Nina followed him to the dining-saloon. On entering it he said: “No ladies this morning; just what I predicted. Mrs. Grayley is not, Lady Forrest is not, only a handful of men at the table. So if you open your obstinate little mouth you will have to talk to me, Red Riding Hood.”
Nina silently took her place with Captain Eversleigh opposite her, and Mr. Delessert next her. She would feel very lonely without any members of her own sex, and as for the staring eyes of that red lobster, Sir Hervey Forrest, she would not meet them. So she shyly kept her head bent over her plate until forced to lift it by the prolonged catastrophe of breakfast.
The heavy pitching of the Merrimac caused the dishes to slide gracefully from one end of the table to the other. However, by way of change, the ship occasionally abandoned the rising and falling motion, and, taking a sudden and unexpected roll, caused a number of the articles on the table to jump frantically over the guards and precipitate themselves into the passengers’ laps.
When Captain Eversleigh received fair in the chest a loaf of bread that sent his eye-glass dashing through the air and thoroughly upset his usual British equanimity, Nina gave vent to her feelings of amusement by indulging in a burst of uncontrollable girlish laughter.
The subject of her amusement glanced benevolently at her, and the other semi-seasick, preoccupied, and grumbling men at the table listened appreciatively to the sound of the fresh, clear young voice, some of them even joining in with her.
Captain Fordyce looked on, well pleased to have her admired, but suddenly exclaimed: “Take care, Nina Stephana!”
Two cruet-stands came clattering down from the rack overhead, and, spinning about “quick and more quick in giddy gyres,” shed at last ruin and desolation over Mr. Delessert and herself.
In spite of receiving half the contents of a bottle of sauce on his black head, Mr. Delessert looked inquiringly at her through the dark brown streams of the condiment pouring down each side of his Grecian nose.
“A saucy stare,” muttered Captain Fordyce, while Nina, on whom his utterance of her Christian name had made no impression, answered her neighbour’s incredulous and, to her, incomprehensible glance by a suppressed laugh, as she slipped from her seat to follow his example of retiring to perform necessary ablutions.
“You are only a trifle devastated,” said Captain Fordyce, rising too, and taking one napkin after another that his servant hastily handed him to whisk off her shoulders. “You need not go away. Your gown is not injured.”