She watched him going. Then she watched every one else who passed by; and it could not be denied that of all the men whom Miss Smith saw not one was so handsome, so distinguished, so interesting as Mr. Powers.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. The wind had blown away the fog, the ship was forging steadily ahead through the rainy night, and she was on it! Penniless and alone, she was sailing the sea to a coral isle! She, the brisk, sensible Miss Smith who, twenty-four hours ago, had been a governess on the West Side of New York!
“I don’t care!” she said to herself, with a sort of triumph. “I’m young and healthy. I can—”
She didn’t complete the thought, but at that moment she actually felt that she could[Pg 240] do pretty nearly anything, and could face the wide world undaunted. It was a very nice sort of feeling.
IV
The weather was rough, and many people who had appeared for lunch were not to be seen at dinner; but Miss Smith came down, quite fresh and rosy. Her suit case could provide nothing better than a blue linen blouse, which she had intended for breakfasts, not dinners. As she dressed, she thought, with a sigh, that she looked very sedate and unattractive; but Mr. Powers did not seem to think so. At least, he looked pleased to see her.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but I’ve taken a place for you at Herbert’s table. I’ve had Herbert for table steward before, and he’s good.”
Miss Smith did not mind, and she, too, found Herbert a good table steward.
“But I shan’t be able to give him any tip,” she thought. “And when I come back, all alone—”
Resolutely she banished that thought. She remembered how her father and mother used to talk about the folly of “borrowing trouble.” She had often thought that a shiftless sort of maxim, but now she found it wise. Perhaps they themselves had been wiser than she realized, for they had lived joyously in the day that was actually present, not troubling about days that had gone, or about future days which no one can really foresee.