Her hand hid a portion of her face, but she smiled brightly and gratefully upon the stranger, whose manner was so friendly and whose brown eyes seen through his glasses looked so kindly at her.
“By Jove, you are hurt,” he continued, “and I did it. I can’t help you, as I’ve got to go, but my aunt is on board,—Mrs. Carter Hallam; find her, and tell her that her awkward nephew came near knocking your brains out. She has every kind of drug and lotion imaginable, from morphine to Pond’s extract, and is sure to find something for that bump. And now I must go or be carried off.”
He gave another twist to her hat and offered her his hand, and then ran down the plank to the wharf, where, with hundreds of others, he stood, waving his hat and cane to his friends on the ship, which began to move slowly from the dock. He was so tall that Bertha could see him distinctly, and she stood watching him and him alone, until he was a speck in the distance. Then, with a feeling of loneliness, she started for her state-room, where Mrs. Hallam, who had preceded her, was looking rather cross and doing her best to be sick, although as yet there was scarcely any motion to the vessel.
Reginald, whose train was late, had hurried at once to the ship, which he reached in time to see his aunt for a few moments only. Her last friend had said good-bye, and she was feeling very forlorn, and wondering where Bertha could be, when he came rushing up, bringing so much life and sunshine and magnetism with him that Mrs. Hallam began to feel doubly forlorn as she wondered what she should do without him.
“Oh, Rex,” she said, laying her head on his arm and beginning to cry a little, “I am so glad you have come, and I wish you were going with me. I fear I have made a mistake starting off alone. I don’t know at all how to take care of myself.”
Rex smoothed her hair, patted her hand, soothed her as well as he could, and told her he was sure she would get on well enough and that he would certainly join her in August.
“Where is Miss Leighton? Hasn’t she put in an appearance?” he asked, and his aunt replied, with a little asperity of manner:
“Yes; she came last night, and she seems a high and mighty sort of damsel. I am disappointed, and afraid I shall have trouble with her.”
“Sit down on her if she gets too high and mighty,” Rex said, laughingly, while his aunt was debating the propriety of telling him of the mistake and who Bertha was.
“I don’t believe I will. He will find it out soon enough,” she thought, just as the last warning to leave the boat was given, and with a hurried good-bye Rex left her, saying, as he did so: