Perhaps, she thought, the people who so anxiously provide for the future are the true romantics; for don’t they invent a future all full of troubles, and then believe firmly in what they have invented? Perhaps the so-called romantic people are the most practical, after all.
It was a good thing that notions like this came into her head, for they helped her to endure the disturbing events of that evening with more calmness than she could have felt if she had been entirely the old Miss Smith. Even as it was, she was not a little upset. She sat in the wicker armchair in her brightly lighted little stateroom. The ship pitched up and down. Her coat, hanging on a hook, flapped like a great bird, and her patent leather suit case slid over to the wall and out again. The thoughts in her mind were quite as uneasy.
“Darcy!” she said to herself. “Darcy! Heavens!”
For Mr. Powers had casually mentioned that his first name was Darcy. He was an Irishman—a mining engineer—and he had lived in South America for several years.
“Oh, Heavens!” said poor Miss Smith again.
For here were all the qualifications for a true hero of romance. And the way he had told her all this! It was on the almost deserted promenade deck, where the storm curtains filled and flapped in the wind, and the rain beat against them, and the scuppers rippled and gurgled like little brooks. Sensible people stayed within, but there these two had sat, side by side. The electric lights overhead had shone fiercely upon Mr. Powers’s dark, eager face, and upon his hair, black as a raven’s wing. He had told her all these things because he wanted her to know about him, because he hoped she would understand and like him. He had almost said so in words, and he had certainly said so with that half smiling, half anxious glance of his.
“I don’t care!” said Miss Smith to herself, with a sob.
She might be silly, but she wasn’t so silly as that. This thing might be an adventure. Indeed, she was willing to admit that it was one, and to see it through gallantly; but an adventure with a “heart interest” in it she would not have!
In desperation she looked about for something to distract her mind. There was nothing to read except the little booklet hanging on the wall and an old copy of Lamb’s “Essays,” which she had brought along partly because she loved it, and partly because it seemed a fitting book for a governess. She took the booklet down. Once more she read the hours for meals, and then:
DECK CHAIRS AND RUGS—Deck chairs and rugs can be hired for the voyage at fixed charges. Payment should be made to the deck steward, who will issue a ticket.