He looked a born leader of
men, and, as though to mark his quickness of observation, no sooner had
Elsie glanced over the side of the ship than he waved a hand to her.
She sighed. A bitter thought peeped up in her that he was perhaps a
trifle careless in showing her these little attentions. She wished he
would speak to her of that other girl who awaited him in England. A
pleasant state of confidence would be established then; these secret
twitches of sentiment were irritating.
Some women, in her place, would pay no heed to that aspect of their
enforced relations; not so Elsie, whose virginal breast was unduly
fluttered by the discovery that a young man is the most natural thing
in the world for a young woman to think about.
She walked aft to obtain a nearer view of the operations. The sailors
had already shut in a large portion of the promenade deck with canvas,
and she noticed that loopholes were provided, every ten feet or so, to
permit the effective use of the defenders' firearms. Thus, at each
step, she was reminded of the precarious hold she had on life, and she
was positively frightened when some mad impulse surged through her
whole being, bidding her imperiously to abandon her ultra-conscientious
loyalty to a woman she had never seen.
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