"Can't possibly," said the Tyro, "I'm very ill. Tell her, will you?"
Lord Guenn nodded. "Perhaps one of you will condescend to let me in presently on all these plots and counterplots," he remarked as he walked away.
Left to himself the Tyro floated away on cloudy imaginings of gold and rose-color. A week—a whole week—with Little Miss Grouch; a week of freedom on good, solid land, beyond the tyranny of captains, the espionage of self-appointed chaperons, and the interference of countless surrounding ninnies; a week on every day of which he could watch the play of light and color in the face which had not been absent from his thoughts one minute since—
Thump! It was as if a huge fist had thrust up out of the ocean's depths and jolted the Clan Macgregor in the ribs. Several minor impacts jarred beneath his feet. Then the engines stopped, and the great hulk began to swing slowly to starboard in the still water.
Excited talk broke out. Questions to which nobody made reply filled the air. An officer hurried past.
"No. No damage done," he cried back mechanically over his shoulder.
Presently the engine resumed work. The rhythm appeared to the Tyro to drag. Dr. Alderson came along.
"Nothing at all," he said with the sang-froid of the experienced traveler. "Some little hitch in the machinery."
"Do you notice that there's a slant to the deck?" asked the Tyro in a low voice.
"Yes. Keep it to yourself. Most people won't notice it." And he walked on, stopping to chat with an acquaintance here and there, and doing his unofficial part to diffuse confidence.