"Dear Daddy," she would write: "Having a splendid voyage so far, but wish you were here. The baby is having such a good time—so popular; and won two prizes to-day at the sports! With love, Lily."
They were all rather like that. She would drop them in the mailbox, with a tug of tenderness for the man who worked at home. Then she would go back to her chair and watch the sea, and recall the heat of the engine room below, and wonder, wonder——
It had turned warm again; the edges of the horizon were grey and at night a low mist lay over the water. Rooms were stifling, humid. The Red Un discarded pajamas and slept in his skin. The engine-room watch came up white round the lips and sprawled over the boat deck without speech. Things were going wrong in the Red Un's small world. The Chief hardly spoke to him—was grave and quiet, and ate almost nothing. The Red Un hated himself unspeakably and gave his share of the sovereign to the Purser's boy.
The Chief was suffering from lack of exercise in the air as well as other things. The girl's mother was not sleeping—what with heat and the memories the sea had revived. On the fifth night out, while the ship slept, these two met on the deck in the darkness—two shadows out of the past. The deck was dark, but a ray from a window touched his face and she knew him. He had not needed light to know her; every line of her was written on his heart, and for him there was no one at home to hold in tenderness.
"I think I knew you were here all the time," she said, and held out both hands.
The Chief took one and dropped it. She belonged to the person at home. He had no thought of forgetting that!
"I saw your name on the passenger list, but I have been very busy." He never lapsed into Scotch with her; she had not liked it. "Is your husband with you?"
"He could not come just now. I have my daughter."
Her voice fell rather flat. The Chief could not think of anything to say. Her child, and not his! He was a one-woman man, you see—and this was the woman.
"I have seen her," he said presently. "She's like you, Lily."