“Is it not because you both try to say sharp-edged words to each other, Helen?” said Grey Stuart, seating herself by her schoolfellow’s side, and beginning to work. “Mr Harley is always very kind and nice to me.”
“Pah! He treats you like a child!” said Helen, contemptuously.
“Well,” said Grey, smiling in her companion’s face, “I suppose I am a child to him. Here comes Mr Rosebury.”
“I wish Mr Rosebury were back in England,” said Helen, petulantly. “He wearies me with his constant talk about the beauties of nature. I wish this dreadful voyage were over!”
“And we have hardly begun it, Helen,” said Grey, quietly; but noticing that her companion’s face was flushed, she said, anxiously, “Are you unwell, dear?”
“Unwell? No.”
There was something strange in Helen’s behaviour, but she had the skill to conceal it, as the newly-appointed chaplain of Sindang came slowly up and began to talk to Helen in his dry, measured way, trying to draw her attention to the beauty of the evening, but without avail, for she seemed distraite, and her answers were sometimes far from pertinent to the subject in question.
Just then Mrs Doctor Bolter came bustling up, looking bright, eager, and full of animation.
She darted an uneasy look at her brother, and another at Helen, which was returned by one full of indifference, almost defiance, as if resenting the little lady’s way, and Mrs Bolter turned to Grey Stuart.
“Where is my husband, my dear?” she said. “I declare this ship is so big that people are all getting lost! Oh! here he comes! Now there—just as if there were no sailors to do it—he must be carrying pails of water!”