The consequence of this remark was another "Pshaw!" But Mrs. Peck went
on: "When you've lived opposite to people like that for a long time you
feel as if you had some rights in them--tit for tat! But she didn't take
it up today; she didn't speak to me. She knows who I am as well as she
knows her own mother."

"You had better speak to her first--she's constitutionally shy," I
remarked.

"Shy? She's constitutionally tough! Why she's thirty years old," cried
my neighbour. "I suppose you know where she's going."

"Oh yes--we all take an interest in that."

"That young man, I suppose, particularly." And then as I feigned a
vagueness: "The handsome one who sits _there_. Didn't you tell me he's
Mrs. Nettlepoint's son?"

"Oh yes--he acts as her deputy. No doubt he does all he can to carry out
her function."

Mrs. Peck briefly brooded. I had spoken jocosely, but she took it with a
serious face. "Well, she might let him eat his dinner in peace!" she
presently put forth.

"Oh he'll come back!" I said, glancing at his place. The repast
continued and when it was finished I screwed my chair round to leave the
table. Mrs. Peck performed the same movement and we quitted the saloon
together. Outside of it was the usual vestibule, with several seats,
from which you could descend to the lower cabins or mount to the