Nina dropped into her seat again, and continued her occupation of rolling her brown eyes around the room. The skylights were closed, the canaries were mute, and as breakfast progressed the agitation of the Merrimac increased. The wind whistled outside, every timber in the ship creaked in response. Collisions between the stewards were of frequent occurrence, with the result of black forms in brass buttons stretched forlornly on the floor, reaching out helpless arms toward their late burdens, that slipped aggravatingly under the tables and chairs and into the most obscure holes and corners of the room.
Two of the swinging lamps fell with a crash, and from a distant pantry came at intervals such loud reports of smashing dishes that Captain Fordyce began to frown in a heavy, displeased way.
The absurdity of his annoyance seemed so evident to Nina that she went off into another fit of laughter, in which he partially joined, while the quaking stewards threw her glances of gratitude.
After breakfast Captain Fordyce remarked, regretfully, “I am going to be busy, but I can provide occupation for you. Will you go and console Miss Marsden?”
Nina hung back. “I don’t want to. She is probably some fashionable girl.”
“I’ll wager there isn’t a society item in her head now. Come and see her,” and, seizing her gently resisting hand, he assisted her down the passage to a room not far from her own.
Nina with concealed awe stood before the tall, handsome Boston girl. Then, seeing that she was suffering, she lost all dread of her, and proceeded to administer consolation in a characteristic way that made Captain Fordyce swing himself off to his own concerns in deep inward satisfaction.
How dear she was to him! She would never know, never until she was older and had more sense. It was a misfortune that she was so young: and yet was it a misfortune? He did not regret it in some ways, and her girlish form danced before him over the deck, up the ladder, and across the bridge. Always there, never absent from him. Her name was written on the sky, the sea-birds shrieked “Nina!” He had scarcely a thought that was not in some way mixed up with her, his heart’s darling, the life of his life; his face shone with so telltale and radiant a light that the first officer turned on his heel and walked away lest he should be suspected of spying on his superior in command. However, as he walked he muttered with amused revenge, “There’s no fool like an old fool except a middle-aged fool.”
At noon the sea was still rough, the public rooms were deserted, and the staterooms full. But when the lunch bell rang, Nina demurely appeared, bringing with her a fresh, unruffled appearance, and, probably, her usual excellent appetite.
But there was something the matter with her, for when her husband rose from his seat with a relieved air and said, “I was afraid you were going to fail us,” she sat down without noticing him.