“You’ve studied her well, since you—since you came aboard?”
—“Yes, yes, to be sure I have. And she’s worth her name. Don’t you think it was mighty fine of—of Mr. Davidson to name her after you—the Belle Helène?”
“He never did. If he had, why?”
“Don’t ask such questions, with the glass falling as it is,” I said, pulling up the racks to restrain the dancing tumblers.
“Oh, don’t joke!” she said. “Harry!”
“Yes, Helena,” said I.
“I’m afraid!”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But we seem so little and the sea so big. And it’s getting black, and the fog is coming. Look—you can’t see the shore-line any more now.”
It was as she said. The swift bank of vapor had blotted out the low-lying shores entirely. We sailed now in a narrowing circle of mist. I saw thin points of moisture on the port lights. And now I began to close the ports.