The steward bustled away, and the baroness rose, with a deep breath of relief, and walked to the mirror. It may have been observed of many women that any new or sudden sensation or condition or emotion suggests a looking-glass. Not that they see or are thinking of themselves, but they seem thus best able to collect their thoughts. So it was with this woman, only that now she did observe two very bright eyes and a radiant face, with the swift blood coursing back from her cheeks, across the smooth white surface of her neck, to the closely-defined growth of hair—that oracle of beauty which no ugly woman ever wore, whatever her features. She turned quickly away, and, following the doctor and her father, the three ladies went out to view the scenery. “You observe this bend in the river,” a voice was saying, “where many a poor fellow has gone to his death, for there swoops the most fatal pool of eddies, perhaps, to be found in the whole channel of these whimsical waters.” The baroness turned to look for the speaker, whose voice seemed familiar, and there, under the shade of the awning, in full silhouette, looking in the face of her husband, with whom he was pleasantly conversing, stood David Morning. Her first thought was to retreat to the saloon and wait for him to present himself, but as his swift eye swept the deck, he caught sight of her face, and came quickly over, followed by the baron, saying, as he cordially took her hand, and held it closely for a long time, “I enjoy one advantage over you, baron, my acquaintance with the baroness dates back of yours. I hope she has not forgotten me.” The woman made no reply to this remark; she simply said, “How do you do, Mr. Morning,” and presented him to her friends. The brief trip up the river among the cliffs and cascades and whirlpools and caves and cañons and towering cathedral rocks, furnished prolific and auspicious topics for conversation, but it need not be said that neither the baroness nor Mr. Morning knew altogether what they were talking about. She could not fail to see the pupils of his sea-grey eyes grow very large when he looked at her, and he in turn observed that she scarcely looked at him at all. The professor talked a little dryly at first, and Mrs. Thornton sat apart, evidently nursing her chagrin, for Mr. Morning was at this moment not only the wealthiest but the most famous and powerful man in all the world, and, had he sought it, could have obtained orders of high nobility from every crowned head in Europe. The baron, who would have seen “Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt,” if that brow possessed the attribute of Midas, looked at the situation from an altogether different standpoint, and was thinking at what period of the new-formed acquaintance it would be prudent to ask the loan of a few, or, possibly, more than a few, thousand pounds.