"Certainly," she answered; "but I am here only for a few moments. I'll soon have to be running downstairs—I mean 'below'—to look after my husband."
The stranger's handsome face expressed concern, yet the concern, it immediately appeared, was not because of Muriel's marital state, but because of her husband's physical plight.
"I am so sorry," he said, taking Jim's chair. "He is ill then, your husband?"
Muriel did not seem to like this.
"Not very," said she. "He is"—she searched for a phrase characteristic of Stainton—"he is just a bit under the weather."
"So," sighed the stranger, unduly comprehending. "Ah, perhaps Madame has made more voyages than has he?"
"No, this is the first trip across for both of us."
"Indeed? But you seem to be so excellent a sailor! Is it only youth that makes you so?"
"I don't know." She was clearly, her will to the contrary, a little flattered. "I seem to take naturally to the water."
"But not so your husband!"