme propriety with which she now conducted herself.  She had spent the day in meditation and judged it best to continue to meditate.