At the door of Number 15 she was arrested by Jimmy. He was standing in the doorway, his head well back, his hands in his trouser pockets.
"Marcella!" he whispered proudly. "Look!"
She made herself conscious of him and looked. On the outer bunk was a crumpled mass of clothing that was heaving up and down and snoring loudly.
"He's there all right. I got him up when he wanted to be on the floor. He pinched my arm fearful. He's very strong, my Daddy is! He didn't pinch it on purpose, he couldn't help it."
Pushing back the sleeve of his jersey, he showed her a red mark as a soldier might show his scars.
"Now he's fast asleep. Marcella, isn't he making a funny noise?" he added with the queerest cross between amusement and puzzlement on his small face. She suddenly realized what he was saying.
"Oh, you little brave man," she cried, taking him up in her arms and kissing him. He wriggled down quickly, and stood in the doorway again, on sentry duty. She forgot to take him with her. She had forgotten everything save her instinct to be alone with her misery.
CHAPTER X
It was not until the Oriana left Port Said that Louis spoke to Marcella again. Three times he wrote to her demanding his money. Three times something got beyond and above the pride that told her to send it to him and have nothing else to say to him, and she refused definitely to give him the money; she asked him to come and talk to her. But he entrenched himself behind the Ole Fred gang and speedily helped to make it the nuisance of the ship. The germ of self-confidence and courage that was entirely missing in his make-up was replaced by bombast under the combined influence of whisky and boredom. Some day, perhaps, the iniquity of fastening up a small world of people in a ship for six weeks with nothing compulsory to do will dawn upon shipping companies, and the passengers will be forced to work, for their own salvation. On board ship people drift; they drift into flirtation which rapidly becomes either love-making or a sex-problem; they drift into drinking or, if they have no such native weakness, they become back-biting and bad tempered.