“Good evenin',” he said politely. “Won't you sit down?”
But Miss Dawes paid no attention to trivialities. She seemed much agitated.
“Cap'n Whittaker,” she began, “I just heard something that—”
The captain interrupted her.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but I think we'll pull down the curtains and have a little light on the subject. It gets dark early now, especially of a gray day like this one.”
He drew the shades at the windows and lit the lamp on the table. The red glow behind the panes of the stove door faded into insignificance as the yellow radiance brightened. The ugly portraits and the stiff old engravings on the wall retired into a becoming dusk. The old-fashioned room became more homelike.
“Now won't you sit down?” repeated Captain Cy. “Take that rocker; it's the most comf'table one aboard—so Bos'n says, anyhow.”
Miss Phoebe took the rocker, under protest. Her host remained standing.
“It's been a nice afternoon,” he said. “Bos'n—Emmie, of course—and I have been for a walk. 'Twan't her fault, 'twas mine. I kept her out of school. I was—well, kind of lonesome.”
The teacher's gray eyes flashed in the lamplight.