Free Titanic: The Long Night by Diane Hoh

fell over the third-class passengers gathered in the meeting room. Even the children fell silent. All eyes were turned toward the group gathered on the stairs.
    A short, round woman with an unpleasant scowl on her pink, doughy face commented, “I wonder if they appreciate how fortunate they are.” A man standing behind her nodded and said, “On any other ship they’d be crammed together like sardines in a can.”
    Caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the group, it took Katie a few minutes to grasp what was happening. When she did, she became indignant, then furious. She, along with everyone else, was being put on display, like the two-headed calf she’d once seen at a county fair. As if they were a curiosity, something foreign and strange, to be examined carefully by the first-class passengers. ’Twas outrageous! The steward, who must have been conducting a tour of the ship, had no right to invade their privacy like this. Would the third-class passengers ever be permitted to tour first-class facilities, to visit the fancy restaurant, the gymnasium, the Paris-type café she’d read about, the fine staterooms? No, never! There were iron gates barring their way. And no steward eager to unlock them.
    Katie rose to her feet. Her cheeks felt hot. Brian and Patrick saw her stand. Both were at her side instantly, flanking her.
    As Katie opened her mouth to speak, a tall, very pretty girl in a blue dress, standing in the group of onlookers, said nervously, “I think we should go. We’re disturbing these people.” She looked directly at Katie as she spoke. For a second, she seemed about to smile. Then, reading the expression on Katie’s face, apparently thought better of it.
    When the steward said, “Don’t worry about offending them by what you say. Most of ’em don’t speak English,” Katie’s temper reached the boiling point.
    Her eyes sweeping the room, she shouted to the other third-class passengers, “Do you all understand what’s happenin’ here, then? Do you see that we’re bein’ put on show?”
    In response, she received only confused glances from those who didn’t understand English, and shamed, lowered eyes from those who did. No one said anything.
    “Don’t give them a show,” Brian warned quietly. “You’ll just be givin’ them somethin’ to blather about at supper.”
    But Katie couldn’t repress her anger. Whirling in fury back toward the group on the stairs, she asked the steward heatedly, “Do you charge admission, then, for lettin’ the fancy folk get a good look at us common people?”
    The pretty girl in blue tugged on her companion’s sleeve. “Mother, please! This was a terrible idea. Let’s go!” She turned to leave, but no one else did.
    Katie felt revulsion as she saw mild amusement in the eyes watching her. Brian had been right. Except for the girl in blue, the onlookers were entertained by her display of temper.
    Suddenly, Paddy shouted, “If a show is what they want, then that’s what they’ll get!” And in one swift, sure move he reached out and took Katie into his arms, lifted her chin, and before she could utter a word of protest, kissed her soundly.
    She told herself later that if she responded, it was only because she was taken by surprise. No time to raise her defenses.
    But she was aware of two other elements of the kiss. One was, she felt a perverse pleasure when she heard shocked gasps from the group on the stairs. And the other, if the truth be told, was that the kiss made her tingle all the way down to her toes. This very pleasant sensation was accompanied by a clear-cut, belated understanding of Mary Frances Molloy’s anguished weeping last September.
    “Have you lost your mind, man?” Brian demanded of Paddy as the kiss ended.
    The steward shrugged.
    But the girl in the blue dress, Katie noticed, was openly smiling. The others murmured disapproval among themselves as they retreated up the staircase and disappeared from sight.
    Conversation in