“Here, give me that knife, you will cut yourself,” said Captain Fordyce. He laid a thin slice on her plate, then, in a state of utter beatification, for he had had his own way in every particular during a short conversation they had had on the bridge, he sat watching her eat it.
“Three days from now you will be having your breakfast on the Merrimac,” he said, softly.
Nina made a wry face and tried to bury her face in her coffee-cup. He laughed, and, having finished his breakfast, got up and strolled about the room, looking at the pictures hung on the walls.
A quarter of an hour later Nina was alone in the hall with him. He had exchanged a calm good-bye with Mrs. Danvers, after having promised to return to dinner. His leave-taking with his fiancée promised to be more lengthy.
“Oh, do make haste,” she said, inhospitably handing him his hat. “I have my canaries to do, and the dog and cat to feed, and ever so many things beside.”
“Tell me again that you are sorry for being naughty,” he said, gently, “for throwing your cap in the water, and hiding in the rushes.”
“I’m sorry I was sorry,” she said, stoutly; but at the same time, lest she should hurt his feelings, she gave his fingers a gentle, a very gentle pressure.
“You angel,” he said, not rapturously nor passionately, but rather as if he were stating a very commonplace and threadbare fact.
She dropped his fingers as suddenly as if they had turned to red-hot metal in her grasp, and turned her head very far away from him.
“And you will find time among your multitudinous occupations to help your mamma pack,” he went on.