The boy was going too far. Nina gave him one sweeping, withering glance, vouchsafed him a rebuking, “Captain Fordyce is my husband. He could shake you all to pieces with one finger, you saucy little boy!” then she abruptly left him.
She would never speak to him again; and she must not put her foot on the bridge ladder till she became somewhat cooler. Her husband would want to know what had irritated her; so she paced slowly along the deck, stopping before every cabin door, and peering down every skylight she came to. The steady, subdued roar of the machinery possessed a curious charm for her. She would like to have explained to her the workings of those wonderful engines that day by day kept urging them onward.
“’Steban,” she said, precipitating herself into his presence, “I want to penetrate the innermost recesses of the ship to-morrow. You will take me, will you not?”
He sat stock-still. He was working out some problem, and not even for her would he interrupt it. She had to wait fully five minutes before he finished. Then he jumped up, and offered her the chair he had been sitting in.
“No, thank you,” she said, seizing the leg of a stool under the table, and dragging it out. “I want this. I am going to stay a little while,--that is, if you are not busy.”
“No, I am not busy,” he replied, quietly and contentedly, “I have just finished. What have you got in your arms?”
“Something to eat,” she said, briskly. “I am starving, and I want the cork taken out of this bottle, please.”
While she was watching him do it, there was a knock at the door. As she was nearest, she opened it. Her schoolboy friend stood before her, his cap in one hand, a small dish in the other.
“I have brought you some cold beef, Mrs. Fordyce,” he said, without raising his eyes, and with such affecting humility of manner that Nina bit her lip to keep from laughing. “There was nothing else,” he added, sadly; “the stewards say there has been an unusual run on the fowls this evening.”
Nina threw resentment to the winds, and gave him her sweetest smile of acknowledgment. “It was kind in you, very kind to trouble yourself about it.”
He raised his eyes, impudent and merry as ever, to her face. “I have brought only a little seasoning,” he said, meaningly, “only a scant supply of anything hot,--pepper, mustard, and the like. In some way or other I fancied you wouldn’t require much;” and, running down the steps, he disappeared.