An intensive politeness caused him to cut his bread carefully with his knife. And then before he put it into his mouth he said, in an abrupt, but well modulated Klondyke manner, "'Scuse me, lady, won't yer 'ave a bite yerself?"
The deferential tone belonged to the mentor of his youth, yet the speech itself seemed to owe little to Eton College.
"No, thank you," said Miss Burton. "I'm not hungry." And then, seeing his look of embarrassment, "Now get on with it. Don't mind me."
This was a woman of the world. She was a ripe student of human nature, at least of the trousers-wearing section of human nature. Not for many a day had she been so taken by a specimen of an always remarkable genus as by this boy with the deep eyes, whose clothes and speech and behavior were like nothing on earth.
A true amateur of the male sex, she watched this quaint specimen eating bread and cheese. Presently he raised his tankard aloft, said, "Good 'ealth, lady," in a shy manner, and drank half of it at a gulp.
"When are you going to sea again?" asked Miss Burton, conversationally.
"Never going to sea no more," said the young man, with a strange look in his eyes.
"What—never?" She seemed surprised.
"Never no more. I'll never sail agen afore the mast. I'd sooner starve. It's—it's——"
"It's what?"