“But, Anthony, isn’t it dangerous?”
His eyes gave a flash, and sheepishness vanished.
“Oh, I know that wouldn’t deter you, Tony. But, I mean, isn’t it against the law?”
“Well, there’s no revolution in Uruguay—not at this minute, anyhow. I don’t pretend to any blind respect for the law; but I don’t see why the law should object. No,” and he laughed now with unembarrassed cheerfulness. “If they don’t stop us here, they won’t stop us out there. So don’t you worry, darling. If we get safe out of the Mersey, I promise we’ll get safe into Rio Grande.”
It was their last day. After a misty morning there had been a little rain, then the dark sky fought the sunlight, and now a settled gloom lay on the town and the river, with presages of more rain. Smoke was rolling languidly from the Mercedaria’s ugly yellow funnel. She was to sail before night. She was to sail in five hours.
Miss Verinder wandered about her disconsolately, and talked to Dyke from time to time. He was very busy. Down below Reynolds, the steward or cook, was busy too; in his shirt sleeves, packing away all kinds of light consumable stores in the narrow compartment that was his whole realm. She gave money to Reynolds, begged him to take care of Mr. Dyke as well as he could. Reynolds promised. She sat for a long while alone on the bunk in Dyke’s cabin, staring at trunks that were like old friends to her, trunks that had been in his room at the hotel such a little while ago; and she fingered many parcels all thrown down there on the bunk, the things she had bought for him yesterday and the day before—comforts, contrivances, and books. That small square parcel contained the poems of Tennyson. He loved them—especially the Idylls of the King. Both head and heart were aching so intolerably that she had to clench her hands sometimes; and her breathing was affected. She felt that she might suffocate if she did not have more air, and yet she did not like to go up to the deck where Dyke and Cairns were busy with some one in the chart-room. Down here, in this small buried cabin, she had a feeling that the ship was enormous, a monster of the deep now gathering energy, angrily shivering, like the men on the upper deck panting to get to work.
Then she heard Dyke’s voice calling to her, and she went up with him. He said that he had been looking for her everywhere. As she came out into the daylight he noticed her whiteness, and saw that sharpened, hardened aspect of the face that had once impressed itself on the attention of her father. Her nose seemed much too thin, her chin much too pointed and the almost colourless lips were drawn inward by an ugly contraction; seeing her thus, no sane person could have described her as a pretty girl, indeed it would have been kind not to call her plain; but this marring of her beauty, this swift disfigurement, for one who not only knew the cause but was himself the cause stirred deeper wells of love and made admiration more poignantly sincere. He took her twitching fingers, and in a husky whisper muttered words of encouragement and hope.
“It—it’s quite all right, Tony. I—I’ll not disgrace you.”