How she hated to have this end, Cynthia thought. Paris, surely, wasn’t going to be half so much fun. And never to see any of these nice people again. ... Miss Mitchall for instance. It didn’t seem possible that you could get to know a person so well and then let them slip out of your life. Stasia was going to stay in Cherbourg for a week. Johnnie ...
“Where do you go, Johnnie?” she asked.
“Straight through Paris and down to Provence. I’m studying the poetry of Mistral, who, if you don’t happen to know, was the greatest poet of southern France. Why?”
But she turned to O’Neill. “And you’re going to Ireland, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Better come along,” he suggested, “it’s a bit of heaven.”
“Oh yes, there’s a song about that, isn’t there,” she laughed. Weren’t any of these people going to be in Paris? Suppose she couldn’t get in touch with the editor she had come to see? Suppose the job didn’t materialize? Suppose ... well, these were nice cheerful meditations to have in the middle of a party! She bet Miss Mitchall wasn’t harboring any such gloomy thoughts. Suddenly Cynthia wished there was some way, some nice, tactful, subtle manner in which she could help the little governess without her knowing it. But a loan was out of the question. Cynthia herself hadn’t much more than the price of a ticket home. And you don’t pick up purses in mid ocean.
“I wish there was a Duchess on board, with a million pounds sterling and eighteen children, and that she would fall overboard and I could save her life,” was her fantastic thought. She must have said it out loud for Johnnie murmured, “Heaven help us!” and then glanced at the little governess. “Oh, you mean for Miss Mitchall. But why stop at eighteen when you’re wishing!”
Cynthia spluttered into giggles and felt better. In fact she could scarcely eat her dinner for all that was going on around her. Bright balloons bumped her elbow, a rain of multicolored confetti sprinkled the table cloth and brilliant streamers of paper flying through the air, must be picked up and returned, lacing the dining saloon with carnival colors.
After dinner there was a dance in the lounge. Cynthia had looked forward to it all day and the day before, but after a few waltzes and foxtrots it began, somehow, to fall flat. Everyone else seemed to be having a perfectly gorgeous time. Even little Miss Mitchall was plentifully supplied with partners but their enjoyment seemed only to increase Cynthia’s gloom as every step she made took her nearer to the time of leaving the ship, to the dreaded unknown.
She knew what it was. She had done too little work for days. This wasn’t the first time that idleness had made her miserable, and it would be useless to explain this to her puzzled partners. Between dances she would slip off and dive below for her sketch pad. Drawing would bring the relief it always had brought and as for models, they were all about her. All she needed was her book to make a record, not just of the clever costumes around her, but of the movement and the groups that the dancers made. Why not get it? Left, for the moment, between dances without a partner, Cynthia decided that she would, and sped down to the cabin.