Through the metallic echo she heard her voice:
"Kay! I'm afraid—a little."
"I think it's all right so far. Listen, there go our guns again.
It's quite all right, Eve dear."
"I didn't know I was so cowardly. But of course I'll never show it when the time comes."
"Of course you won't. Don't worry. Shells make a lot of noise when they explode on deck. All that tinpan effect we heard was probably a ventilator collapsing—perhaps a smokestack."
After a silence punctured by the flat bang of the deck-guns:
"You ARE cured, aren't you, Kay?"
"Yes."
She repeated in a curiously exultant voice: "You ARE cured. All of a sudden—after that black crisis, too, you wake up, well!"
"You woke me."