he would have been willing to give himself, from the beginning.  It had been an impulse, suddenly coming upon him in the baggage-room where he had gone to get something out of his trunk, and where he had decided to have the label of his baggage changed from the original destination at Boulogne to the final port of the steamer’s arrival.  When this was once done he was sorry, but he was ashamed to have the label changed back.  The most assignable motive for his act was his reluctance to go on to Paris with the Rasmiths, or rather with Mrs. Rasmith; for with her daughter, who was not a bad fellow, one could always manage.  He was quite aware of being safely in his own hands against any design of Mrs. Rasmith’s, but her machinations humiliated him for her; he hated to see her going through her manoeuvres, and he could not help grieving for her failures, with a sort of impersonal sympathy, all the more because he disliked her as little as he respected her.

The motive which he did not assign to himself was that which probably prevailed with him, though in the last analysis it was as selfish, no doubt, as the one he acknowledged.  Ellen Kenton still piqued his curiosity, still touched his compassion.  He had so far from exhausted his wish or his power to befriend her, to help her, that he had still a wholly unsatisfied longing to console her, especially when she drooped into that listless attitude she was apt to take, with her face fallen and her hands let lie, the back of one in the palm of the other, in her lap.  It was possibly the vision of this following him to the baggage-room, when he went to open his trunk, that as much as anything decided him to have the label changed on his baggage, but he did not own it then, and still less did he own it now, when he found himself quite on his own hands for his pains.

He felt that for some reason the Kentons were all avoiding him.  Ellen, indeed, did not take part, against him, unless negatively, for she had appeared neither at lunch nor at dinner as the vessel kept on its way after leaving Boulogne; and when he ventured to ask for her Mrs. Kenton answered with embarrassment that she was not feeling very well.  He asked for her at lunch, but not at dinner, and when he had finished that meal he went on the promenade-deck, and walked forlornly up and down, feeling that he had been a fool.

Mrs. Kenton went below to her daughter’s room, and found Ellen there on the sofa, with her book shut on her thumb at the place where the twilight had failed her.

“Ellen, dear,” her mother said, “aren’t you feeling well?”

“Yes, I’m well enough,” said the girl, sensible of a leading in the question.  “Why?”