He had sauntered up to his joy, so to speak, cocksure, hands in pockets, and as he smiled with easy assurance, behold the joy turned into a sorrow. The face of the dryad smiling through the young grape leaves was that of a withered hag, and the leaves of the vine were dead and flapped on sapless stems!
Well, well, there was always a sorry fatalism to comfort one in joy's despite.
“Then to the rolling Heav'n itself, I cried, Asking, 'What Lamp had Destiny to guide Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?'”
The answer was old as patience--as old as courage. But to theorize about it was really superfluous! Why think at all? Why not say chug-chug like the liner?
“We are no other than a moving row Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go--”
Dinner! Was it possible? The day had been a blur! Well, probably all the rest of life would be a blur. Anyway, one could still dine, and he recollected that the purée of tomatoes at last night's dinner had been rather to his liking. He seated himself deliberately at the board, congratulating himself that he would be allowed to go through the duty of eating without interruption. The place at his right had been vacant ever since they left Southampton. At his left was a gentleman of uncertain hearing and a bullet-proof frown.
As the seat at his right had been vacant so long, he took the liberty of laying it his gloves, his sea-glass, a book with uncut leaves, and a crimson silk neck-scarf.
“I beg your pardon,” said the waiter, “but the lady who is to sit here is coming, sir.”
“The devil she is!” thought Payne. “Will the creature expect me to talk? Will she require me to look after her in the matter of pepper and salt? Why couldn't I have been left in peace?”
He gathered up his possessions, and arose gravely with an automatic courtesy, and lifted eyes with a wooden expression to stare at the intruder.
He faced the one person in the world whom it was most of pain and happiness to meet--the woman between whom and himself he meant to put a good half of the round world; and he read in her troubled gray eyes the confession that if there was anything or anybody from which she would willingly have been protected it was he--Chalmers Payne.
Conscious of their neighbors, they bowed. Payne saw her comfortably seated. He sat down and slowly emptied his glass of ice-water. He preserved his wooden expression of countenance and turned towards her.