CHAPTER IV
FIRE ON BOARD
Ruth sat for some moments in silence after she had read in the paper the short account of the missing girls. She had come to a pause in arranging her luxuriant hair for the night and, with it only half combed, leaned back in the small chair the stateroom afforded. Alice was reclining on her berth.
"Does it worry you, Ruth?" the younger girl finally asked.
"A little, yes." Ruth was unusually quiet, and there was a far-away look in her deep blue eyes.
"Oh, don't take it so seriously," rallied Alice, in her vivacious way, though at first she, too, had been affected by what she read.
"But it is serious."
"Oh, it may be only one of those 'newspaper yarns,' as Russ calls them."
"Alice, your language, of late—"