And, after all, what harm can they do me? Poor little Curlyhead, they might teach him a few more bad words (though even that was open to doubt)—one or two ignorant girls in their teens, they might suffer. But Hildegarde Mar—how could they hurt a person twenty-six years old, who is among them for a few days out of a lifetime. What’s the good of me and my better advantages if I can be injured by this sort of thing?
It was something to get back her courage to be alone among these people. Last night she had been under an illusion about them. Yes, she had had some bad moments, but they had come chiefly because she had so set her heart on seeing—yet no, let her be honest. Louis’s neglect had put her out of tune, disheartened her quite unaccountably, but the worser moments had come through positive fear. And the fear had come—oh, it was clear now—it had come through having her mind filled with foreboding by the people who cared most for her. There was always that potency in evil prophecy—it went a long way toward bringing about its own fulfilment. If good were foretold you were afraid to believe it. If evil you were afraid not to believe.
There was that much truth in the fabled power of the Evil Eye. Her expedition had been so frowned on, eyed so askance; small wonder she had failed to keep her courage quite untarnished. Well, she had found out one thing on the threshold of the journey. It is the fear felt for us by the men who love us that makes cowards of womankind; it is others’ shrinking that goes far to make us quail.
She took a sheet of folded note-paper out of her little Tennyson and her pencil traced the words: “On board the Los Angeles, May 31, 1900. My dear Louis—” Yes, she would write him a long, long letter, and tell him how little ground there was for fear. But she would write very gently, even humbly, and get him to understand and to forgive her. She would show him how much better his fellow-men were than he had given out.
She remembered with an instant’s loss of enthusiasm her room-mate’s account of the matter. But she decided that lady was of a carping and a gloomy nature—she looked on the dark side. Perhaps Hildegarde would feel less cheerful herself if she’d had her arm nearly broken—but an accident could happen anywhere.
“And the stoop-shouldered man is the father.” It was Mrs. Locke, Hildegarde’s room-mate, who said the words, her eyes on Curlyhead. That person, in a towering rage, stood in a group of laughing men. They were plaguing him just to hear him swear. Mrs. Locke was still very white, her arm in a sling. But what a nice face she had!
“Do sit here,” Hildegarde urged, and finally prevailed. The new-comer said very little. Others stopped in passing and talked to Hildegarde. Mrs. Locke sat and looked at the sea. Before one o’clock a stiff breeze sprang up. It cleared the deck as if the people had been so many mosquitoes, for the Los Angeles began to roll. “I am a fair sailor,” said Mrs. Locke. “I shan’t mind.”
“Oh, this is where you are!” some one was saying familiarly just behind them, Hildegarde thought to Mrs. Locke. But on looking round she met the purser’s fascinating smile. Mrs. Locke got up instantly, murmuring something about feeling the need of a walk. The purser dropped comfortably into the vacant chair.
“Well, my dear, and how do you find yourself this morning?” As Miss Mar did not instantly respond, “Goin’ to be a good sailor?” he said, with a great display of teeth.
Hildegarde looked at him and decided he was a little idiotic, but that she must have dreamed the “dear.” She answered him upon that supposition. Still he talked rather queerly, she thought, till the first horn sounded for dinner.