“Pardon, Messieurs.”
“All right—moving out.”
“Pardon, Mamzelle.”
The sailor hesitated, shuffled and touching his cap, repeated his request, unnoticed. As he stood there awkwardly, undecided, I stepped to her side, raising my hat.
“Pardon, Mademoiselle. Les matelots.”
She turned, and I felt her staring blankly at us, as though in the long blur of faces she were unable to separate friends, acquaintances and enemies. But, immediately perceiving the situation, she thanked me with a little nod and turning, said:
“Je vous dérange—mil pardons.”
There was a tired note in the modulated voice that I remember to this day,—the weariness of too much struggling.
From the sailors a chorus went up.
“Pas de quoi, Mamzelle!”