Rosalie turned towards her and spoke impulsively. “Oh, awfully—Keggo.”
The woman stooped and kissed the growing young thing, hugging her strongly, pressing her lips upon the lips of Rosalie with a great intensity. “Oh, I shall be sorry when you go, Rosalie.”
“We can still be friends, Keggo dear.”
Miss Keggs shook her head. “Ships that pass in the night.”
“O Keggo!”
Miss Keggs smiled, a wintry smile. “O Rosalie!” she mimicked. She sighed. “Oh, my dear, it’s true—true! Don’t you remember how the lines go—
‘Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing;
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness.’
Just remember that in a few years. You’ll hail again perhaps. ‘O Keggo!’ Or I—it is more likely—wilt hail ‘O Rosalie!’ Just remember it then.” Her hand came down to Rosalie and Rosalie took it. It was so cold; and on her face a strained and beaten look as though hand and face belonged to one that stood most chilled and storm-beat upon the bridge, peering through the storm. Her fingers made no motion responsive to Rosalie’s warm touch. She said strangely, as though it was to herself she spoke, “Does it mean anything to you, Rosalie, a vision like that? Can you see a black and violent night and a ship going by full speed, and one labouring, and through the wind and the blackness a hail.—and gone, and the wreck left foundering?”
Ah, that most generous and quickly moved and loving-Rosalie—then! How she twisted to her knees and stretched her arms about that poor Keggo, sitting there—so drooped! How readily into her eyes her young and warm and ardent sympathies pressed the tears, their flowers! How warm her words? How warmly spoken! “O Keggo! Keggo, dear! Keggo, why do you talk like that? How can you? After all the kindness you’ve shown me, accusing me that I’ll forget and not mind. Keggo, you shan’t. You mustn’t.”
Then Keggo responded, catching her arms about Rosalie and straining Rosalie to her as though here was some cable to hold against the driving sea. “O Rosalie!”