She replaced the hatch and returned by way of the passage to the cabin.
When her father came home that night she briefly recounted the
interview with the new lodger, and her discovery of his curiosity. She
did this with a possible increase of her usual shyness and abstraction,
and apparently more as a duty than a colloquial recreation. But it
pleased Mr. Nott also to give it more than his usual misconception.
"Looking round the ship, was he--eh, Rosey?" he said with infinite
archness. "In course, kinder sweepin' round the galley, and offerin' to
fetch you wood and water, eh?" Even when the young girl had picked up
her book with the usual faint smile of affectionate tolerance, and then
drifted away in its pages, Mr. Nott chuckled audibly. "I reckon old
Frenchy didn't come by when the young one was bedevlin' you there."
"What, father?" said Rosey, lifting her abstracted eyes to his face.
At the moment it seemed impossible that any human intelligence could
have suspected deceit or duplicity in Rosey's clear gaze. But Mr.
Nott's intelligence was superhuman.
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