For a few minutes she was panicky.  Her hands shook as she put the document away.  She knew life with all the lack of illusion of two years in the chorus.  Even Lethway—­not that she minded his casual caress on the deck.  She had seen a lot of that.  It meant nothing.  Stage directors either bawled you out or petted you.  That was part of the business.

But to-night, all day indeed, there had been something in Lethway’s face that worried her.  And there were other things.

The women on the boat replied coldly to her friendly advances.  She had spoken to a nice girl, her own age or thereabouts, and the girl’s mother or aunt or chaperon, whoever it was, had taken her away.  It had puzzled her at the time.  Now she knew.  The crowd that had seen her off, from the Pretty Coquette Company—­that had queered her, she decided.  That and Lethway.

None of the girls had thought it odd that she should cross the ocean with Lethway.  They had been envious, as a matter of fact.  They had brought her gifts, the queer little sachets and fruit and boxes of candy that littered the room.  In that half hour before sailing they had chattered about her, chorus unmistakably, from their smart, cheap little hats to their short skirts and fancy shoes.  Her roommate, Mabel, had been the only one she had hated to leave.  And Mabel had queered her, too, with her short-bobbed yellow hair.

She did a reckless thing that night, out of pure defiance.  It was a winter voyage in wartime.  The night before the women had gone down, sedately dressed, to dinner.  The girl she had tried to speak to had worn a sweater.  So Edith dressed for dinner.

She whitened her neck and arms with liquid powder, and slicked up her brown hair daringly smooth and flat.  Then she put on her one evening dress, a black net, and pinned on her violets.  She rouged her lips a bit too.

The boy, meeting her on the companionway, gasped.

That night he asked permission to move over to her table, and after that the three of them ate together, Lethway watching and saying little, the other two chattering.  They were very gay.  They gambled to the extent of a quarter each, on the number of fronds, or whatever they are, in the top of a pineapple that Cecil ordered in, and she won.  It was delightful to gamble, she declared, and put the fifty cents into a smoking-room pool.

The boy was clearly infatuated.  She looked like a debutante, and, knowing it, acted the part.  It was not acting really.  Life had only touched her so far, and had left no mark.  When Lethway lounged away to an evening’s bridge Cecil fetched his military cape and they went on deck.

“I’m afraid it’s rather lonely for you,” he said.  “It’s always like this the first day or two.  Then the women warm up and get friendly.”

“I don’t want to know them.  They are a stupid-looking lot.  Did you ever see such clothes?”

“You are the only person who looks like a lady to-night,” he observed.  “You look lovely.  I hope you don’t mind my saying it?”