"At any rate," he assured her, "yours is fluent, and I can only stammer in the language. Then, too," he went on, "there will be the trip across. That will be good for you. Sea air ought to be good for you." She winced, and so he hurried to add: "I think I need a bracer, too.—Are you a good sailor, Muriel?"
"I don't know. I've never been on the ocean. Are you?"
"I used to be." His eyes darkened. "It's a good many years since I have tried the water. But I know I shall be all right. I am in such splendid shape. Where is a newspaper? Wait a minute; I'll ring for one. Aren't you glad for newspapers now? They carry shipping advertisements, you see. We'll look up the sailings. We have found our first five heavens in America; we must find the sixth in France, and then we must come back here so that our seventh will happen on American soil."
Considering the fact that he did not wish to go, he was self-sacrificingly energetic. He was so energetic that they left Aiken on the next morning and, three days later, were aboard their steamer.
The Newberrys were out of town, still enjoying the rest that they had earned by settling Muriel for life. George Holt was, however, there and had come all the way to Hoboken to see them off.
"And as a German steamship captain once said to me when I asked him to lunch with me at my club," explained Holt, "it's a terribly long way from Hoboken to America."
"It was good of you to come," said Muriel, while the crowd of second-class passengers and the friends of passengers jostled about the first-class promenade deck. "Don't you wish you were coming along?"
"Better," said Stainton, already in his steamer cap.
"Thanks, no," said Holt, and then, as the siren blew: "If you'd asked my advice before you bought your tickets, old man, I'd have told you: 'Don't go to sea; but if you do go, don't play cards; but if you do play cards, cut the cards. They'll cheat you anyhow, but it'll take longer.'"
He waved a plump farewell and bared a bald head and waddled down the gang-plank. The band began to play, and Stainton and his wife went to their stateroom to unpack: they were travelling without a maid because Muriel had said something about wanting to secure one in France.