The mulatto doctor lifted his hat again, and bowed with marked politeness to the blushing white girl. For a second, their eyes met. Dr Whitaker’s looked at the beautiful half-childish face with unmistakable instantaneous admiration. Nora’s flashed a little angrily, and her nostrils dilated with a proud quiver; but she said never a word; she merely gave a chilly bow, and didn’t attempt even to offer her pretty little gloved hand to the brown stranger.
‘I have heard of Miss Dupuy’s family by name,’ the mulatto answered, speaking to Marian, but looking askance at the same time toward the petulant Nora. ‘Mr Dupuy of Orange Grove is well known throughout the island. I am glad that we are going to have so much delightful Trinidad society on our outward passage.’
‘Thank him for nothing,’ Nora murmured aside to Harry Noel, moving away as she spoke towards Mrs Ord at the other end of the vessel. ‘What impertinence! Marian ought to have known better than to introduce me to him.’
‘It’s a pity you don’t like the coloured gentleman,’ Harry Noel put in provokingly. ‘The appreciation is unfortunately not mutual, it seems. He appeared to me to be very much struck with you at first sight, Miss Dupuy, to judge by his manner.’
Nora turned towards him with a sudden fierceness and haughtiness that fairly surprised the easy-going young barrister. ‘Mr Noel,’ she said in a tone of angry but suppressed indignation, ‘how dare you speak to me so about that negro fellow, sir—how dare you? How dare you mention him and me in the same breath together? How dare you presume to joke with me on such a subject? Don’t speak to me again, pray. You don’t know what we West Indians are, or you’d never have ventured to utter such a speech as that to any woman with a single drop of West Indian blood in her whole body.’
Harry bowed silently and bit his lip; then, without another word, he moved back slowly toward the other group, and allowed Nora to join Mrs Ord by the door of the companion-ladder.
In twenty minutes more, the first warning bell rang for those who were going ashore, to get ready for their departure. There was the usual hurried leave-taking on every side; there was the usual amount of shedding of tears; there was the usual shouting and bawling, and snorting and puffing; and there was the usual calm indifference of the ship’s officers, moving up and down through all the tearful valedictory groups, as through an ordinary incident of humanity, experienced regularly every six weeks of a whole lifetime. As Marian and her mother were taking their last farewells, Harry Noel ventured once more timidly to approach Nora Dupuy and address a few parting words to her in a low undertone.
‘I’m sorry I offended you unintentionally just now, Miss Dupuy,’ he said quietly. ‘I thought the best apology I could offer at the moment was to say nothing just then in exculpation. But I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, and I hope we still part friends.’
Nora held out her small hand to him a trifle reluctantly. ‘As you have the grace to apologise,’ she said, ‘I shall overlook it. Yes, we part friends, Mr Noel; I have no reason to part otherwise.’
‘Then there’s no chance for me?’ Harry asked in a low tone, looking straight into her eyes, with a searching glance.