“You see, Emmie dear. The time will pass,” he mumbled. “Back soon as I can.”
“Yes—I know. But not too soon—not—not till you’ve done your work.”
For perhaps seventy seconds they stood holding hands, and looking at each other.
“Anthony.”
“Oh, Emmie. It’s awful, isn’t it?”
Then some one shouted to him. Some one had just come up the side.
“You’ll let me stay to the last moment, won’t you?” she said, with a spasmodic clutch of her fingers. “You won’t send me ashore, till you need?”
“No, no,” he said, hurrying away.
It was now about three in the afternoon, and during the next hour she had but flying sentences from him at long intervals. Worrying, annoying things, as she gathered, occupied all his thoughts. Men came and went. There were gusts of loud swearing in the chart-room and confidential irritable exchanges as Captain Cairns appeared and disappeared. Then there was talk of the pilot. Something was very much on Anthony’s nerves, obviously; she learned from his snatches of explanation that this concerned certain formalities that should have been completed but were not—the ship’s papers not yet absolutely in order, clearances still required, the port or custom-house authorities rubbed the wrong way by sheer stupidness and now becoming troublesome when there was no leisure to soothe them? She did not know. She only knew that Anthony was angry, using strong language and saying he would go and attend to it himself since he could trust nobody else.