"Mind?" asked Stainton. "Certainly not.--How this boat pitches!--Talk to him, by all means. These things are common on shipboard, I believe." Muriel was reassured. She returned to the deck, but von Klausen was not there, and she did not see him again until evening. Then, though she still dutifully wished that Jim were with her, she found her appetite better than ever. She ventured upon a lonely cocktail. She ate some Blue Points. Captain von Klausen sent to her table, with his card, a pint of champagne, and she ordered potage Mogador, duckling balls with turnips, cepes Provencals, sacher tart, and ice cream. When she reached the promenade-deck, von Klausen was already there. He had dined in evening clothes, but these were now hidden by the light rain-coat that swathed his lithe young figure from neck to heels. Muriel observed that its shoulders fitted to the shoulders of the wearer and had none of the deceptiveness of the padded shoulders to which she was once familiar in American coats. "Have you seen the phosphorus?" he asked, as she met him at the rail. His lifted cap showed his wind-tossed blond hair, and his ruddy face gleamed with salt spray. Muriel admitted her ignorance of phosphorus. "But," said von Klausen, "that is one of the sights of the voyage, and I have not often on the Atlantic seen it finer than it is to-night." He took her forward, by the starboard rail, under the bridge. Behind them were the closely curtained windows of the writing-room, forward was, only ten feet below them, the now emptied deck reserved for the third-class passengers, and beyond that, higher, rose and fell, rhythmically, the keen, dark prow. They were quite alone. "Look there!" said von Klausen. He pointed over the rail to where the inky surface of the sea was broken by the speed of the _Friedrich Barbarossa's_ passage, bursting into boiling, hissing, angry patches of bright whiteness. Timidly Muriel extended her head. "Do you see it?" asked von Klausen. He stood close beside her. "I see the waves," said Muriel, "and the white foam." "But the phosphorus--you do not see that? There--and there!" She shook her head. "Look though," said he. "You do not look in just the correct direction. Please. Ahead, to the left. No; away a little from the ship--a little; not too much--where we have hit the water and the water recedes from us. It is beautiful--beautiful! See!" The great boat rose on a sudden wave. Von Klausen gripped the rail with one slim hand; the other, its arm around her waist, he placed about her farther arm. "Now!" he said, and, letting go of the rail, pointed. Her eyes followed his finger, and there, shining green and yellow, now clear, now opalescent, from burning cores to nebulous edges, she saw what seemed to be live stars smouldering and flaming in the hearts of the waves. "I see," she said. "It is beautiful--beautiful!"