Mrs. Wells stopped her talk abruptly. They walked on in silence, striding heavily to the heaving deck.
“Something what, mother?”
“Well.” The mother was joyful. “That’s ten ‘plumps’ before I can get a word from you. I’ll have to watch you, my dear. You are getting deep.”
Geraldine was elated that her keen mother had noted the change in her. It was all she could do to restrain herself from a voluble explanation. But here, fortunately, was a case where explanations would not help. She was practising her “latest self,” as Mr. Richard had called it, and resolutely putting out the earlier tenant, that fluent, superficial, aquarium child. So she was restraining every impulse to speak, and when speech was necessary she chose words deliberately.
Already she had scored a fine point. As a rule she was limp before her mother’s cross-examination, and the reason she never knew until now: always she had set the wheels of explanation flowing, sometimes without an interval between the mother’s questions. On two occasions lately when Mrs. Wells had shot her questions, Geraldine, with a slightly nervous quaking, had begun deliberately to count five before answering. As a result Mrs. Wells had jumped into the vacuum created by the silence, even before Geraldine had got to three; and in each case Mrs. Wells herself had supplied a satisfactory answer to her own question. Q.—“What were you doing prowling about the deck that night in Naples?” A.—“Looking for Walter, of course.” Q.—“Why did you disturb a man dressed in white?” A.—“You were so excited over Walter, of course.”
Mr. Freneau, the university instructor guide, stopped the walk for a moment to make his polite inquiries. While Walter’s condition was being made clear to him, Geraldine stepped back a few paces to “Mr. Richard’s” chair.
“I must see you,” she said, “before you talk with mother. Do you mind taking the name of Mr. Richard? I fear I have blundered in trying to explain our trip to mother.”
“Not at all,” he agreed good-naturedly. “It is a good old name. Shall I think up a pleasant Christian name to match it, or have you arranged that, too?”
“Yes, do. But please be careful. I see now how rash and impulsive I was to go off with you. Can you manage to be a friend of the Captain’s, too?”
“I’ll arrange that instantly. We have already passed the time of day. Fortunately I did not give him my name. He’s the sort that doesn’t ask for names. I know nobody on board. Except for your absence I have had delightful days and nights of hermitage. I’d make a first-rate Trappist. Since Naples I have spoken barely a word to anyone except the bathroom steward. Forgive me for being garrulous—I am just stored up with conversation now.”