Eleanor Wheelock's face looked almost colorless by contrast with her somber dress, and there was a curious hardness in it, while Anthea, who remembered Leeson's speech in the Shasta's cabin, wondered whether she were making the very dainty garment for herself, since it was suggestive of wedding finery.
"That should be very effective," she said at length. "You intend to wear it?"
Eleanor looked up from her sewing. "Yes," she said, "I believe I shall."
Something in her voice struck Anthea as out of place in the circumstances, for one does not sew bitterness into wedding attire, while the suggestion of uncertainty which the speech conveyed was more curious still. Anthea felt there must be something more than the loss of her father to account for her companion's attitude; but that was naturally a thing she could not mention.
"I think I could venture to offer you my sympathy in what you have had to bear," she said. "I was very distressed to see the brief account in the newspaper."
Eleanor laid down her sewing, and looked at her steadily. "Why should you be?"
It was a disconcerting question, and asked with a still more disconcerting insistency. Anthea could not very well say that she did not know, nor yet admit that the news had grieved her because of her sympathy with Jimmy. Still, though she shrank from her, she desired this girl's good-will, and she compelled herself to an effort.
"In any case, I was sincerely sorry," she said. "Although I only met you that evening on board the Shasta, one could say as much without presuming. Besides, when we were away in the Sorata your brother did a good deal to make the cruise pleasant for Nellie Austerly and me."
"When he was Valentine's deck-hand?" and Eleanor looked at her with a little sardonic smile. "You no doubt allowed him to forget it occasionally, and Jimmy was grateful. In fact, he admitted as much to me. He was always foolishly impressionable."
Anthea felt her face grow warm, and though she was as a rule courageous, she was glad that she sat in the shadow. In several respects her companion's last suggestion appeared almost insufferable.