Joseph, as was natural, saw it at once, but he was too happy to be easily annoyed. He rose as she did, stepped out on the gallery, and so away, merely whispering to himself, half aloud--
"Poor Susan! It must be a disappointment, and hard to bear. But she is not half as bad and worldly as she pretends. She will be ashamed and sorry enough when next we meet. My cue is to forget this little tantrum altogether."
CHAPTER XXIV.
["THEY MET, 'TWAS IN A CROWD."]
It was long before Gilbert Roe could go to sleep, and the occupants of adjoining chambers had abundant opportunity to sympathise with him. He could not rest peacefully in his bed, and was driven to get up and pace his room after his neighbours had retired. He thought he would smoke, but could not find a light, so groped his way down passages and staircases, where only a lamp was left burning here and there, stumbling over boots at bedroom-doors, and arousing echoes in the slumbering house, to ask for matches from the night-watchman. Returned to his room he could not sit and smoke, but must go out upon the gallery, marching up and down through the night-watches, till every sleeper lay awake counting his footfalls and wishing him a cripple. Towards morning he succeeded in growing drowsy, and turned in, and this time slept till it was late. Maida joined him at the breakfast-table, wishing him good morning with an easy intimacy of proprietorship, which provoked him for some reason which did not appear. However, her company was a relief after the weary solitude of his midnight vigil, and in spite of himself he relaxed and grew sociable.
"Come to church, Gilbert?" she said, when breakfast was over; and he, having nothing better to do, consented. They walked leisurely along the sands, as did also a good many of the younger company, who objected to being mewed up in an omnibus.
"Let us step out a little," said Gilbert, "and join those folks in front."
"It is too warm for stepping out much," she answered. "We have a long walk before us. If we hurry we will be flushed and crumpled, and not fit to be seen, when we go into church. And it is a close little place at the best."
"Never mind. We can stop outside when we get there; but let's be cheerful in the meantime. I see Miss Deane in that crowd on in front. Come, let's join them."
"Oh yes! and that little Fanny Payson you were so set on dancing with last night," Maida answered, a little crossly. "You'll have to take to surf-bathing if you want to get in with that crowd. I think them real frivolous, myself, and mighty conceited and stuck-up. My father might have been a senator too, by now, if he had lived. He ran for Congress the year I was born; and if he did not get sent there, it was none of his fault."