When, early in the afternoon, the fog lifted a little, a message came from the captain inviting Miss Mar to the bridge that she might have a better view. By the time she had obeyed the summons the wind had risen. The captain was looking through his glass, and Mrs. Locke was at his side. He left both visitors with harassed face and called down to Cheviot walking below with O’Gorman. And now Louis stood beside the captain on the bridge, looking to the northeast, and talking in an undertone. “What does he know,” said Mrs. Locke, referring to Cheviot for the first time, “about navigation?” “Nothing, I should think,” said Hildegarde serenely, yet with that stirring of pride that visits a woman when the man she is interested in is called to counsel. “You see Louis has been up here before, and so few people have.” “Oh!” Mrs. Locke turned indifferently away and looked out over the white-patched water. The girl felt anew and keenly the embarrassment that had come of the confrontation of these two. Impossible for her to think it didn’t matter. No vulgarity of soul helped her to meet the issue with, “Mrs. Locke’s ‘nobody,’—a little book-keeping woman we shall never see again!” She could not even, as a feebler nature would, simply ignore the incident of the day before, accepting for Louis Mrs. Locke’s evil opinion, accepting for Mrs. Locke his professed regret but real indifference, verging on dislike. “Of course,” Hildegarde drew closer, “I’ve thought a great deal about what happened yesterday—I mean what happened on the wharf.” “Oh, put it out of your head.” “It’s hardly been out of my head a minute, except the two hours I slept this morning.” “I ought to have held my tongue.” “I’m glad you didn’t. Because now I know something more than that he hurt you.” “What do you know?” “How much he can hurt _me_,” was on her tongue, but the only answer she made was, “I mustn’t let you think that I’m going to turn a cold shoulder on my friend because—” “Oh, no.” It was said not scornfully—just accepting it. “I think a month ago I would either not have believed it or I would have explained it all away to myself. I’d have said he didn’t know what he was doing. He—he was—Oh, there are a dozen excuses I might have made for him.” “Yes, dozens.” “But now I don’t make one. I say, ‘Yes, he did it, and he doesn’t even realize how terrible it was.’” Mrs. Locke glanced at her curiously. “It’s true a good deal has to happen before men and women can treat each other fairly.” Hildegarde nodded. “I’m beginning to see that. Louis hasn’t begun—not yet. But about other things he’s always been the one who’s helped and taught me. Done it for lots of other people, too, of course,” she hastened to add. “I’d never once thought of him as a person I could help.” “And now—”