"No," he replied bluntly; "but it would have given us four more days together--four more days before we separated."He stopped, with a heightened color.There was a moment of silence, and the voices of Senor Perkins and Mr.Banks in political discussion on the other side of the deck came faintly.Miss Keene laughed.
"We are a long way from San Francisco yet, and you may think differently.""Never!" he said, impulsively.
He had drawn closer to her, as if to emphasize his speech.She cast a quick glance across the deck towards the two disputants, and drew herself gently away.
"Do you know," she said suddenly, with a charming smile which robbed the act of its sting, "I sometimes wonder if I am REALLYgoing to San Francisco.I don't know how it is; but, somehow, Inever can SEE myself there."
"I wish you did, for I'M going there," he replied boldly.
Without appearing to notice the significance of his speech, she continued gravely:
"I have been so strongly impressed with this feeling at times that it makes me quite superstitious.When we had that terrible storm after we left Callao, I thought it meant that--that we were all going down, and we should never be heard of again.""As long as we all went together," he said, "I don't know that it would be the worst thing that could happen.I remember that storm, Miss Keene.And I remember"--He stopped timidly.
"What?" she replied, raising her smiling eyes for the first time to his earnest face.
"I remember sitting up all night near your state-room, with a cork jacket and lots of things I'd fixed up for you, and thinking I'd die before I trusted you alone in the boat to those rascally Lascars of the crew.""But how would you have prevented it?" asked Miss Keene, with a compassionate and half-maternal amusement.
"I don't know exactly," he said, coloring; "but I'd have lashed you to some spar, or made a raft, and got you ashore on some island.""And poor Mrs.Markham and Mrs.Brimmer--you'd have left them to the boats and the Lascars, I suppose?" smiled Miss Keene.
"Oh, somebody would have looked after Mrs.Markham; and Mrs.
Brimmer wouldn't have gone with anybody that wasn't well connected.
But what's the use of talking?" he added ruefully."Nothing has happened, and nothing is going to happen.You will see yourself in San Francisco, even if you don't see ME there.You're going to a rich brother, Miss Keene, who has friends of his own, and who won't care to know a poor fellow whom you tolerated on the passage, but who don't move in Mrs.Brimmer's set, and whom Mr.Banks wouldn't indorse commercially.""Ah, you don't know my brother, Mr.Brace.""Nor do you, very well, Miss Keene.You were saying, only last night, you hardly remembered him."The young girl sighed.
"I was very young when he went West," she said explanatorily; "but I dare say I shall recall him.What I meant is, that he will be very glad to know that I have been so happy here, and he will like all those who have made me so.""Then you have been happy?"
"Yes; very." She had withdrawn her eyes, and was looking vaguely towards the companion-way."Everybody has been so kind to me.""And you are grateful to all?"
"Yes."
"Equally?"
The ship gave a sudden forward plunge.Miss Keene involuntarily clutched the air with her little hand, that had been resting on the settee between them, and the young man caught it in his own.
"Equally?" he repeated, with an assumed playfulness that half veiled his anxiety."Equally--from the beaming Senor Perkins, who smiles on all, to the gloomy Mr.Hurlstone, who smiles on no one?"She quickly withdrew her hand, and rose."I smell the breakfast,"she said laughingly."Don't be horrified, Mr.Brace, but I'm very hungry." She laid the hand she had withdrawn lightly on his arm.
"Now help me down to the cabin."