“I have not got very far,” I said humbly. “It’s not inspiring reading. I’ve got the wine glasses straightened out, but it seems a lot of fuss about nothing. Wine is wine, isn’t it? What difference, after all, does a hollow stem or green glass make—”
The rain was beating down on us. The “Perfect Butler” was weeping tears; as its chart of choice vintages was mixed with water. Miss Lee looked up, smiling, from the book.
“You prefer ‘a jug of wine,”’ she said.
“Old Omar had the right idea; only I imagine, literally, it was a skin of wine. They didn’t have jugs, did they?”
“You know the ‘Rubaiyat’?” she asked slowly.
“I know the jug of wine and loaf of bread part,” I admitted, irritated at the slip. “In my home city they’re using it to advertise a particular sort of bread. You know—‘A book of verses underneath the bough, a loaf of Wiggin’s home-made bread, and thou.”’
In spite of myself, in spite of the absurd verse, of the pouring rain, of the fact that I was shortly to place her dinner before her in the capacity of upper servant, I thrilled to the last two words.
“‘And thou,’” I repeated.
She looked up at me, startled, and for a second our glances held. The next moment she was gone, and I was alone on a rain swept deck, cursing my folly.
That night, in a white linen coat, I served dinner in the after house. The meal was unusually gay, rendered so by the pitching of the boat and the uncertainty of the dishes. In the general hilarity, my awkwardness went unnoticed. Miss Lee, sitting beside Vail, devoted herself to him. Mrs. Johns, young and blonde, tried to interest Turner, and, failing in that, took to watching me, to my discomfiture. Mrs. Turner, with apprehensive eyes on her husband, ate little and drank nothing.