Molly meekly dropped the perfumery back into her hand-bag, and hung the bag upon a large hook beside the plate-glass mirror.
“You scare me to death, Polly,” she said, with a shiver. “I almost wish I weren’t going to sea.”
“Oh, nonsense, you’ll like the ocean when you get used to its tricks,” returned Pauline, with the assurance of an old sailor. “How big your eyes have grown, Miss Scared-to-death! And they are just the color of purple heliotrope.”
“The washed-out kind you mean, I suppose, Polly?”
“No, I don’t, I mean the washed-in kind that doesn’t fade,” said Pauline, giving Molly’s auburn hair a vicious little pull. “You know your eyes are perfectly lovely.”
“Come, girls.” Mrs. Rowe appeared in their doorway from her stateroom across the passage. “Let us go on deck; the air above will be fresher.”
“So it will, mamma. Besides, we want to see the land every minute we can,” sighed Molly.
As they mounted the stairs of the companion-way side by side, she grasped her mother’s hand and held it fast. Now that the longed-for hour of sailing had actually arrived, she felt an unexpected reluctance to leaving the solid earth behind her and trusting herself upon the heaving waters. But she said nothing more about this to Pauline. Pauline would not have understood her dread. Neither for that matter would fearless Kirke have understood it.
“I don’t see your father and the others, Molly,” said Mrs. Rowe rather anxiously when she and the girls stood on the crowded deck. “I hope they won’t lose sight of Donald.”
Pauline sprang upon a neighboring settee, where she could look down on the heads of the people.