relation to him; and the young girl addressed herself to Mrs. March’s motherly sense not the less acceptably because indirectly.  She spoke of going out with her father for an indefinite time, as if it were rather his wish than hers, and she made some inquiries about places in Germany; they had never been in Germany.  They had some idea of Dresden; but the idea of Dresden with its American colony seemed rather tiresome; and did Mrs. March know anything about Weimar?

Mrs. March was obliged to say that she knew nothing about anyplace in Germany; and she explained perhaps too fully where and why she was going with her husband.  She fancied a Boston note in that scorn for the tiresomeness of Dresden; but the girl’s style was of New York rather than of Boston, and her accent was not quite of either place.  Mrs. March began to try the Triscoes in this place and in that, to divine them and to class them.  She had decided from the first that they were society people, but they were cultivated beyond the average of the few swells whom she had met; and there had been nothing offensive in their manner of holding themselves aloof from the other people at the table; they had a right to do that if they chose.

When the young Lefferses came in to breakfast, the talk went on between these and the Marches; the Triscoes presently left the table, and Mrs. March rose soon after, eager for that discussion of their behavior which March knew he should not be able to postpone.

He agreed with her that they were society people, but she could not at once accept his theory that they had themselves been the objects of an advance from them because of their neutral literary quality, through which they were of no social world, but potentially common to any.  Later she admitted this, as she said, for the sake of argument, though what she wanted him to see, now, was that this was all a step of the girl’s toward finding out something about Burnamy.

The same afternoon, about the time the deck-steward was making his round with his cups, Miss Triscoe abruptly advanced upon her from a neighboring corner of the bulkhead, and asked, with the air of one accustomed to have her advances gratefully received, if she might sit by her.  The girl took March’s vacant chair, where she had her cup of bouillon, which she continued to hold untasted in her hand after the first sip.  Mrs. March did the same with hers, and at the moment she had got very tired of doing it, Burnamy came by, for the hundredth time that day, and gave her a hundredth bow with a hundredth smile.  He perceived that she wished to get rid of her cup, and he sprang to her relief.

“May I take yours too?” he said very passively to Miss Triscoe.

“You are very good.” she answered, and gave it.

Mrs. March with a casual air suggested, “Do you know Mr. Burnamy, Miss Triscoe?” The girl said a few civil things, but Burnamy did not try to make talk with her while he remained a few moments before Mrs. March.  The pivotal girl came in sight, tilting and turning in a rare moment of isolation at the corner of the music-room, and he bowed abruptly, and hurried off to join her.