“All right, mem. We all see you’re somethin’ young and shy. I’m sure I wish you fortune, mem. You’ve drawed a prize in the lottery.”
“Does--does everybody know?” stammered Nina.
“Yes, mem,” said the woman, cheerfully. “That is, all the ship’s company. The passengers wouldn’t occupy themselves so much with it, but they’ll soon find out. You’ll get lots of attention, mem, bein’ the capting’s bride.”
“I don’t want it,” she said, quickly. “I--I think I am going to be seasick.”
“I hope not, mem. Shall I help you undress?”
“And you don’t like the capting’s rooms on deck,” said the woman, rolling her eyes around the tiny apartment. She was bursting with curiosity, but Nina did not see it. “Was you afraid?” she went on when no reply was vouchsafed her.
“It’s safer here in storms. Let me unfasten that collar.”
“I don’t want you to touch me. I don’t feel well. I’ve got a dreadful pain.”
The stewardess’s good-humour, preserved through a long course of waiting on querulous and seasick women, was not to be upset. “Shall I call the capting, mem?”
“No,” said Nina, decidedly, and she opened the door for her. “I’ve had too much excitement to-day. I must be alone.”
“Married him for his money,” soliloquised the woman as she sidled along the passage. “Country girl--parents made her. Don’t like him--Oh, sir! beg pardon!”
She had almost collided with Mr. Delessert. He favoured her with a glimpse of his beautiful white teeth, then he said, as she was about to pass him, “Stewardess, can you tell me the name of that pretty girl who sat next the captain at dinner?”
“His wife!” he echoed, in faint skepticism.
“No, sir; he don’t have no conversation with us. Her name ain’t on the list. Jim--he’s the head cook’s boy--he was up to the office just afore we started, mailin’ a package for me. One of the clerks says to him, ‘So Capting Sunshine’s got married.’ That’s the name they give him ’cause he’s so glum. Jim, he gasped, but the clerk showed him the sailin’ list. Last name was Mrs. Fordyce, room ninety-three. You see, sir, the company’s particular. The captings ain’t allowed to carry wives only once in so often.”
Mr. Delessert was listening politely, but with no great show of interest. However, when she finished, he drawled, in a languid way, “Do you know what Mrs. Fordyce’s name was before she was married?”