“Ah she’s afraid,” said my implacable neighbour.

“Afraid of what?”

“Well, that we’ll tell tales when we get there.”

“Whom do you mean by ’we’?”

“Well, there are plenty—­on a ship like this.”

“Then I think,” I returned, “we won’t.”

“Maybe we won’t have the chance,” said the dreadful little woman.

“Oh at that moment”—­I spoke from a full experience—­“universal geniality reigns.”

Mrs. Peck however knew little of any such law.  “I guess she’s afraid all the same.”

“So much the better!”

“Yes—­so much the better!”

All the next day too the girl remained invisible, and Mrs. Nettlepoint told me she hadn’t looked in.  She herself had accordingly inquired by the stewardess if she might be received in Miss Mavis’s own quarters, and the young lady had replied that they were littered up with things and unfit for visitors:  she was packing a trunk over.  Jasper made up for his devotion to his mother the day before by now spending a great deal of his time in the smoking-room.  I wanted to say to him “This is much better,” but I thought it wiser to hold my tongue.  Indeed I had begun to feel the emotion of prospective arrival—­the sense of the return to Europe always kept its intensity—­and had thereby the less attention for other matters.  It will doubtless appear to the critical reader that my expenditure of interest had been out of proportion to the vulgar appearances of which my story gives an account, but to this I can only reply that the event was to justify me.  We sighted land, the dim yet rich coast of Ireland, about sunset, and I leaned on the bulwark and took it in.  “It doesn’t look like much, does it?” I heard a voice say, beside me; whereupon, turning, I found Grace Mavis at hand.  Almost for the first time she had her veil up, and I thought her very pale.

“It will be more tomorrow,” I said.

“Oh yes, a great deal more.”

“The first sight of land, at sea, changes everything,” I went on.  “It always affects me as waking up from a dream.  It’s a return to reality.”

For a moment she made me no response; then she said “It doesn’t look very real yet.”

“No, and meanwhile, this lovely evening, one can put it that the dream’s still present.”

She looked up at the sky, which had a brightness, though the light of the sun had left it and that of the stars hadn’t begun.  “It is a lovely evening.”

“Oh yes, with this we shall do.”

She stood some moments more, while the growing dusk effaced the line of the land more rapidly than our progress made it distinct.  She said nothing more, she only looked in front of her; but her very quietness prompted me to something suggestive of sympathy and service.  It was difficult indeed to strike the right note—­some things seemed too wide of the mark and others too importunate.  At last, unexpectedly, she appeared to give me my chance.  Irrelevantly, abruptly she broke out:  “Didn’t you tell me you knew Mr. Porterfield?”