“And another happy thought! I’ll come and watch you do it.”
She did not notice that Mensmore’s face clouded at this otherwise pleasant intimation. Nevertheless, he raced off with her to the saloon and seated himself at the writing-table. But before he placed pen to paper, Phyllis bending over him meanwhile, he suddenly exclaimed, in a tone of annoyance:
“Now, what a bore this is. I don’t know how to address the letter to make sure of reaching him at once, and it is very important that it should not miss him.”
“Father will know. Let us ask him.”
“No,” said Mensmore judicially, “I will row across the harbor to the Florio-Rubattino office, find out the exact thing, and send off the letter. Back in half-an-hour. Be good!”
And before Phyllis could argue the matter he was at the gangway shouting for a boat.
She blew a kiss to him as he shot over the narrow strip of water inside the mole, and little realized that Mensmore was saying to himself:
“That was a narrow squeak. Never again, as long as I live, will I take another man’s name. It causes no end of bother, and at the most unexpected moments.”
He did not trouble the Florio-Rubattino people, as he well knew that a letter addressed to the White Star offices would insure any communication reaching his friend.
The context of the missive, as finally indited at the post-office, explains his hesitancy to write it in the presence of his fiancée.