time, and he was on board the steamer on Saturday a full hour before
she was to sail; his not very numerous belongings, which looked as
weather-beaten as himself, were piled up unopened in his cabin, and he
himself stood on the upper promenade deck watching the passengers as
they came on board. He was an observant man, and it interested him to
note the expression of each new face that appeared; for the fact
of starting on a voyage across the ocean is apt to affect people
inversely as their experience. Those who cross often look so
unconcerned that a casual observer might think they were not to start
at all, whereas those who are going for the first time are either
visibly flurried, or are posing to look as if they were not, though
they are intensely nervous about their belongings; or they try to
appear as if they belonged to the ship, or else as if the ship
belonged to them, making observations which are supposed to be
nautical, but which instantly stamp them as unutterable land-lubbers
in the shrewd estimation of the stewards; and the latter, as every old
hand is aware, always know everything much better than the captain.

Margaret Donne had been the most sensible and simple of young girls,
and when she appeared at the gangway very quietly dressed in brown,
with a brown fur collar, a brown hat, a brown veil, and a brown
parasol, there was really nothing striking to distinguish her from
other female passengers, except her good looks and her well-set-up
figure. Yet somehow it seems impossible for a successful primadonna
ever to escape notice. Instead of one maid, for instance, Cordova had
two, and they carried rather worn leathern boxes that were evidently
heavy jewel-cases, which they clutched with both hands and refused to
give up to the stewards. They also had about them the indescribable
air of rather aggressive assurance which belongs especially to
highly-paid servants, men and women. Their looks said to every one: