She must be torn to pieces with nervous terror, such terror as probably agitated trembling brides for the first few hours after leaving the parental roof, and in deep and intense sympathy her husband gently touched the tiny gloved hand lying on her lap.
He wished to see her whole face, not a section of pink cheek.
She moved her head abruptly, and presented to him not tears and dejection, but a pouting mouth and a frowning brow. Her agitation was gone. She was worrying over some other matter.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, wonderingly.
She favoured him with one of her indignant stares.
“That woman is not my mother, why don’t you tell me who she is?”
Captain Fordyce was aghast. Then he looked over his shoulder. He was afraid the man behind had heard her low, wrathful tones. Where in the name of all that was wonderful had she picked up this information? He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it feebly; he must have time to think over this statement, and make up his mind what to answer her; so with an incoherent excuse he left her, and hurried in the direction of the smoking-car.
Before they reached Boston he was again beside her; but he made no effort at conversation, and as if she had forgotten her remark to him, she occupied herself by an animated observation of everything about her. She was intensely interested, intensely pleased, and watched his every movement like a delighted little cat.
“Are we going to stop, already?” she exclaimed, when their carriage, after lumbering through street after street, pulled up in front of a hotel.
He drew out his watch. “I can give you two hours before the Merrimac claims me, but you had better have something to eat first.”