The weather had been vaguely misting all the dreary morning. Through a medium not rain, yet scarcely of the tenuity of vapor, Paula had gazed at the tawny flow of the swift river, the limited perspective of the banks, the tall looming of the forests, the slate-tinted sky, all dim and dull like a landscape in outline half smudged in with a stump. Suddenly this meager expression of the world beyond was withdrawn from contemplation. In the infinitely dull silence the fall of tentative drops on the hurricane deck was presently audible, and, all at once, there gushed forth from the low-hung clouds a tremendous down-pour of torrents beneath which the _Cherokee Rose_ quivered. Paula turned quickly to the door of the saloon, which barely closed upon her before the guards were swept by floods of water.
The whole interior resounded with the beat of scurrying footsteps fleeing to shelter from this abrupt outbreak of the elements. Squads of the passengers, or, sometimes, a single fugitive came at intervals bursting into the saloon, gasping with the effects of surprise, and the effort at speed, laughing, flushed, agitated, recounting their narrow escapes from drenching or submergence. Two or three, indeed, had caught a ducking and were repairing to their staterooms for dry clothing. There was much sound of activity from the boiler deck as the roustabouts ran boisterously in and out of the rain, busied in protecting freight or in sheltering the few head of stock. The whole episode seemed charged with a cheerful sense of a jolt of the monotony.
A group of gentlemen who did not accompany ladies or who were not acquainted with those on board gathered in the forward cabin, but Ducie sat silent and listless in one of the arm-chairs in the saloon. Apparently, he desired to show the Floyd-Rosneys that he perceived no cause for embarrassment in their society and had no intention by withdrawing of ameliorating any awkwardness which his presence might occasion to them. There were very acceptable and cozy suggestions here. Hildegarde Dean sat at the piano with the two old soldiers beside her. The blind Major, who had a sweet tenor voice, albeit hopelessly attenuated now, some tones in the upper register cracked beyond repair in this world, would sing _sotto voce_ a stanza of an old war song, utterly unknown to the girl of the present day, and Hildegarde, listening attentively, would improvise an accompaniment with refrain and _ritornello_ in a vague tentative way like one recalling a lost memory. Suddenly she would throw up her head, her hands would crash out the confident _tema_, Colonel Kenwynton’s powerful bass tones would boom forth, and the old blind Major’s tremulous voice would soar on the wings of his enthusiasm, and his memories of the days of yore. Meantime, the girl’s fresh young face, between the two old withered masks, would glow, the impersonation of kindly reverent youth and sweet peace and the sentiment of harmony.