Marcella, who had stood frowning and puzzled, was now pressed into the
service.
"I think, dear, when Mistah Petahs comes back I could manage a little
bread and butter--only the butter is so nasty."
"Would you like jam?" said Marcella helpfully, liking jam herself.
The thought of jam made Mrs. Hetherington feel faint.
"No, I'll have bread and butter. Get me two slices, dear--thin. And--ask
Knollys if he could let you have some cayenne pepper. Bread and butter
sprinkled with cayenne always does me good when my head has one of its
naughty fits."
Twenty minutes later she was sitting up with sparkling eyes eating
devilled bread and butter and drinking champagne daintily while Mr.
Peters sat beaming and bashful and inexpressibly silly on a camp-stool
in the alley-way, and the bedroom steward wondered what on earth he
would do when the officers came along for cabin inspection.
The night before they touched at Naples Marcella and Louis arranged what
she called a "ploy." They would go ashore together and spend the day at
Pompeii. He had been there before, but he remembered little of it
because he had been with a party who had hired a car, taken a luncheon
basket and several bottles of whisky and left him asleep in the car
while they explored the dead towns.
"It seems an insult to the past--going there and getting drunk on their
tombs," he said musingly.
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