“’Tis strange how close a man’s ship is to his heart. I wish I did not have to see her.”
“There will be other ships for a man like you, Captain O’Shea,” said Nora.
“But never a voyage like this one, Miss Forbes.”
“I was thinking the same thought. For me there will never be a voyage like this, Captain O’Shea.”
“For misfortune and bedivilment generally, do ye mean?” he asked rather hastily.
“No, I do not mean that,” and she spoke in a low voice as if talking to herself. “I have enjoyed it. I suppose I am very queer and shocking, but I shall look back to this experience all my life and be glad that it came to me.”
The shipmaster wondered how much she meant. Her intonations told him that it was something personal and intimate. Perhaps other women had made love to Captain Michael O’Shea, but never one like Nora Forbes. Amid circumstances so strange and exotic, so utterly removed from the normal scheme of things, it was as natural as breathing that speech should be sincere and emotions genuine.
O’Shea had a curiously delicate sense of honor. He could not forget Gerald Van Steen. Nora had promised to marry him. Steering the conversation away from dangerous ground, he said:
“I have changed me opinion of Mr. Van Steen. He has behaved very well. He did not understand us at first.”
Nora was not as interested as before, and replied rather carelessly: