Alice Lee pulled off her silk gloves, and, lifting up her poor thin hands, exclaimed with a smile in her voice—her face was concealed by her veil—‘You may see, Mrs. Webber, that I do not wear rings.’
‘There may be a reason,’ exclaimed Mrs. Webber, looking a little nonplussed.
‘Yes, there is a reason to be sure,’ said Mrs. Lee, bringing her eyes away from her daughter’s hands with a look of pain in her face, ‘Alice never cared for jewellery of any sort.’
‘I could name two girls of my acquaintance, Mrs. Webber,’ said Alice, putting on her gloves, ‘who do not wear rings, not because they cannot get them, their fathers are rich merchants at Newcastle-on-Tyne, but because, like me, they do not care for rings. I dare say we could name others, mother, if we were to take the trouble to think.’
‘But would you be without a watch, Miss C——?’ said Mrs. Webber.
‘Do not ask me!’ I cried. ‘All the while you are conversing I am struggling with my mind.’
‘Take a few turns with me, dear,’ said Alice, rising, ‘and then we will go downstairs and lunch together quietly in our cabin. I do not feel well enough to lunch in the saloon.’
So I gave her my arm, and we paced the deck. Mrs. Webber took my chair and talked with Mrs. Lee in a voice which she softened as we approached, gesticulating with considerable energy, as though she sought to convince her companion. After we had taken four or five turns, Alice complained of feeling weary; we then descended into the saloon and passed into the cabin.
* * * * *
At about nine o’clock that evening I went to my berth in the steerage, having spent the greater part of the day since the hour of lunch with Alice Lee and her mother. The girl’s cough had been somewhat troublesome during the afternoon. It had abated, but it had left her weak, and there had been a hint of querulousness in her manner, but scarcely so much as to vex her sweetness; nay, I could liken it to nothing better than to the passage of a summer breath of night-wind over some exquisitely calm breast of water, causing the reflection of the stars to tremble in the pure mirror, and shaking a little further sweetness yet out of the lilies.