These two had drawn very close together during the trip. While neither would have endured for a moment any intimation that they were not as good as any one breathing, still neither could help feeling more or less out of place in their new surroundings. The girl saw this more clearly and felt it more sharply than the man. She recognized the fact that these people were lucky enough to possess what she had longed for all her life--money and social position--and concluded that their ways must be correct ways. Therefore she set herself to study them and to mould herself by their standards. The conditions were peculiar, and perhaps she might grasp the money and the position if she once fitted herself for them. Wilkins, on the other hand, had no yearnings for the social altitudes. It never occurred to him to copy any one else’s manners. He only felt vaguely uncomfortable, more or less seasick, and very much bored. Therefore he welcomed the companionship of the one person among the cabin passengers with whom he somehow felt himself to be on a plane. As the voyage continued, this intimacy increased. Caruth noticed it and vaguely wondered at it; but then he had wondered from the first at the rather singular manners and conversation of the Professor’s daughter. Miss Fitzhugh noticed it, and did not like it; just why, she scarcely knew. But neither she nor Caruth made any effort to check it. Supposing Miss Lee to be the Professor’s daughter and therefore devoted to his cause, they naturally were glad of anything that tended to bind Wilkins closer to their cause. So matters ran along till nearly the end of the voyage. Cattegat and Skagerrak had been traversed, Copenhagen was a blur of light on the clouds behind them; the widening sea space before them showed that the broad Baltic lay close at hand. Miss Lee and Wilkins sat together on the quarter-deck watching the moonlight as it shone white on the wake of the _Sea Spume_. For some time neither had spoken. At last Wilkins broke the silence. “Lady,” he said, “I s’pose your pa’s told you how I come to be on this here trip?” Florence nodded. The Professor had not told her, but it seemed unnecessary to admit that fact. Wilkins went on. “I’ll own right up to you,” he explained, “that when I come I warn’t by no means satisfied that I was gettin’ a square deal; a ten per cent rake-off ain’t very high when you hold the joker and nobody else can get nothin’ unless you helps. Then I wasn’t satisfied about Jim. That Miss Fitzhugh swears her friends didn’t kill him; but, then, she naturally would, you know, and I’ve got my doubts. Still, there didn’t seem nothin’ else for me to do but to come along, and give ’em all the rope they wanted, and watch my chance to find out about Jim and to get a bigger share of the gold. But I want to say now that that’s all to the past. Your friends is my friends, and I’ll stick by ’em. You understand?”