"So you thought I was talking to you?"
She turned to me laughingly after the smaller bunch of loneliness had been soothed and sent away.
"I was—mistaken——"
"But I'm sure I should have offered to tell you a story—if I had supposed that it would do you any good," she continued.
"Almost anything—any sound of a human voice would do me good now," I answered desperately, and with that sky-rocket sort of spontaneity which you feel you can afford once or twice in a lifetime.
"You're alone?"
"Yes—and miserable."
Her blue eyes were very frank and friendly, and I immediately straightened up with a hope that we might discover some mutual interest nearer and dearer than the Boston Tea-Party.
That's one good thing about a seafaring life—the preliminaries that you are able to do without in making friends. If you meet a nice woman who discovers that her son went to Princeton with your father's friend's nephew you at once take it for granted that you may tell her many things about yourself that are not noted down in your passport.
"You're American—of course?" this English girl asked next.