"Tsh-sh!" Then she prompted Hugh: "And so——?"
"So you must sing without any urging but mine."
Her lips parted in droll repudiation, but he went on.
"And you'll give the encore."
"Oh, when did you learn to talk? I—w-i-l-l—n-o-t!"
Once more the actor tried to break in, but his wife eagerly whispered: "Let them alone! Let—them—alone!"
"Success hangs on it," persisted Hugh, "and success here means success all over the boat. It will mean their" (the Gilmores') "safety; while failure— Think of it, Miss Ramsey.... Don't you see?"
She stared an instant and then with a sign of distress and aversion gasped: "Go away! Go away!" and dropping to the berth cast her face into its pillow. With gentle speed Mrs. Gilmore pressed Hugh aside and took his place. The stamping and pounding, for a moment suspended, broke forth afresh. "Send him away!" cried Ramsey, her voice muffled by the pillow, one eye fitfully glancing from it, and one arm waving backward. "All advice rejected! Send him away! Send them both."
With such dignity as they could save, the two outcasts fled, meeting and turning back half the stage company while the actor's wife shut the door.
"Is she ill?" asked the gaping girls. "Is she ill?"