Later that afternoon, they had passed the Ambrose Lightship and were steaming east off the coast of Nantucket, with nothing out ahead of them...but ocean.

Captain William Turner instructed First Officer Jones on the bridge.

"Keep her speed at 21 knots, Mr. Jones. It will help to save the coal."

"Yes, sir."

And he moved the engine telegraph lever to half-full.

In the engine room, Chief Engineer Archibald Bryce shouted to his fellow crew, "All half ahead!"

Bryce stood carefully, watching the engines surging up and down with the turning of the massive crankshafts. Keeping with the pace of 21 knots rather than the usual twenty five, Lusitania's engines thundered loud then quietly as she kept to her limited speed.

John Doyle watched his brother, chief stoker Peter Doyle command the other stokers in Boiler Room 3. They were chanting a song as they hurled coal into the roaring furnaces. The stokers were covered with sweat and coal dust, their muscles (some of them exposed due to the heat) working like part of the machinery as they toiled in the hellish glow.

The stokers were covered with sweat and coal dust, their muscles (some of them exposed due to the heat) working like part of the machinery as they toiled in the hellish glow

Captain Turner stepped out of the enclosed bridge onto the port wing, taking in his breath of fresh air. Clean shaven, gruff and well-built at the age of fifty eight, he had been at sea for half a century, starting work as a cabin boy before receiving a captain's license in 1886. The year before, he received the Humane Society's silver medal for saving a young boy who had fallen overboard from the SS Catalonia (while it was still in the Alexandria Dock, that is). After commanding the Mauretania on her maiden voyage, Turner took over from the retired Commodore Watt as the captain of the Lusitania, resuming control of her only after the previous captain, Daniel Dow, felt that the war was getting on his nerves.

The ship glowed with the warm creamy light of late afternoon. Marinette and Alya stood right at the bow gripping the curving railing. Marinette leaned over, looking down fifty feet to where the prow gutted the surface like a knife, sending up two glassy sheets of water.

In the glassy wave of the bow, two dolphins appeared under the water, running fast just in front of the steel blade of the prow. They did it for the sheer joy and exultation of motion. Marinette watched the dolphins and grinned. They breached, jumping clear of the water and dived back, crisscrossing in front of the bow and dancing ahead of the juggernaut.

"Look at them jump!" the blue haired girl giggled like she had never seen such marvelous creatures before.

The stokers continued shoveling and saving the coal, the engines pounded before relaxing their speed and Alya was grinning at her friend with zeal.

"I can see Ireland already," she said before realizing there was a lot more of the ocean's mileage to to go. "That is very small of course."

Taking in every last ounce of the adventurous excitement, Marinette stretched her arms into a crucified position and released a scream so loud the whole world could practically hear.

"I'M THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD!"

Lusitania rose to the horizon as seagulls flew around her, with the sound of Marinette's whooping. The ship's funnels marched past like the pillars of death, one by one. The people strolling on the decks and standing at the rail became antlike.

"I am still the greatest actress to ever embrace the stage," said Josephine Brandell to her fellow patrons at the Verandah Café. "And I can assure you, I've still got a strong set of pipes from when I first performed Night Birds."

The Verandah Café was located aft of A-Deck just behind the smoking room and the first such example on a Cunarder. Decorated with ivy, trellises, and wickerwork, the once less popular spot on the ship increased with a more welcoming atmosphere, a place where passengers could have coffee, tea or light meals. Gabriel, Adrien, Chloé, Miss Brandell, former state senator from Delaware and president of New York Shipbuilding Company, Samuel Knox and one of Gabriel's New York rivals, Maximilian M. Schwarcz, senior member of his own women's fashion and cloak firm on 141 Madison Avenue.

"Of all the ships I have travelled on," Mr. Knox said in fine tones. "Most have their luxuries, while others have speed like this one. It's almost very fortunate to be on a ship like this, especially when it's her one hundredth crossing."

"One hundred and first crossing," Mr. Schwarcz corrected him. "I'm sure Gabriel could do the math better than you."

Adrien removed a cigarette from a humidor, chuckling at the humor of his father's rival. He would later mark the time and date in his diary as the first time he had ever smoked in his entire life. But Gabriel thought otherwise.

"You know perfectly well that I don't smoke, Adrien," his father scolded. "And neither should you."

"All the other men are doing it," Adrien smiled sheepishly.

"But you are not a man yet," Gabriel's voice was stern.

Adrien could not defy his father's death-glare. It was a face of authority that reminded him not to go against his wishes.

"All right."

He sighed as put the cigarette out and left it on the ash tray. But Adrien was not about to give up on his sense of humor. His head went to Chloé, who was asking a nearby waiter, an amateur lightweight boxing champion named Matthew Freeman, for tea and strawberry ice cream.

"Tell me Chloé, do you approve of women who smoke?"

"You heard what your father said, smoking is not good for you."

If you are going to bore me, I suggest you talk of something interesting for once. Adrien sighed in his head.

Chloé resumed her order.

"We'll both have tea and strawberry ice cream, just three scoops each. You like ice cream, don't you Adrikins?"

"Ice cream?" Adrien felt like the girl was going out of her mind. "It's not even nine o'clock!"

