“I think,” sobbed the young lady, “that you might at least have spoken kindly to me.” “Good gracious!” cried Morris, starting up, “here comes Miss Earle. For heaven’s sake put up that handkerchief.” But Blanche merely sank her face lower in it, while silent sobs shook her somewhat slender form. Miss Earle stood for a moment amazed as she looked at Morris’s flushed face, and at the bowed head of the young lady beside him; then, without a word, she turned and walked away. “I wish to goodness,” said Morris, harshly, “that if you are going to have a fit of crying you would not have it on deck, and where people can see you.” The young woman at once straightened up and flashed a look at him in which there were no traces of her former emotion. “People!” she said, scornfully. “Much _you_ care about people. It is because Miss Katherine Earle saw me that you are annoyed. You are afraid that it will interfere with your flirtation with her.” “Flirtation?” “Yes, flirtation. Surely it can’t be anything more serious?” “Why should it not be something more serious?” asked Morris, very coldly. The blue eyes opened wide in apparent astonishment. “Would you _marry_ her?” she said, with telling emphasis upon the word. “Why not?” he answered. “Any man might be proud to marry a lady like Miss Earle.” “A lady! Much of a lady she is! Why, she is one of your own shop-girls. You know it.” “Shop-girls?” cried Morris, in astonishment. “Yes, shop-girls. You don’t mean to say that she has concealed that fact from you, or that you didn’t know it by seeing her in the store?” “A shop-girl in my store?” he murmured, bewildered. “I knew I had seen her somewhere.” Blanche laughed a little irritating laugh. “What a splendid item it would make for the society papers,” she said. “The junior partner marries one of his own shop-girls, or, worse still, the junior partner and one of his shop-girls leave New York on the _City of Buffalo_, and are married in England. I hope that the reporters will not get the particulars of the affair.” Then, rising, she left the amazed young man to his thoughts. George Morris saw nothing more of Miss Katherine Earle that day. “I wonder what that vixen has said to her,” he thought, as he turned in for the night. Fifth Day In the early morning of the fifth day out, George Morris paced the deck alone. “Shop-girl or not,” he had said to himself, “Miss Katherine Earle is much more of a lady than the other ever was.” But as he paced the deck, and as Miss Earle did not appear, he began to wonder more and more what had been said to her in the long talk of yesterday forenoon. Meanwhile Miss Earle sat in her own state-room thinking over the same subject. Blanche had sweetly asked her for permission to sit down beside her. “I know no ladies on board,” she said, “and I think I have met you before.” “Yes,” answered Miss Earle, “I think we have met before.” “How good of you to have remembered me,” said Blanche, kindly.