"Powell remained impressed after all these years by the very
recollection," he continued in a voice, amused perhaps but not mocking.
"He said to me only the other day with something like the first awe of
that discovery lingering in his tone--he said to me: "Why, she seemed so
young, so girlish, that I looked round for some woman which would be the
captain's wife, though of course I knew there was no other woman on board
that voyage." The voyage before, it seems, there had been the steward's
wife to act as maid to Mrs. Anthony; but she was not taken that time for
some reason he didn't know. Mrs. Anthony . . . ! If it hadn't been the
captain's wife he would have referred to her mentally as a kid, he said.
I suppose there must be a sort of divinity hedging in a captain's wife
(however incredible) which prevented him applying to her that
contemptuous definition in the secret of his thoughts.
I asked him when this had happened; and he told me that it was three days
after parting from the tug, just outside the channel--to be precise. A
head wind had set in with unpleasant damp weather.
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