“Yes, ’Steban,” she said, very gently, but with decision. “Once or twice when the company gave you a bonus.”
He was silent, and she went on. “We will be extremely formal with each other, and, if you can bring yourself to it, I wish you would call me Miss Danvers when we are alone. I will call you Captain Fordyce, and pretend that I only got acquainted with you yesterday. I hope no one on the steamer knows that we are married. What are you shivering for?”
“A fly bit me,” he said, mendaciously.
“Then,” she continued, “insensibly and by degrees I shall become attached to you. By the time we reach England, I shall be a little bit in love with you. I hope you will send me away off to some place like London, where I can write long letters to you. You will reply to them; then, after a time, I shall be frantically in love with you just like Juliet with Romeo, and I shall not be able to live without you.”
“Glory to Shakespeare, darling!” he said, rapturously, and he embraced her.
“But we must begin at once,” she said, gravely, unwinding his arm from her waist. “We have lost too much time already. I wish you good night, Captain Fordyce.”
“I wish you good night, Miss Danvers,” and he took her in his arms.
She struggled away from him. “You deceitful creature!”
“But we were not to begin fooling till to-morrow. I distinctly understood that.”
“I am beginning to-night,” she said, gravely; and, sweeping him a curtsey, she endeavoured to walk in a stilted fashion down the deck, but was obliged to break into an undignified run because he was pursuing her.