A small, polite voice beside him said, "Are you feeling all right?"
He looked around, and there stood Lucille Foster, in a pale lilac cloche hat and a pale lilac morning dress with silver and gold braiding.
"I saw you from the first-class deck," she said, "and I thought you looked rather ill."
Harry smiled down at her, amused. "I think it's the way this ship keeps leaning one way, and then leaning the other," he said.
"But that's the whole fun of ships," Lucille enthused, sitting down beside him. "If they don't roll around, they're not worth going on. You ought to sail on the Berengaria. She rolls just wonderfully."
"Well, I suppose it seems wonderful if you're used to it," Harry told her. "This is only my second time."
"They have Dammert treatment on first-class," Lucille explained.
"Dammert treatment? What's that?"
"I don't know, but you have to breathe it in. Mommy used to have it all the time, even when it was smooth. It settles your ears. That's what makes you feel sick, you know, your ears."
"You're very knowledgeable for a very young lady."
"I'm eleven in August. That's not young."
"Well, no, I guess it isn't, especially if you're used to being ten."
Lucille looked out across the ocean for a while, and then she said, "I was very upset, you know, at the way they treated you yesterday. Mommy wouldn't have stood for it. She said you ought to be polite to absolutely everybody, no matter how poor or unfortunate they are."
"Your mommy sounds like an understanding lady."
"She was. Daddy was madly in love with her."
"I was sorry to hear about them dying," said Harry. "Well, I wasn't sorry at the time. To me, your daddy and mommy were just rich people you read about in the newspapers. But, now I've met you, I suppose I can understand that they were real people, too. You didn't deserve anything to happen to you like that."
"Mrs. Hall says it was very romantic. She said they had a romantic destiny."
"Who's Mrs. Hall?"
"She's the lady I'm travelling with. She's Uncle Robert's housekeeper. She's very sweet, but a little old-fashioned when it comes to things like boys, and staying up late, and dancing."
"You have boyfriends?" asked Harry.
"I used to, in Paris. There was a French boy called Armand Lautier. He was twelve, and very suave. Sometimes mommy would let me ask him around for dinner and give us champagne. She said there was nothing like young love. Of course, we weren't actually in love. I mean, we were just friends. But I let Armand kiss me once, in the bedroom."
"Did you enjoy it?"
"I don't know... it was pretty wet. But it wasn't wholly unpleasant."
Harry laughed. "You're quite a young lady, do you know that?"
"It's only because I have a privileged background. It does make a difference, you know, when your folks have pots of money, and you're given a good sound education. I had five tutors in Paris, can you believe that? And a lady who taught me deportment, and not to say keen."
"Well," said Harry, "that's really keen."
From the first-class deck above them, the spiralling breeze wafted down the sound of piano music, as an early breakfast was served to those passengers who had decided that they were too bung-over and too hungry to be able to stay in their beds any longer; or those who were hoping that a plateful of good solid food would suppress their seasickness; or those who had decided after so much dancing and drinking and fornicating that it really wasn't worth going to bed at all. Mr Joe Kretchmer and Mr Duncan Wilkes were there, of course, each with their plates heaped high with eggs, bacon, cold pheasant, and kedgeree. Neither of them appeared to be tucking into their food with any exceptional gusto, and Mr Kretchmer looked noticeably grey, but they both ate with determination and doggedness, their jaws chewing hi time to the piano-player's laconic version of "Blue Morning (Now You've Left Me Feeling Blue)" and there was no question of either of them surrendering.
"It must be strange, not to be rich," Lucille remarked to Harry.
"Strange?" asked Harry. "Well, I suppose it is. But if all the money in the world were shared out more fairly, then nobody would know what it was like to be rich, and nobody would know what it was like to be really poor. People wouldn't be drinking champagne and eating caviar, but then people wouldn't be starving, either."
Lucille said, "Do you really believe that?"
"Of course. Don't you?"
"Well," said Lucille, thoughtfully, "I don't like the idea of people starving, but the world would be terribly dull if all the money were to be shared out equally. Daddy always used to say that charity was nonsense, except as a tax loss. He could afford to buy every man, woman, and child in the whole of the United States one good meal, with meat, and vegetables, and Jell-O to follow—but only once. Then, he would be quite bankrupt. And what good could he do to anybody once he was bankrupt?"
"That," said Harry, "is an age-old capitalist fallacy. Nobody's asking the rich to buy one free meal for every man, woman, and child in the world. All we're asking them to do is pay their workers more reasonably, share out their profits more equably, and recognise that all human beings are equal."
Lucille was silent for a minute or two. The cloud-bank that had been building up on the south-western horizon was now looming high above the Arcadia's masts, and the wind had freshened to Force Three, so that the brownish oil smoke from the funnels was billowing and twisting away to the north-east, like a chiffon scarf being shaken at a stranger's funeral. The sea began to seethe softly, and the deck heaved and pivoted, lifted and then suddenly dropped, leaving Harry's stomach seven or eight feet up in the air.
"Are you a Communist?" asked Lucille, intently. "You are, aren't you? Mommy's friend Pascal used to talk like you. He said that one day, everybody in the whole world would wear the same clothes and live in the same houses and earn exactly the same amount of money every week. He used to make Mommy laugh."
"Why's that?"
"She used to think being a Communist was flying in the face of human nature. She used to say that even if everybody earned exactly the same amount of money to begin with, one day, someone would pay her some of their money just to see her act or dance or hear her sing. Then, when she had finished acting or dancing or singing, she would be richer than they were."
Harry gave a wry grin. "I would have liked to have known your mommy. I think she and I could have had some rare arguments."
Lucille said, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Of course."
"Are you frightened of something?"
He turned and looked at her narrowly. "Frightened? What makes you ask that?"
"I don't know. I just think that you're frightened, or worried, or something like that. I can see it in your eyes. Mommy could see things in people's eyes. She once told a friend of ours that he looked sick, and by the end of the year he had died of cancer."
Harry took out another cigarette and tapped it on his thumbnail. His stomach rose and fell, but he swallowed hard and managed to keep it where it was, on the end of his esophagus. He wondered fleetingly how Philly and Lydia were feeling, especially after all that cheap brandy.
"You're not frightened that we're going to sink, are you?" asked Lucille.
"Of course not. It would take an Act of God to sink this ship."
"You're a Communist. Communist's don't believe in God. At least Pascal didn't. He still bought me a white Bible for my confirmation, though. He knew it would please daddy. Daddy was a revivalist. He loved Aimee Semple McPherson. He said she was God's messenger."