“I do not believe I can go now; I am hardly strong enough,” Edith said; “but I will come some day if she does not get well; and now carry her this soft shawl; it will answer for a pillow. I do not need it at all, and Norah shall take her some oranges and wine.”
Mary demurred at the shawl, but Edith insisted, and remembered the oranges and wine, which so refreshed the child that she slept soundly that night with Edith’s shawl for a pillow, and a dream of Edith in her heart.
The next day she was better, and Mary took the shawl back to Edith, who was again on deck, with her husband standing beside her.
“Poor thing,” Edith said, kindly; “I am glad she is better. Tell her I’ll come and see her when I can, and as soon as she is able to be moved I’ll have her brought up to my stateroom for a while; it must be dreadful there with the windows shut and the air so close and confined.”
She glanced at her husband, whose face was overcast.
“Who is this woman and who is the child you propose moving into our stateroom?” he asked, stiffly, when Mary was gone; and Edith replied by telling him what she knew of Gertie Westbrooke and her mother.
Colonel Schuyler could reproach Edith for seeming cold and proud toward the Lyles, to whom he felt that he owed something, but he was far from wishing her to treat people like Mary Rogers with any show of familiarity. There his pride came in strongly, and he said to her at once:
“You can send the child any delicacy you choose, and I will see that her window is opened so she can have air, but she must not be brought to our stateroom; and if she slept on your shawl, as it seems she did, I desire you to give it to her altogether. You surely will never wear it again. Norah?” And he turned to their maid, who stood near:
“Take this shawl to your cousin’s child and tell her Mrs. Schuyler sent it, and wishes her to keep it.”
Norah looked wonderingly at him, while Edith blushed painfully, but neither said a word, and after Norah was gone with the shawl Colonel Schuyler continued: “I do not wish to distress you, my dear, or to interfere with your actions unnecessarily, but I think it just as well not to have too much to do with the lower class unless, as in the case of the Lyles, we are under obligations to them. And as this Rogers child is nothing to us, you are not called upon to visit her. She will soon recover. Such people always do. I’ll go now and speak about the window.”