“This afternoon? Why, it hasn’t come yet,” retorted the first. “Man, you might as well have said to-morrow.”
Again there was a laugh—not much of a one—but the more they could laugh the better.
“Mr Wagram, I am dreadfully frightened,” said Mrs Colville, to whose wants he had been attending. “Is there really much danger, do you think?”
“No. There’s plenty of boat room—that’s where we score off the overcrowded mail steamer. Why, it’ll be quite an adventure to look back upon after we are picked up. Now, I think you had better collect whatever you may want to take—valuables, papers, anything of that kind. And, it’s time to dress the child.”
“Oh, that won’t take a minute. I’ve let her sleep as long as possible. For the rest, I’ve hardly anything worth collecting. But you? You haven’t been to bed, have you?”
“No; I was doing my usual midnight tramp on deck when the smash came. Like yourself, I’ve nothing much to collect either.”
She stole a look at him, and it was one of admiration—evoked not only by the tall, straight form and dark, refined, pensive face. His consummate coolness under the stress was what appealed to her now. Not one among the others but had shown some slight sign of flurry, or at any rate excitement beyond the ordinary. This one had not. Had they been planning a trip on shore at some port of call his tone and demeanour could hardly have been more even, more thoroughly composed.
“Are you a fatalist, Mr Wagram?” she said. “You treat all this as a matter of course.”
“I am no sort of ‘ist,’” he answered, with a smile. “Well—what?”
“Great heavens! I was forgetting,” she said. “We won’t be able to land anywhere. The captain told me if we were to go ashore anywhere off here we’d very likely be eaten—by savages. He was telling me only this afternoon. Good heavens! what is to become of us?”