"I've thought that, too," said Mrs. March, gently.
The cabin door opened, and they heard Hetty's laugh near. It had the peculiarly resonant quality of a voice on deck in a calm, heard by one below. It also sounded happy. Medbury slipped away to his room.
The last words Mrs. March had spoken were in his mind, and he put his book away in bitterness of spirit. He heard Hetty descend into the cabin, speak to her mother, and then pass his door, going up the forward companionway. A sudden wild impulse to be aggressive seized him, and, leaving his room, he, too, ascended to the deck.
She was standing outside the cabin door, and she turned and smiled as he drew near.
"I thought it was your watch below," she said pleasantly.
He did not even look at her, but, hurrying to the booby-hatch, threw open the sliding hood and descended.
"Now I've done it," he said, as he seated himself upon a coiled hawser. "What a fool I can be when I really put my mind to it!"
But even with this repulse of her he was not satisfied; he wondered why he had not at least looked at her with scorn, and he thought of several bitter speeches that would have been better than silence.