He was almost overcome, both at the confession and at her renunciation. To tell the truth, among the older Canadian officers he had felt rather a boy. Her promise reinstated him in his own esteem. He was a man, and a girl was offering to give something up if he wished it. It helped a lot.
That evening he laid out his entire equipment in his small cabin, and invited her to see it. He put his mother's picture behind his brushes, where the other one had been, and when all was ready he rang for a stewardess.
"I am going to show a young lady some of my stuff," he explained. "And as she is alone I wish you'd stay round, will you? I want her to feel perfectly comfortable."
The stewardess agreed, and as she was an elderly woman, with a son at the front, a boy like Cecil, she went back to her close little room over the engines and cried a little, very quietly.
It was unfortunate that he did not explain the presence of the stewardess to the girl. For when it was all over, and she had stood rather awed before his mother's picture, and rather to his surprise had smoothed her hair with one of his brushes, she turned to him outside the door.
"That stewardess has a lot of nerve," she said. "The idea of standing in the doorway, rubbering!"
"I asked her," he explained. "I thought you'd prefer having some one there."
She stared at him.
II
Lethway had won the ship's pool that day. In the evening he played bridge, and won again. He had been drinking a little. Not much, but enough to make him reckless.