I wanted to see if
there was anything I could use. I thought I was all alone in the ship,
but fancying I heard a noise forward I came out to see what it was. I
suppose it must have been you."
She raised her clear eyes to his, with a slight touch of womanly
reserve that was so incompatible with any vulgar vanity or girlish
coquetry that he became the more embarrassed. Her dress, too, of a
slightly antique shape, rich but simple, seemed to reveal and accent a
certain repose of gentlewomanliness, that he was now wishing to believe
he had always noticed. Conscious of a superiority in her that now
seemed to change their relations completely, he alone remained silent,
awkward, and embarrassed before the girl who had taken care of his
room, and who cooked in the galley! What he had thoughtlessly
considered a merely vulgar business intrigue against her stupid father,
now to his extravagant fancy assumed the proportions of a sacrilege to
herself.
"You've had your revenge, Miss Nott, for the fright I once gave you,"
he said a little uneasily, "for you quite startled me just now as you
passed.
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