"You mean the commander of a ship?"
"Yes."
"Ah, yes, you've been staying in Liverpool to see him off on a voyage. How sweet! Just what I should do myself if my husband were a sailor."
Then followed a further battery of perplexing questions.
Had my husband gone on a long voyage? Yes? Where to? The South. Did I mean India, Australia, New Zealand? Yes, and still farther.
"Ah, I see," she said again. "He's probably the captain of a tramp steamer, and will go from port to port as long as he can find a cargo."
Hardly understanding what my companion meant by this, I half agreed to it, and then followed a volley of more personal inquiries.
I was young to be married, wasn't I? Probably I hadn't been married very long, had I? And not having settled myself in a home perhaps I was going up to London to wait for my husband? Yes? How wise—town being so much more cheerful than the country.
"Any friends there?"
"No."