“No. The one when—the one we were talking about at lunch.”
“Ah! When our friend of the slim fingers——?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s sit down,” I suggested. We were just passing a garden seat.
She smiled at me half sadly, half mockingly. She saw through me; she knew I wanted to hear more about it. By some sort of sympathy I knew that she wanted to talk about it. It was queer, too, to consider through what window that moon was shining on Slim-Fingered Jim. Did it—and his other surroundings—remind him of the broad Atlantic? “The risks of the profession, gentlemen!”
“Yes, he had beautiful hands,” she murmured.
“What’ll they look like when——?”
She caught my hand sharply in hers. “Hush, hush!” she whispered. I felt ashamed of myself, but of course I couldn’t have known that—well, that she’d feel it like that.
“I was quite a girl,” she went on presently. “Yes, it’s six years ago—and the first two days of that voyage were like days in heaven. You know what it can be when it’s fine? You seem never to have known what space was before—and bigness—and blueness. Do you know what I mean?”
“It’s very exhilarating.”