They are sweet, and I love them. I had breakfast with them this morning long before you were awake.”
“The deuce you say! And that is why you were not at table? And the morning before—”
“You noticed my absence?” she asked demurely.
“It was difficult for me not to see an empty chair. On second thought, I think the young engineer called my attention to it by wondering if you were ill.”
“Oh!”
“He is very much interested in you, Miss Standish. It amuses me to see him torture the corners of his eyes to look at you. I have thought it would be only charity and good-will to change seats with him.”
“In which event, of course, your eyes would not suffer.”
“Probably not.”
“Have they ever suffered?”
“I think not.”
“When looking at the Thlinkit girls, for instance?”
“I haven't seen them.”
She gave her shoulders a little shrug.
“Ordinarily I would think you most uninteresting, Mr. Holt. As it is I think you unusual. And I rather like you for it. Would you mind taking me to my cabin? It is number sixteen, on this deck.”
She walked with her fingers touching his arm again. “What is your room?” she asked.
“Twenty-seven, Miss Standish.”
“This deck?”
“Yes.”
Not until she had said good night, quietly and without offering him her hand, did the intimacy of her last questions strike him. He grunted and lighted a fresh cigar. A number of things occurred to him all at once, as he slowly made a final round or two of the deck. Then he went to his cabin and looked over papers which were going ashore at Juneau. These were memoranda giving an account of his appearance with Carl Lomen before the Ways and Means Committee at Washington.
It was nearly midnight when he had finished. He wondered if Mary Standish was asleep. He was a little irritated, and slightly amused, by the recurring insistency with which his mind turned to her. She was a clever girl, he admitted. He had asked her nothing about herself, and she had told him nothing, while he had been quite garrulous. He was a little ashamed when he recalled how he had unburdened his mind to a girl who could not possibly be interested in the political affairs of John Graham and Alaska. Well, it was not entirely his fault. She had fairly catapulted herself upon him, and he had been decent under the circumstances, he thought.
He put out his light and stood with his face at the open port-hole. Only the soft throbbing of the vessel as she made her way slowly through the last of the Narrows into Frederick Sound came to his ears. The ship, at last, was asleep. The moon was straight overhead, no longer silhouetting the mountains, and beyond its misty rim of light the world was dark. Out of this darkness, rising like a deeper shadow, Alan could make out faintly the huge mass of Kupreanof Island.