"We came into port only yesterday. And to think that you and I should come to the same hotel and meet on the very first morning! It's like a fate, as our people in the island say. But it's stunning, perfectly stunning!"
A warm tide of joy was coursing through me and taking away my breath, but I managed to say:
"I've heard about your expedition. You had great hardships."
"That was nothing! Just a little pleasure-trip down to the eighty-sixth latitude."
"And great successes?"
"That was nothing either. The chief was jolly good, and the boys were bricks."
"I'm so glad, so glad!" I said again, for a kind of dumb joy had taken possession of me, and I went on saying the same thing over and over again, as people do when they are very happy.
For two full minutes I felt happier than I had ever been in my life before; and then an icy chill came over me, for I remembered that I had been married since I saw Martin Conrad last and I did not know how I was to break the news to him.
Just then my husband and Alma came down the lift, and seeing me with a stranger, as they crossed the hall to go into the breakfast-room, they came up and spoke.
I had to introduce them and it was hard to do, for it was necessary to reveal everything in a word. I looked at Martin Conrad when I presented him to my husband and he did not move a muscle. Then I looked at my husband and under a very small bow his face grew dark.