Edith Longworth went to her state-room and there had what women call 'a
good cry' over her failure. Jennie Brewster continued her writing, every
now and then pausing as she thought, with regret, of some sharp thing she
might have said, which did not occur to her at the time of the interview.
Kenyon spent his time in pacing up and down the deck, hoping for the
reappearance of Miss Longworth--an expectation which, for a time at
least, was the hope deferred which maketh the heart sick. Fleming, the
New York politician, kept the smoking-room merry, listening to the
stories he told. He varied the proceedings by frequently asking everybody
to drink with him, an invitation that met with no general refusal. Old
Mr. Longworth dozed most of his time in his steamer chair. Wentworth, who
still bitterly accused himself of having been a fool, talked with no one,
not even his friend Kenyon. All the time, the great steamship kept
forging along through the reasonably calm water just as if nothing had
happened or was going to happen. There had been one day of rain, and one
night and part of a day of storm. Saturday morning broke, and it was
expected that some time in the night Queenstown would be reached. Early
on Saturday morning the clouds looked lowering, as they have a right to
look near Ireland.
Wentworth, the cause of all the worry, gave Kenyon very little assistance
in the matter that troubled his mind. He was in the habit, when the
subject was referred to, of thrusting his hands into his hair, or
plunging them down into his pockets, and breaking out into language which
was as deplorable as it was expressive. The more Kenyon advised him to be
calm, the less Wentworth followed that advice. As a general thing, he
spent most of his time alone in a very gloomy state of mind. On one
occasion when the genial Fleming slapped him on the shoulder, Wentworth,
to his great astonishment, turned fiercely round and cried:
'If you do that again, sir, I'll knock you down.'
Fleming said afterwards that he was 'completely flabbergasted' by
this--whatever that may mean--and he added that the English in general
were a queer race. It is true that he gathered himself together at the
time and, having laughed a little over the remark, said to Wentworth:
'Come and have a drink; then you'll feel better.'
This invitation Wentworth did not even take the trouble to decline, but
thrust his hands in his pockets once more, and turned his back on the
popular New York politician.
Wentworth summed up the situation to John Kenyon when he said:
'There is no use in our talking or thinking any more about it. We can
simply do nothing. I shall take the whole blame on my shoulders. I am
resolved that you shall not suffer from my indiscretion. Now, don't talk
to me any more about it. I want to forget the wretched business, if
possible.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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