"Now he's fast asleep. Marcella, isn't he making a funny noise?" he
added with the queerest cross between amusement and puzzlement on his
small face. She suddenly realized what he was saying.
"Oh, you little brave man," she cried, taking him up in her arms and
kissing him. He wriggled down quickly, and stood in the doorway again,
on sentry duty. She forgot to take him with her. She had forgotten
everything save her instinct to be alone with her misery.
CHAPTER X
It was not until the _Oriana_ left Port Said that Louis spoke to
Marcella again. Three times he wrote to her demanding his money. Three
times something got beyond and above the pride that told her to send it
to him and have nothing else to say to him, and she refused definitely
to give him the money; she asked him to come and talk to her. But he
entrenched himself behind the Ole Fred gang and speedily helped to make
it the nuisance of the ship. The germ of self-confidence and courage
that was entirely missing in his make-up was replaced by bombast under
the combined influence of whisky and boredom. Some day, perhaps, the
iniquity of fastening up a small world of people in a ship for six weeks
with nothing compulsory to do will dawn upon shipping companies, and the
passengers will be forced to work, for their own salvation.
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