“It's over everybody's. Mine.”
She nearly laughed at this. But he seemed not to think of it as humor.
“Aren't you a little afraid, sometimes—going into such dangerous places all alone?”
“Oh, no.”
“But you might be hurt—or even—killed.”
“What's the difference?”
Startled, she looked straight up at him; then dropped her eyes. She waited for him to explain, but he was gazing moodily out at the water ahead.
The soft night air wrapped them about like dream-velvet. Adventure was astir, and romance. Betty, enchanted, looked lazily back at the white midships decks, bridge and wheelhouse, at the mysterious rigging and raking masts, at the foremost of the huge funnels pouring out great rolling clouds of smoke. The engines throbbed and throbbed. Back there somewhere the ship's bell struck, eight times for midnight.
“I don't care much for missionaries,” said Mr. Brachey.
“You'd like father.”