“Unless it was that young lady’s ghost,” put in Beatrice, who had been listening. “Mm-hmm, sent by the Lord to save you!”

I smiled. “’Tis a lovely idea, Beatrice, but I don’t think I was ever that special to the Lord.”

“You might be surprised, child.”

Every now and then Mrs. Shaw asked me if anything else had come back to me, but I said no. I was afraid of letting too much slip. I shooed away the thought that my parents still thought I was dead.

Sinclair Shaw finally showed his face at the end of November. Mrs. Shaw was hosting a dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving, an American holiday I had never heard tell of. He came on his own this time, without Ben. I must say Mrs. Shaw didn’t look too delighted to see him, but he paid little mind to her. He just sat down at the extra place Teresa had quickly set for him at the table and began to charm everyone. Some of Mrs. Shaw’s friends were there, including the young Martha, who I had marched with in New York, and they all seemed delighted with him. Not as delighted as I was, though I tried hard not to show it too much.

“I’ve come to ask you something, Selkie,” he said, turning to me just as dinner was coming to an end. “Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to a Christmas Eve ball being thrown by the Van Clines?”

I must have looked at him like an eejit. My mouth fell open and I turned red in the face. “Who?” I choked.

He took my hand. “The Van Clines, my dear Selkie. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of them, but they are among the richest families in New York. Their house is obscenely opulent, and they are famous for their parties.” He looked at Mrs. Shaw. “You know them, don’t you, Aunt Felicity?”

Mrs. Shaw nodded, while the other guests whispered to one another.

“I know the granddaughter,” Sinclair went on, turning back to me. “It should be capital fun, Selkie. And they’ll be fascinated to hear that you fell off the Titanic.”

After Sinclair and the guests had left, I was giddy with excitement. “Oh, what’ll I wear, Mrs. Shaw? I’ve never been to the likes of anything such as that in my life! What do they do at those things? Can you believe Sinclair has asked me, when he could have picked from a million other girls?”

Mrs. Shaw stood up from the table, took me by the arm and led me into the library. We sat down on either side of the fireplace. She looked at me for a while, as if making up her mind what to say.