"Well," said Perry importantly, "well-bred people are the same the world over. I only see them in a business way, of course, but one can judge. Their voices are better than ours, but as to looks--no! It's queer, but American women--the wives and daughters of saddlers or farmers, perhaps--have more often the patrician look than English duchesses. Now there, for example," warming to the subject, "that woman to whom you bowed just now, the middle-aged one in blue cloth. Some Mrs. Smith or Pratt, probably. A homely woman, but there is a distinction in her face, a certain surety of good breeding, which is lacking in the heavy-jawed English royalties." "Yes; that is a friend of mine," said Watts. "She is a Mrs. Waldeaux from Wier, in Delaware. You could hardly call her a typical American woman. Old French emigre family. Probably better blood than the Coburgs a few generations back. That priggish young fellow is her son. Going to be an Episcopalian minister." Mr. Perry surveyed his friend's friends good-humoredly. "Brand new rugs and cushions," he said. "First voyage. Heavens! I wish it were my first voyage, and that I had their appetite for Europe." "You might as well ask for your relish of the bread and butter of your youth," said Watts. The two men leaned lazily against the bulwark watching the other passengers who were squabbling about trunks. Mr. Perry suddenly stood upright as a group of women passed. "Do you know who that girl is?" he said eagerly. "The one who looked back at us over her shoulder." "No. They are only a lot of school-girls, personally conducted. That is the teacher in front." "Of course, I see that. But the short, dark one--surely I know that woman." The doctor looked after her. "She looks like a dog turning into a human being," he said leisurely. "One often sees such cases of arrested evolution. D'ye see? Thick lips, coarse curls, flat nostrils----" Perry laughed. "The eyes, anyhow, are quite human," he said. "They challenge the whole world of men. I can't place her!" staring after her, perplexed. "I really don't believe I ever saw her before. Yet her face brings up some old story of a tragedy or crime to me." "Nonsense! The girl is not twenty. Very fetching with all her vulgarity, though. Steward, send some coffee to my stateroom. Let's go down, Jem. The fog is too chilly." Frances Waldeaux did not find the fog chilly. She had been thinking for thirty years of the day when she should start to Europe--ever since she could think at all. This was the day. It was like no other, now that it had come. The fog, the crowd, the greasy smells of the pier, all familiar enough yesterday, took on a certain remoteness and mystery. It seemed to her that she was doing something which nobody had ever done before. She was going to discover the Old World. The New was not more tremendous or unreal before the eyes of Columbus when he, too, stood on the poop of his ship.