"Hern? Notions? Oh—I remember her now."
Flaxley saw her cross the passageway to the rest-room and sit down on a couch. After a time she went up-stairs.
It was after two o'clock—Flaxley remembered the time very well—when Mrs. Pentle left the rest-room; so she must have ordered her car and gone to Gloucester right away, for she was in Duncan's store, according to the minutes of Fred Lichens, the old bookkeeper, before four o'clock.
"Is Captain Crudden here?" was her first question.
"He is. He's down the wharf—ready to sail in your vessel," said Mr. Duncan. "Shall I call him up?"
"Please do."
Mr. Duncan hailed from the steps of the store, and Peter came; but no smiling shipper's helper who looked like a boy was this Peter.
He was smiling enough, but there was already the hint in the set jaws, the wary, far-looking eyes of the master mariner, the ocean battler. Her confidence ebbed; she was in an atmosphere of men's work that she could never get away from in Duncan's store, and almost timidly she heard herself asking:
"Will you tell me, Captain Crudden, what was wrong with the work in the store? I thought you liked it."
"Nothing wrong, Mrs. Pentle."