“Oh, my own, I’m so tired!” she murmured.
He looked down at her, knowingly, but said nothing.
Then she stopped and leaned over the rail, breathing in the buoyant salt air. He stood close beside her, and did the same.
“It’s fresh and fine and good, isn’t it!” he cried, blinking back through the strong sunlight where the drifting city smoke still hung thinly on the skyline in their wake.
She did not answer him, for her thoughts, at the moment, were far away. He looked at her quietly, where the sea-wind stirred her hair.
“Good-bye, Old World, good-bye!” she murmured at last, softly.
“Why, you’re crying!” he said, as his hand sought hers on the rail.
“Yes,” she answered, “just a little!”
And then, for some unknown reason, with her habitual sense of guardianship, she let her arm creep about her uncomprehending husband. From what or against what that shielding gesture was meant to guard him he could not understand, nor would Frances explain, as, with a little shamefaced laugh, she wiped away her tears.
“Good-bye, Old World!” he repeated, as he looked back at the widening skyline, with a challenging finality which seemed to imply that what was over and done with was for all time over and done with. . . . “Good-bye!”