“It goes on?”
“Well, it’s too late.”
“Too late?”
“Well, you’ll see. There’ll be a row.”
This wasn’t comforting, but I didn’t repeat it on deck. Mrs. Nettlepoint returned early to her cabin, professing herself infinitely spent. I didn’t know what “went on,” but Grace Mavis continued not to show. I looked in late, for a good-night to my friend, and learned from her that the girl hadn’t been to her. She had sent the stewardess to her room for news, to see if she were ill and needed assistance, and the stewardess had come back with mere mention of her not being there. I went above after this; the night was not quite so fair and the deck almost empty. In a moment Jasper Nettlepoint and our young lady moved past me together. “I hope you’re better!” I called after her; and she tossed me over her shoulder—“Oh yes, I had a headache; but the air now does me good!”
I went down again—I was the only person there but they, and I wanted not to seem to dog their steps—and, returning to Mrs. Nettlepoint’s room, found (her door was open to the little passage) that she was still sitting up.
“She’s all right!” I said. “She’s on the deck with Jasper.”
The good lady looked up at me from her book. “I didn’t know you called that all right.”
“Well, it’s better than something else.”
“Than what else?”