She uttered a disturbed exclamation. “Are we going to have it rough?”
He gave her a curtly polite, “Yes.” It was not his habit to talk much. He preferred to listen. This she seemed to divine, and forthwith poured out an animated stream of babble on the probability of their having bad weather during their voyage to England.
For several courses Nina was left to herself, and occupied the time by studying the passenger list and making a careful examination of the faces about her. She avoided the head of the table. The features of the man sitting there were as well-known to her as her own, although this evening his uniform did seem to give him a strange unfamiliarity of aspect.
The lady to whom he was talking looked forty or thereabout, though she was chattering in a babyish way that Nina, in spite of her youth, could scarcely emulate. Her face was unattractive,—a combination of faded beauty and silliness; but one only and beautiful charm she possessed, namely, her hands. They were wonderfully white and pretty, and she made them do extra duty by keeping her elbows on the table the greater part of the time.
Nina’s eyes wandered from Mrs. Grayley to her neighbour, a tall, plain-featured man whose benevolent blue eyes chastened the warlike aspect of his immense blond moustache and aquiline nose. Under his right eyebrow was a gold-rimmed glass; and while she covered it with a prolonged stare, she gathered from his conversation that he was an officer in an English regiment, and that he had been making a tour of the principal American cities.
Suddenly he met her glance, and, wrinkling his forehead, let his glass fall with a click on the shiny buttons of his coat, with the effect of making her start slightly. As he was looking at her, her occupation in his direction was gone; so she glanced cautiously at his left-hand neighbour, who had not yet got beyond the entrées, and was obstinately demanding something that the menu did not contain, and yet that he thought he had discovered there.
Nina in awed wonderment gazed at the expanse of red throat presented, as the determined man twisted his head to remonstrate with the steward. This was a real live English knight, Sir Hervey Forrest. She should be quite frightened of him. He had a round, thick head, bristling gray hairs, pompous figure, and overpowering manner. Surely he should have had the chief seat at the table,—he and his wife, the gray, smooth, elegant, distinguished little mouse beside him, who rarely opened her mouth, except to put food in it in the daintiest way possible. Their names headed the passenger list at least, and Nina was just reading them over again, when a growl from the knight caught her attention.
He had come off second best in the dispute with the steward, and was now addressing her husband. “You, sir,—you ought to have your bills of fare printed. Your passengers, sir, get lost in this maze of writing.”
Nina trembled, and gazed apprehensively at Captain Fordyce, who was coolly surveying the inflamed face turned toward him.
“We don’t carry a printing-press, sir. The company has expense enough in other ways.”