“Oh, no!” he said.  “But she is really very sweet and nice, and I think we owe a little attention to her father.”

“Oh, her father!” said Florence, sarcastically emphasising the word.

“I hope you don’t think there is anything in it,” he exclaimed very anxiously.  “I suppose there has been some tittle-tattle—­I can read it in your face—­but there’s not a word of truth in it, not a word, I assure you.”

“I don’t care the one way or other, Frank,” she said.  “You needn’t explain so hard.  What does it matter to me, anyway?” and with that she turned away to cordially greet the count as he came aboard.

The two women met in the saloon.  Florence at once assumed the great lady, the heiress, the condescending patrician; Cassie flushed and trembled; and in a buzz of commonplaces the stewards served tea while the two women covertly took each other’s measure.  Florence grew ashamed of her own behavior, and, unbending a little, tried to put her guests at ease and led Cassie on to talk.  Then it came out about the dance that Derwent and his daughter were to give the following night.

“Frank and me have been arranging the cotillon,” said Cassie, and then she turned pink to her ears at having called him by his first name before all those people.  “I mean Mr. Rignold,” she added, amid everyone’s laughter and her own desperate confusion.  Florence’s laughter rang out as gaily as anyone’s, and apparently as unaffectedly, and she rallied Cassie with much good humour on her slip.

“So it’s Frank already!” she exclaimed.  “Oh, Miss Derwent! don’t you trust this wicked chief of mine.  He is a regular heart-breaker!”

Cassie cried when Frank and she returned home and sat together on the porch.

“She’s a proud, haughty minx,” she burst out, “and you love her—­ and as for me I might as well drown myself.”

Frank attempted to comfort her.

“Oh, you needn’t try to blind me,” she said bitterly.  “I—­I thought it was a girl in America, Frank, a girl like me—­just common and poor and perhaps not as nice as I am.  And you know she wouldn’t wipe her feet on you,” she went on viciously—­“she so grand with her yachts and her counts and ’Oh, I think I’ll run over to Injya for the winter, or maybe it’s Cairo or the Nile,’ says she!  What kind of a chance have you got there, Frank, you in your greasy over-alls and working for her wages?  Won’t you break your heart just like I am breaking mine, I that would sell the clothes off my back for you and follow you all over the world!”

Frank protested that she was mistaken; that it wasn’t Miss Fenacre at all; that it was absurd to even think of such a thing.

“Oh, Frank, it’s bad enough as it is without your lying to me,” she said, quite unconvinced.  “You’ve set your eyes too high, and unhappiness is all that you’ll ever get from the likes of her.  You’re a fool in your way and I’m a fool in mine, and maybe when she’s married to the count and done for, you’ll mind the little girl that’s waiting for you in Cowes!” She took his hand and kissed it, telling him with a sob that she would ever remain single for his sake.