It was not that the father and daughter had slighted his overture, if it was so much as that, but that they were tacitly preoccupied, or were of some philosophy concerning their fellow-breakfasters which did not suffer them, for the present, at least, to share in the common friendliness.  This is an attitude sometimes produced in people by a sense of just, or even unjust, superiority; sometimes by serious trouble; sometimes by transient annoyance.  The cause was not so deep-seated but Mrs. March, before she rose from her place, believed that she had detected a slant of the young lady’s eyes, from under her lashes, toward the young man; and she leaped to a conclusion concerning them in a matter where all logical steps are impertinent.  She did not announce her arrival at this point till the young man had overtaken her before she got out of the saloon, and presented the handkerchief she had dropped under the table.

He went away with her thanks, and then she said to her husband, “Well, he’s perfectly charming, and I don’t wonder she’s taken with him; that kind of cold girl would be, though I’m not sure that she is cold.  She’s interesting, and you could see that he thought so, the more he looked at her; I could see him looking at her from the very first instant; he couldn’t keep his eyes off her; she piqued his curiosity, and made him wonder about her.”

“Now, look here, Isabel!  This won’t do.  I can stand a good deal, but I sat between you and that young fellow, and you couldn’t tell whether he was looking at that girl or not.”

“I could!  I could tell by the expression of her face.”

“Oh, well!  If it’s gone as far as that with you, I give it up.  When are you going to have them married?”

“Nonsense!  I want you to find out who all those people are.  How are you going to do it?”

“Perhaps the passenger list will say,” he suggested.

VIII.

The list did not say of itself, but with the help of the head steward’s diagram it said that the gentleman at the head of the table was Mr. R. M. Kenby; the father and the daughter were Mr. E. B. Triscoe and Miss Triscoe; the bridal pair were Mr. and Mrs. Leffers; the mother and her son were Mrs. Adding and Mr. Roswell Adding; the young man who came in last was Mr. L. J. Burnamy.  March carried the list, with these names carefully checked and rearranged on a neat plan of the table, to his wife in her steamer chair, and left her to make out the history and the character of the people from it.  In this sort of conjecture long experience had taught him his futility, and he strolled up and down and looked at the life about him with no wish to penetrate it deeply.

Long Island was now a low yellow line on the left.  Some fishing-boats flickered off the shore; they met a few sail, and left more behind; but already, and so near one of the greatest ports of the world, the spacious solitude of the ocean was beginning.  There was no swell; the sea lay quite flat, with a fine mesh of wrinkles on its surface, and the sun flamed down upon it from a sky without a cloud.  With the light fair wind, there was no resistance in the sultry air, the thin, dun smoke from the smoke-stack fell about the decks like a stifling veil.