"Don't but. No sooner said than done," and Beatrix rang for a stewardess. "Now, here are your dressing gown and slippers. Jump,—that is, struggle out of bed and I'll have you all ready by the time breakfast comes."
Mrs. Keene's attack of neuralgia had been very painful. She had really heard several hours slip by, but, for the pleasure and ego-warming of having Beatrix wait upon her and say kind things she would most willingly have undergone twice the pain and almost total sleeplessness. Beatrix knew this. Without conceit or the smallest suggestion of inflated vanity, she was aware of the fact that she was making her little old friend and flatterer quite happy. Her training among sycophants had made her an expert in playing upon the feelings of those about her. The unbelievable and unhealthy wealth which had placed a golden halo round her head had cultivated in her the gift, peculiar to Royalty, of dealing out easily given favors, little acts of kindness which bound her subjects more closely. This dangerous knowledge acquired as a child made her as dexterous in striking answering notes as though she were a professional pianist. Her instrument was temperament and she was a past-mistress in reading character.
The stewardess took the order, hurried to carry it out, and presently found "Mrs. Franklin" arranging her companion among many cushions on a sofa near the table. A message had been sent to the major-domo that the two ladies would be absent from the dining-saloon.
"Well," said Beatrix, pouring out tea, "well, Brownie, and how do you like the sea?"
Mrs. Keene had removed her curlers and so had regained her sense of propriety. Curlers somehow stood to her as very intimate things. She felt in them as most nice women do when they are caught by men with their hair down. "My dear, I shall never be anything but scared to death away from land. This is a very beautiful yacht, of course, with every modern convenience and invention, but I dread to think what might happen to her in a storm. I am sure that I shall not be well again until I put my foot on solid earth."
Beatrix gave a rather excited laugh. "Then you will be well again this afternoon," she said.
Mrs. Keene turned eagerly. "You don't mean that we are going to land, that this dreadful cruise is coming to an end this afternoon?"
"Oh, yes, I do."
"But, Mr. Franklin? Has he——?"
"Mr. Franklin doesn't count in the scheme of things," said Beatrix coolly, "I've made up my mind to get off the Galatea and there it is."