"So what? We won't be eating dinner for another four hours."

"And I think the ship's doctor would recommend a healthy diet instead of ice cream before dinner. You don't want ruin your girlish figure do you?"

Gabriel stared at his son. It was as if he tried to insult Chloé about her weight.

"Son, what has gotten into you?"

An embarrassed Adrien turned to face him.

"It is too early for ice cream!"

"True," said Miss Brandell, "But Miss Bourgeois does have a point. It would not hurt to have a small helping of ice cream even if it spoils your appetite."

"Or at least, not to our children," added Mr. Knox. "When they reach your age, Adrien. You can have ice cream anytime you want to."

"Well, if I want to stay fit," Adrien taunted. "Why not I just take another walk around the deck. I am sure I could use some fresh air as well."

And he left the table, stalking his way towards the promenade deck.

"I apologize for my son's behavior," Gabriel was mortified.

"Well, he's a pistol, Gabriel," sighed Mr. Schwarcz. "I only hope you can handle him. You may even have to start minding what he reads from now on."

Gabriel took this as a complementary advice. Even though they were rivals, they still had a sense of opinion over Adrien and would often keep a civil tongue around him like gentlemen.

On the poop deck of the stern, at the bottom between the first and second class promenades, Marinette was sitting on a bench in the sun. Lusitania's wake spread out behind her to the horizon. She had her knees pulled up, supporting a leather bound sketching pad, her only valuable possession. With conte crayon she draw rapidly, using sure strokes. A widower from Toronto named George Hook had his twelve year old daughter Elsie standing on the lower rung of the rail. She was leaned back against his chest, watching the seagulls while his son Frank looked on from behind. Edward Williams and his six siblings; Edith, George Albert, Ethel, Florence, and David played tag along the deck with so few hiding spaces.

"I say it's a Scottish ship," Alix said out the blue. "Probably about 7,000 of Scotsmen built this ship."

"Not unless we rank the scheme of things," Marinette replied.

Alix looked over the sketching pad and asked.

"Do you make a living with your drawings?"

But Marinette didn't say anything. Before she could reply, her mind wandered, and found itself looking up at an angel of flaxen hair in a tan colored suit.

So handsome. She thought with the color of ladybugs turning into the shape of hearts as his face was engraved in her mind.

Adrien turned suddenly and looked right at Marinette. She was caught staring at him with interest, but she did not look away. He did, but then looked back. Their eyes met across the space of the well deck, across the gulf between worlds. The top and bottom of the promenades defining their class in a nutshell. Alix and Alya saw this as well, along with some of the other passengers who took a quick look. Florence Williams thought that he looked like prince, but Alix saw the hopelessly romantic stare in Marinette's eyes and decided to give her the bad news.

"Forget it, Miss Cheng. You'll never get next to the likes of him."

Marinette did not hear her, he kept watching until Chloé came into view. She took Adrien's right arm, clinging to it like a stuffed animal as it caught him by surprise.

"Do you mind?" he asked rudely.

"I just want to remind you about dinner," Chloé said. "Second service will be in an hour."

Adrien sighed and walked away. Marionette's pupils followed him until he completely vanished from sight.

Dressed in a maroon colored tux with a black vest, black tie and a white shirt, Adrien had hardly touched a morsel of his dinner. It was seven o'clock and his quarter of lamb with mint sauce was getting cold. He sat at the middle table with Chloé, Gabriel, Charles Bowring of the Bowring Shipowners and Agents, Alice and Elbert Hubbard and Frances Stephens, wife of Cabinet minister George Washington Stephens and a prominent lady of Montréal high society. He barely listened of any of them talking about war and politics, for he was among the many passengers who refused to believe that Lusitania could be torpedoed. He scalped the lamb and finally took a bite out of it. The mint sauce tasted like poison going down his throat, almost wanting him to throw up all over the floor. But he did not dare to even so much as vomit all over the beautiful carpet.

"Eat up," his father reminded him after one ten minute period after the other.

Adrien continued to ration his supply of the food before only half of it was finished.

"I can't take another bite," he told the others when he got up from his table.

He was still getting that touch of mal-de-mer when he returned to his cabin. Mr. Myers was still at dinner, perhaps even smoking on tobacco in the lounge, reminding Adrien of his first, yet short lived try with the cigarette. Perhaps it was a side-effect of the tobacco that was making him sick...or aggressive in the same way with alcohol. He pulled off his tie, ran his hands through his combed hair and sat down on the bed. Next to him was his diary, he looked at for a second before finding the strength to write in the next page.

"Dear Diary,

I have seen my whole life as if I have already lived it. An endless parade of parties, cotillions, yachts, polo matches, horse races, Broadway plays with more drama than action, photoshoots and arraigned marriages. YUCK! Here I am, always having to meet the same skinny people who talk of nothing but business, politics, beauty products, manufacturing of imported steel and war when I could be doing something exciting like horse riding or playing for the New York Yankees!

To put it bluntly, my life is repetitive, endless and boring, boring, BORING! I feel like I am standing in front of a great precipice with no one to pull me back. Should I comitt suicide, no one will care...or even notice.

With that being said, I guess this will be my last entry.

Farewell forever,

Adrien"