“You just wait and see,” said Ruth, quivering with indignation.
“Mercy, how you must hate him, Miss Clinton,” cried one of her house-mates.
“I only wish I were a man,” cried the other, clenching her fists.
“It would simplify matters tremendously,” came in dry, masculine tones from the outskirts of the group. They turned and discovered Randolph Fitts. He was smiling sympathetically.
“I don't quite see what you mean, Mr. Fitts,” said Ruth, after a moment.
“Because if you were a man, Miss Clinton, you wouldn't even think of hating him. You'd love him.”
Miss Clinton stared at him for a second or two and then, whirling, entered the hut. Her cheeks were burning. Who shall say whether the tears that sprang to her eyes as she fell to work scrubbing in the corner were of anger or self-pity?
Briefly, the situation became quite strained as the day wore on. Women gathered in little knots to discuss the unprecedented “nerve” of the men. By nightfall they were pretty thoroughly worked up over a matter that had mildly amused them at the outset of the day. A comparatively small proportion had cared one way or the other in the beginning. Most of them did not care at all. Given time, however, to digest the thought, aided by such seasoning as could be supplied by a half dozen determined and more or less eloquent voices, they came in the course of a few hours to the conclusion that they never had heard of anything so outrageous, and, to a woman, were ready to fight for little Mrs. Cruise's rights!
Several of the stewardesses and two or three women from the second cabin were avowed and bitter suffragettes. Indeed, two of the stewardesses, being English, were of the hatchet-wielding, brick-throwing element that made things so warm for the pained but bull-headed male population of London shortly before the Great War began. These ladies harangued their companions with great effect.
To have heard or witnessed the little gatherings at noon and at the close of work for the day, one might have been led to believe that a grave, portentous ques-tion of state was involved. Trifling and simple as all this may seem to the reader of this narrative, it serves a definite purpose. It reveals to a no uncertain degree the eagerness with which these castaways reached out hungrily for the slightest morsel that would satisfy the craving of active minds dulled by the constant, never-absent thought of self; minds charged with thoughts that centred on something thousands of miles away; minds that seldom if ever worked in harmony with hands that toiled.