Joan dissembled the odd emotion with which she recognized the man, and turned to Fowey.
"What boat is that, do you know, Hubert?"
Fowey raked her with an indifferent glance, fore and aft. "Belongs to the New Bedford Line," he announced—"can't make out her name—connects at New Bedford for the boats to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Ever been up that way?"
"No. What's it like?"
"Pretty islands. Don't know Martha's Vineyard very well, but Nantucket's my old stamping-ground. Go up there in the middle of the summer—about now—and you'll find every actor and actress you ever heard of, and then some. Great place. Wish we were going there."
"Don't be silly...."
The boats were drawing apart. Joan looked back for the last sight she was ever to have of her husband.
Though she couldn't have known this, she sighed a little, in strange depression.
Perplexed, she tried vainly to analyze her emotion: was it regret—or jealousy?
Of a sudden, in the heart of that immense crowd, with Fowey attentive at her elbow, she was conscious of a feeling of intense loneliness.