“That’s the smoke of the Corinthian. She’s brought her good weather with her; and she’s going right on to put that girl aboard the Mauretania to take her back to jail in England. Say, do you know, I’d like to do something for that girl? They’re laying to give her altogether too much. Looking at it some ways, she’s all right. I got a sister in the suffrage cause myself.”
Andy looked swiftly about, and sized up the operator more carefully. “Why didn’t you say so before?” he demanded.
The operator moved nearer and spoke cautiously: “I wasn’t sure till to-day why it was you was so interested in what was coming in.”
“So you feel sure now, do you?”
“Can’t say that,” the operator said conservatively. “But I’ve got a noodle, even if everything isn’t as clear as it might be in it just now. But don’t worry; nobody else is wise, and I ain’t said nothing.”
“On account of your sister?”
The operator looked at Andy’s hands, which were in his pockets. “Partly,” he said.
“Is it better for you to come to my cabin, or safer for me to go to yours?” Andy inquired. “Not that I’ve got a proposition yet; but—well, two heads are better than one.”
The conference below decks, though of no short duration, brought to Andy little definite encouragement. During all the latter part of the afternoon, which remained clear and bright though the wind now was rising, he paced the deck thoughtful, alone. The smoke on the southern horizon which marked the position of the Corinthian crept steadily farther ahead.
Above the setting sun spread a flaming and crimson sky; and out from under it the smoke and then the hull of a steamer appeared. It was eastbound to England, and between the paths of the Cumberland and Corinthian. Twilight failed over the ocean before it met the Cumberland; its smoke smudge was lost in the blackness of night, its spars vanished save for a swaying masthead light, and its decks became lines of electric lights backed by the glow of cabin windows where passengers were dressing for dinner.