She spoke calmly, but he detected a less friendly tone. In a joking, incredulous manner he replied, “Well, then, I am a Catholic, too.”
“I am serious. My faith to me is a sacred thing. It has brought me a more tranquil spirit, a deeper knowledge, and a fuller conception of what I owe to others–and to myself.”
She was very much in earnest.
“Then I beg your pardon,” he said, “for speaking as I did.”
She tried to smile. “It is more my fault than yours. Religious discussions never do any good.”
Then she arose from her chair, and he knew from the exceeding dignity of her manner that 47his offence was serious. But this dignity met with cruel reverses. As she stood up, their side of the steamer was just starting on a downward lurch,–one of those long, deep, quivering plunges, apparently for the bottom of the sea, slow at first, but gaining in rapidity. And Elinor Marshall, instead of turning away with frigid ceremony, as she intended, first stood irresolute, as if taken unawares,–yet suspecting danger,–then tiptoed forward and rushed impetuously into the gentleman’s arms. These arms were forced to encircle the sudden arrival, otherwise both man and woman would have tumbled to the deck. Then, she pushed him hard against the rail. But even that was not the end. For there she held him, to her shame, pressing against him with the whole weight of her body. And this lasted, it seemed to her, an hour–a year–a lifetime of mortification and of helpless rage; the wind all the time screaming louder and louder with a brutish glee.
Her choking exclamations of chagrin were close to his ears, and he felt her hair against his face. But he was powerless to aid in her struggles to regain the lost equilibrium. However good his wishes, he could do nothing but 48stand as a cushion–poorly upholstered at that–between herself and the rail.
Finally, at the end of time, when the deck came up again, she backed away with flaming cheeks. Pats apologized; so did she. He wished to assist her to the cabin stairs, but the offer was ignored, and she left him.
