I raised my hat. She responded with a
slow inclination of the head while her luminous, mistrustful, maiden's
glance seemed to whisper, "What is this one doing here?"
"I came up to town with Fyne this morning," I said in a businesslike
tone. "I have to see a friend in East India Dock. Fyne and I parted
this moment at the door here . . . " The girl regarded me with
darkening eyes . . . "Mrs. Fyne did not come with her husband," I went
on, then hesitated before that white face so still in the pearly shadow
thrown down by the hat-brim. "But she sent him," I murmured by way of
warning.
Her eyelids fluttered slowly over the fixed stare. I imagine she was not
much disconcerted by this development. "I live a long way from here,"
she whispered.
I said perfunctorily, "Do you?" And we remained gazing at each other.
The uniform paleness of her complexion was not that of an anaemic girl.
It had a transparent vitality and at that particular moment the faintest
possible rosy tinge, the merest suspicion of colour; an equivalent, I
suppose, in any other girl to blushing like a peony while she told me
that Captain Anthony had arranged to show her the ship that morning.
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