The portly form of the steward joined the two by the stairs.
"Bannon, have your wife prepare a stateroom for Miss Morris at once," said Britton, "and bring us some linen strips for bandages."
"You're hurt, sir?" said the steward.
"Only scratched! Water and linen is all I want."
Bannon brought it as directed, and having given the simple necessaries to the lady, Britton dived below to reappear some minutes later in yachting trousers, shirt and shoes, with his left sleeve rolled up to the shoulder and his duck coat on his other arm. He had washed the knife-wound while in his bath-room, but it bled afresh, and the lady hastened to staunch it.
Trascott assisted her by the use of much cold water. When the flow of blood was stopped, she called into requisition some healing ointment which Bannon had brought on his own authority and then bound the limb neatly with linen. There was something exquisite in the sensation for Britton. The soft touch of her fingers, the near fragrance of her person and the electric glow of awakened sympathy combined to influence him and awake strange thrills to which he was not at all subject.
She felt the throb of his pulse as she held his wrist down to straighten the bandage, and the knowledge of its origin flushed her cheek. An instant she looked up at him inquiringly, almost with the spirit of challenge, but her lashes drooped under the tensity of his glance.
Virility was Britton's most salient attribute. When the man in him was stirred, it moved strongly, and the proximity of so fair a vision would have excited a less impressionable person, one with less of Britton's youthful and unbounded faith in women!
The steward disappeared about his business. Trascott and Ainsworth loitered away. Britton and the woman were left alone with that magnetic bond of touch binding them. With the man, the impression lasted for many a day! A new, uncurbed power was loosed within him, and the woman felt the trend of its might. It thrilled and awed at the same time. She shifted her hands to a final arrangement of the bandage.
"I think it will do," she murmured in a confused way.