"What's the good of being an actress if you can't see two things at once, especially if one of them's the biggest thing on the ship? Nobody could help noticing that--any more than if Mont Blanc suddenly waltzed down stage from off the back drop."
"Waltzed? 'Galumped' is the word in this case."
"Oh, do you think so?" Marise appealed. "He walks like a man used to wide, free spaces."
"Like a farmer, you mean. To my mind, that's his part: Hodge--not Samson."
"I've forgotten what Samson was, I'm ashamed to say, before he played opposite Delilah," confessed Marise. "I suppose he was a warrior--most men were in those days--as now. This might be one--if it weren't for the clothes. They certainly are the limit! But do you know, he could be very distinguished-looking, even handsome, decently turned out?"
"No, I don't know it, my child." Severance beat down his irritation. "The only way I can picture that ugly blighter being decently 'turned out,' is out of a respectable club."
"You talk as if you had a grudge against my provincial Samson," laughed Marise, whose blue eyes had followed the "blighter" along the deck to the point of disappearance.
"I don't want to talk about him at all," protested Severance. "I want to talk about you."
"We're always talking about me!" smiled Marise, who was honestly not aware how she enjoyed talking about herself, or how soon she tired of most other subjects. "If you won't talk of one man, let's talk of another! For instance, have you seen our V.C. passenger?"
Severance flushed slightly. "Didn't I tell you, angel girl, that I've been in my cabin the whole time?"
"You didn't say the 'whole' time. And anyhow, there's such a crowd on board, they might have stuck a fellow-soldier in with you at the last moment. Didn't they warn you that they couldn't promise a cabin to yourself? Naturally they'd have chosen a V.C. as the least insupportable person."
"Several V.C.'s I've met have been most insupportable persons," grumbled Severance.
Something in his tone made the girl suddenly face him with wide-open eyes. She saw the dusky stain of red under the olive skin, and the drawing down of the black brows. "Why, Tony, how stupid of me not to remember before!" she exclaimed.