He was quite aware that though he had found himself more than once observing her, she herself had probably not recognised the trivial fact of his existing upon that other side of the barrier which separated the higher grade of passenger from the lower.  There was, indeed, no reason why she should have singled him out for observation, and she was, in fact, too frequently absorbed in her own reflections to be in the frame of mind to remark her fellow passengers to the extent which was generally customary with her.  During her crossings of the Atlantic she usually made mental observation of the people on board.  This time, when she was not talking to the Worthingtons, or reading, she was thinking of the possibilities of her visit to Stornham.  She used to walk about the deck thinking of them and, sitting in her chair, sum them up as her eyes rested on the rolling and breaking waves.

There were many things to be considered, and one of the first was the perfectly sane suggestion her father had made.

“Suppose she does not want to be rescued?  Suppose you find her a comfortable fine lady who adores her husband.”

Such a thing was possible, though Bettina did not think it probable.  She intended, however, to prepare herself even for this.  If she found Lady Anstruthers plump and roseate, pleased with herself and her position, she was quite equal to making her visit appear a casual and conventional affair.

“I ought to wish it to be so,” she thought, “and, yet, how disappointingly I should feel she had changed.  Still, even ethical reasons would not excuse one for wishing her to be miserable.”  She was a creature with a number of passionate ideals which warred frequently with the practical side of her mentality.  Often she used to walk up and down the deck or lean upon the ship’s side, her eyes stormy with emotions.

“I do not want to find Rosy a heartless woman, and I do not want to find her wretched.  What do I want?  Only the usual thing—­that what cannot be undone had never been done.  People are always wishing that.”

She was standing near the second-cabin barrier thinking this, the first time she saw the passenger with the red hair.  She had paused by mere chance, and while her eyes were stormy with her thought, she suddenly became conscious that she was looking directly into other eyes as darkling as her own.  They were those of a man on the wrong side of the barrier.  He had a troubled, brooding face, and, as their gaze met, each of them started slightly and turned away with the sense of having unconsciously intruded and having been intruded upon.

“That rough-looking man,” she commented to herself, “is as anxious and disturbed as I am.”

Salter did look rough, it was true.  His well-worn clothes had suffered somewhat from the restrictions of a second-class cabin shared with two other men.  But the aspect which had presented itself to her brief glance had been not so much roughness of clothing as of mood expressing itself in his countenance.  He was thinking harshly and angrily of the life ahead of him.