It softened perceptibly. “Order must be maintained on a ship, Nina, or everything would run to confusion. We could not have all the different classes of passengers scrambling about together.”
“Of course not, but you might have spoken to that poor woman yourself.”
“That would not be ship etiquette, and, moreover, you must remember that a man who has knocked about the world as much as I have cannot be expected to have the sensibilities of a boarding-school miss.”
“That is no excuse,” she said, rebukingly. “One person is as good as another. You ought to be as kind to that woman as you are to me. Whether you feel like it or not—” Then a thought of her own shortcomings brought her to a sudden stop.
“You little prig, I am not as hard-hearted as you think. I am sorry for that woman, but what can I do? Money it would not be wise to give her, sympathy I cannot express as you did just now. Don’t you see,” eagerly, “that is just what I want you for, or, rather, one of the things I want you for. A kind-hearted, charitable little wife, what a help she would be to me!”
Nina made no reply, and, holding out a hand, he assisted her in clambering to the bow of the ship, immediately over the figured maiden who stood night and day with hands clasped on her breast, and the cold waves lapping her bare, white feet.
A sense of exultation came over the girl as they went down to the depths and then seemed to rise to the sky. The wind cut her face like a scourge, and the salt spray dashed high over her head; but with her eye embracing the boundless expanse, she felt that she could stand for ever gazing at the angry waste of waters. She had even begun to con over all the sea-poetry that she could remember, when her mind was recalled to her present surroundings by hearing the man at her side say, “Why did you not put on that pretty red cloak this morning?”
She turned rebukingly around. He was looking at her with his usual air of calm proprietorship. She could do nothing with him. He would not be formal. He would not be indifferent. And there was no one in sight. The decks were as desolate as the sea.
“There are disagreeable, exceedingly disagreeable memories connected with that cloak now,” she said, haughtily.