"I meant relations of the Captain's," said the stewardess shortly, eyeing them with more disfavour than ever.
"You seem to have the Captain greatly on your mind," said Anna-Felicitas. "He is no relation of ours."
"You're not even friends, then?" asked the stewardess, pausing to stare round at them at a turn in the stairs as they followed her down arm-in-arm.
"Of course we're friends," said Anna-Rose with some heat. "Do you suppose we quarrel?"
"No, I didn't suppose you quarrelled with the Captain," said the stewardess tartly. "Not on board this ship anyway."
She didn't know which of the two she disliked most, the short girl or the long girl.
"You seem to be greatly obsessed by the Captain," said Anna-Felicitas gently. "Obsessed!" repeated the stewardess, tossing her head. She was unacquainted with the word, but instantly suspected it of containing a reflection on her respectability. "I've been a widow off and on for ten years now," she said angrily, "and I guess it would take more than even the Captain to obsess me."
They had reached the glass doors leading into the dining-room, and the stewardess, having carried out her orders, paused before indignantly leaving them and going upstairs again to say, "If you're friends, what do you want to know his name for, then?"
"Whose name?" asked Anna-Felicitas.
"The Captain's," said the stewardess.