“Oh, we should have got on.  It’s such a tremendous risk that we, ought to go round begging people to think twice, to count a hundred, or a nonillion, before they fall in love to the marrying-point.  I don’t mind their flirting; that amuses them; but marrying is a different thing.  I doubt if Papa Triscoe would take kindly to the notion of a son-in-law he hadn’t selected himself, and his daughter doesn’t strike me as a young lady who has any wisdom to throw away on a choice.  She has her little charm; her little gift of beauty, of grace, of spirit, and the other things that go with her age and sex; but what could she do for a fellow like Burnamy, who has his way to make, who has the ladder of fame to climb, with an old mother at the bottom of it to look after?  You wouldn’t want him to have an eye on Miss Triscoe’s money, even if she had money, and I doubt if she has much.  It’s all very pretty to have a girl like her fascinated with a youth of his simple traditions; though Burnamy isn’t altogether pastoral in his ideals, and he looks forward to a place in the very world she belongs to.  I don’t think it’s for us to promote the affair.”

“Well, perhaps you’re right,” she sighed.  “I will let them alone from this out.  Thank goodness, I shall not have them under my eyes very long.”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s any harm done yet,” said her husband, with a laugh.

At dinner there seemed so little harm of the kind he meant that she suffered from an illogical disappointment.  The young people got through the meal with no talk that seemed inductive; Burnamy left the table first, and Miss Triscoe bore his going without apparent discouragement; she kept on chatting with March till his wife took him away to their chairs on deck.

There were a few more ships in sight than there were in mid-ocean; but the late twilight thickened over the North Sea quite like the night after they left New York, except that it was colder; and their hearts turned to their children, who had been in abeyance for the week past, with a remorseful pang.  “Well,” she said, “I wish we were going to be in New York to-morrow, instead of Hamburg.”

“Oh, no!  Oh, no!” he protested.  “Not so bad as that, my dear.  This is the last night, and it’s hard to manage, as the last night always is.  I suppose the last night on earth—­”

“Basil!” she implored.

“Well, I won’t, then.  But what I want is to see a Dutch lugger.  I’ve never seen a Dutch lugger, and—­”

She suddenly pressed his arm, and in obedience to the signal he was silent; though it seemed afterwards that he ought to have gone on talking as if he did not see Burnamy and Miss Triscoe swinging slowly by.  They were walking close together, and she was leaning forward and looking up into his face while he talked.

“Now,” Mrs. March whispered, long after they were out of hearing, “let us go instantly.  I wouldn’t for worlds have them see us here when they get found again.  They would feel that they had to stop and speak, and that would spoil everything.  Come!”