The issue was silly and trivial from the first; but even insignificant things assume dangerous proportions when heady liquor is dying in the veins. It had been too long since Mrs. Hardenworth had had her drinks. She was in a doubtful mood, querulous so far as her own assumption of good breeding would permit, ready to haggle over nothing. The three of them had come into the dining room together: none of the other occupants of the little schooner had yet put in an appearance.
“I see the table’s set for four,” she began. “Who’s the other place for—Captain Knutsen?”
“I’m afraid the captain has to mind his wheel. This isn’t an oceanic liner. I suppose the place is set for Miss Gilbert.”
Watching the older woman’s face, Ned discerned an almost imperceptible hardening of the lines that stretched from the nose to the corners of the lips. Likely he wouldn’t have observed it at all except for the fact that he had now and then seen the same thing in Lenore, always when she was displeased.
“Miss Gilbert seems to fill the horizon. May I ask how many more there are in the crew?”
“Just McNab, Forest, and the cook. Both white men take turns at the wheel in open water.”
“That’s three for each table, considering one of the men has to stay at the wheel. Why shouldn’t one of these plates be removed?”
The woman spoke rather softly, but Ned did not mistake the fact that she was wholly in earnest. “I don’t see why not,” he answered rather feebly. “Except, of course—they eat at irregular hours——”
“Listen, Ned. Be sensible. When a seamstress comes to our house she doesn’t eat at the table with us. Not at your house either. Perhaps you’d say that this was different, thrown together as we are on this little boat, but I don’t see that it is different. I hope you won’t mind my suggesting this thing to you. I’ve handled servants all my life—I know how to get along with them with the least degree of friction—and it’s very easy to be too kind.”
Ned looked down, his manhood oozing out of him. “But she’s a nice girl——”