"My news isn't
particularly satisfactory. I'm going for _you_."
"Oh you humbug!" she replied. But she was of course delighted.
CHAPTER II
People usually spend the first hours of a voyage in squeezing themselves
into their cabins, taking their little precautions, either so excessive
or so inadequate, wondering how they can pass so many days in such a hole
and asking idiotic questions of the stewards, who appear in comparison
rare men of the world. My own initiations were rapid, as became an old
sailor, and so, it seemed, were Miss Mavis's, for when I mounted to the
deck at the end of half an hour I found her there alone, in the stern of
the ship, her eyes on the dwindling continent. It dwindled very fast for
so big a place. I accosted her, having had no conversation with her amid
the crowd of leave-takers and the muddle of farewells before we put off;
we talked a little about the boat, our fellow-passengers and our
prospects, and then I said: "I think you mentioned last night a name I
know--that of Mr. Porterfield."
"Oh no I didn't!" she answered very straight while she smiled at me
through her closely-drawn veil.
"Then it was your mother."
"Very likely it was my mother." And she continued to smile as if I ought
to have known the difference.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39