‘I hope I may escape any great evil.’

’I hope so too, Mr. Caldigate.  You probably have had a long roll of ancestors before you?’

‘We all have that;—­back to Adam.’

’Ah! but I mean a family roll, of which you ought to be proud;—­all ladies and gentlemen.’

‘Upon my word I don’t know.’

‘So I hear, and I have no doubt it is true.’  Then she paused, looking again into his face.  It was very square, and his lips were hard, and there was a gleam of anger in his eyes.  She wished herself back again in her own part of the ship; but she had boasted to Miss Green that she was not the woman to give up a duty when she had undertaken it.  Though she was frightened, still she must go on.  ’I hope you will excuse me, Mr. Caldigate.’

‘I am sure you will not say anything that I cannot excuse.’

‘Don’t you think—­’ Then she paused.  She had looked into his face again, and was so little satisfied that she did not dare to go on.  He would not help her in the least, but stood there looking at her, with something of a smile stealing over the hardness of his face, but with such an expression that the smile was even worse than the hardness.

‘Were you going to speak to me about another lady, Mrs. Callander?’

‘I was.  That is what I was going to speak of—­’

She was anxious to remonstrate against that word lady, but her courage failed her.

’Then don’t you think that perhaps you had better leave it alone.  I am very much obliged to you, and all that kind of thing; and as to myself, I really shouldn’t care what you said.  Any good advice would be taken most gratefully,—­if it didn’t affect any one else.  But you might say things of the lady in question which I shouldn’t bear patiently.’

‘She can’t be your equal.’

’I won’t hear even that patiently.  You know nothing about her, except that she is a second-class passenger,—­in which matter she is exactly my equal.  If you come to that, don’t you think that you are degrading yourself in coming here and talking to me?  I am not your equal.’

‘But you are.’

’And so is she, then.  We shan’t arrive at anything, Mrs. Callander, and so you had better give it up.’  Whereupon she did give it up and retreat to her own part of the ship, but not with a very good grace.

They had certainly become very intimate,—­John Caldigate and Mrs. Smith; and there could be no doubt that, in the ordinary language of the world, he was making a fool of himself.  He did in fact know nothing about her but what she told herself, and this amounted to little more than three statements, which might or might not be true,—­that she had gone on the stage in opposition to her friends,—­that she had married an actor, who had treated her with great cruelty,—­and that he had died of drink.  And with each of these stories there had been an accompaniment of mystery.  She had not told him her maiden name, nor what had been the condition of her parents, nor whether they were living, nor at what theatres she and her husband had acted, nor when he had died.  She had expressed a hope that she might get an engagement in the colonies, but she had not spoken of any recommendation or letters of introduction.  He simply knew of her that her name was Euphemia Smith.