“Had no idea it would affect me so.”
“It’s an instinct that’s down pretty deep, David.”
We watched the derricks swinging up their cargo. A crowd of young fellows, led by Frangipani’s ear-splitting tenor, were singing:
Give my regards to Broadway,
Remember me to Herald Square!
“We’re all like that,” said Brinsmade. “Must blow off steam occasionally. Would you believe it—I feel like jumping down there and doing the same thing!”
“I believe you.”
I glanced at my watch for the twentieth time, and went up to the upper deck and waited, scanning the horizon that was perplexed with the drift of the great city; scows, tugboats, coast liners and pilot boats,—a busy officious rabble. Then Bernoline came.
She was gloved and bonneted, an umbrella in her hand, veiled, as she had been on the day of departure. My heart sank. I was quite unprepared for this. In my rapt imagination I had expected the Bernoline of yesterday, impulsive and generous, a woman turning back into the eager unconsciousness of girlhood. This was more than a mask. She had retreated behind a barrier of impersonality,—an impersonality as stiff and starched and forbidding as the outward form.
“Monsieur Littledale, will you walk with me a moment?”
The voice was calm, self-possessed and resolved. I was so overcome, I had already such a sensation of futility and defeat, that I do not know that I even acknowledged her greeting as I turned and followed at her side.