"Marjorie," I whispered, for I could not resist the desire to hear her say it, "don't you care for me, just a little bit?"
"Please!" was the only word she vouchsafed, and I heeded the request.
We came to the steamer's side, meeting many astonished gazes. I gave the requisite directions to the porters who came down the ladder for the baggage. The purser had assigned me another room, as requested, which was something. Wesson lifted his hat and said "Good-afternoon," when we met, but that was all. If he guessed that I had managed to avoid rooming with him by a set plan he made no remark.
The purser of the Pretoria is young, handsome and obliging. His father, a custom-house officer from Canada, was making a tour on the boat and struck me as a fine type. I learned that another of his sons was a member of the Dominion Parliament.
Capt. McKenzie came up to say he was glad I was going to be on his ship a little longer, which was agreeable, to say the least. I had noticed the Captain before, though I did not get well acquainted with him. He was the sort of man one likes to meet, straightforward, intelligent, understanding his business thoroughly. He knows how to treat the ladies among his passengers equally well, too, instead of devoting all his time to a favored group, like so many sea captains. This in itself is enough to make him a marked man in my memory.
The only place we had to call before reaching the island of Barbados was at St. Lucia, where there was little to interest us on shore, but where I was glad to see a troop-ship just arrived from Africa, with a cargo of wives (more or less) of black troops that were serving near Sierra Leone, each one accompanied by a parrot and monkey, beside several small children. The British government had taken them from the West Indies to Africa with their lords (I mean the women) and was now returning them a little in advance of their dusky partners. I asked half a dozen at random if they had ever been legally married and the reply in every case was "No, suh," delivered with a certain pride. The West Indian negro has not yet added matrimony to his list of virtues.
Early on the morning of the day our vessel anchored off Greytown, which is the capital of Barbados, I found on deck Mr. "Eddie" Armstrong, manager of the Marine Hotel, ready to answer questions in relation to that hostelry. "Eddie" told me that he had just the sort of rooms I required for myself and "Miss Carney," and put me under obligations by refraining from cheap insinuations, which nine men out of ten in his position would have made. Later he saw us through the custom-house with expedition and sent us in a carriage to the Marine, which is two miles from the centre, in a breezy and roomy location, just enough removed from the noise of the sea waves.