I sat with my friend at her particular request:
she told me she knew that if I didn't Mrs. Peck and Mrs. Gotch would make
their approach, so that I must act as a watch-dog. She was flurried and
fatigued with her migration, and I think that Grace Mavis's choosing this
occasion for retirement suggested to her a little that she had been made
a fool of. She remarked that the girl's not being there showed her for
the barbarian she only could be, and that she herself was really very
good so to have put herself out; her charge was a mere bore: that was the
end of it. I could see that my companion's advent quickened the
speculative activity of the other ladies they watched her from the
opposite side of the deck, keeping their eyes fixed on her very much as
the man at the wheel kept his on the course of the ship. Mrs. Peck
plainly had designs, and it was from this danger that Mrs. Nettlepoint
averted her face.
"It's just as we said," she remarked to me as we sat there. "It's like
the buckets in the well. When I come up everything else goes down."
"No, not at all everything else--since Jasper remains here."
"Remains? I don't see him."
"He comes and goes--it's the same thing."
"He goes more than he comes. But _n'en parlons plus_; I haven't gained
anything.
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