"He hasn't yet made up his mind,
and we sail at ten o'clock!"
"What does it matter when my things are put up?" the young man said.
"There's no crowd at this moment; there will be cabins to spare. I'm
waiting for a telegram--that will settle it. I just walked up to the
club to see if it was come--they'll send it there because they suppose
this house unoccupied. Not yet, but I shall go back in twenty minutes."
"Mercy, how you rush about in this temperature!" the poor lady exclaimed
while I reflected that it was perhaps _his_ billiard-balls I had heard
ten minutes before. I was sure he was fond of billiards.
"Rush? not in the least. I take it uncommon easy."
"Ah I'm bound to say you do!" Mrs. Nettlepoint returned with
inconsequence. I guessed at a certain tension between the pair and a
want of consideration on the young man's part, arising perhaps from
selfishness. His mother was nervous, in suspense, wanting to be at rest
as to whether she should have his company on the voyage or be obliged to
struggle alone. But as he stood there smiling and slowly moving his fan
he struck me somehow as a person on whom this fact wouldn't sit too
heavily. He was of the type of those whom other people worry about, not
of those who worry about other people.
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