“I can do them, thanks, Jim,” said Norah quickly. No one else should touch the cushions he had given her.
“Old duffer!” said Jim, very low—understanding well. They smiled at each other.
“I wish they’d end it,” Major Edwards was saying to his wife. “This waiting is worse than the actual saying good-bye!”
“I wonder why they don’t come,” she answered. “They only wanted daylight, didn’t they?
“Yes—and the sooner the boats get away, the better, I should imagine,” he said. They resumed their hard walk, up and down—up and down.
Overhead, on the bridge, there seemed a mild stir. The captain could be seen, watching the German ship through his glasses. Then he directed them to another point of the horizon, astern. Presently he disappeared, returning almost immediately with a telescope.
John West came round a corner at full speed.
“Smoke astern!”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know—another catch for the enemy, very likely. What luck for her if she gets two liners in one day!”