Americans -- England -- Fiction; Children of the rich -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction; Sisters -- Fiction
He was quite aware that though he had found himself more than once
observing her, she herself had probably not recognised the trivial fact
of his existing upon that other side of the barrier which separated the
higher grade of passenger from the lower. There was, indeed, no reason
why she should have singled him out for observation, and she was, in
fact, too frequently absorbed in her own reflections to be in the
frame of mind to remark her fellow passengers to the extent which was
generally customary with her. During her crossings of the Atlantic she
usually made mental observation of the people on board. This time, when
she was not talking to the Worthingtons, or reading, she was thinking of
the possibilities of her visit to Stornham. She used to walk about the
deck thinking of them and, sitting in her chair, sum them up as her eyes
rested on the rolling and breaking waves.
There were many things to be considered, and one of the first was the
perfectly sane suggestion her father had made.
“Suppose she does not want to be rescued? Suppose you find her a
comfortable fine lady who adores her husband.”
Such a thing was possible, though Bettina did not think it probable. She
intended, however, to prepare herself even for this. If she found Lady
Anstruthers plump and roseate, pleased with herself and her position,
she was quite equal to making her visit appear a casual and conventional
affair.
“I ought to wish it to be so,” she thought, “and, yet, how
disappointingly I should feel she had changed. Still, even ethical
reasons would not excuse one for wishing her to be miserable.” She was a
creature with a number of passionate ideals which warred frequently with
the practical side of her mentality. Often she used to walk up and down
the deck or lean upon the ship's side, her eyes stormy with emotions.
“I do not want to find Rosy a heartless woman, and I do not want to find
her wretched. What do I want? Only the usual thing--that what cannot be
undone had never been done. People are always wishing that.”
She was standing near the second-cabin barrier thinking this, the first
time she saw the passenger with the red hair. She had paused by mere
chance, and while her eyes were stormy with her thought, she suddenly
became conscious that she was looking directly into other eyes as
darkling as her own. They were those of a man on the wrong side of the
barrier. He had a troubled, brooding face, and, as their gaze met,
each of them started slightly and turned away with the sense of having
unconsciously intruded and having been intruded upon.
“That rough-looking man,” she commented to herself, “is as anxious and
disturbed as I am.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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