Everybody else was there, about the alleyways or in the saloon, safe and
happy: only Louis had to bring himself to disaster every time. Opening
his cabin door she went in. His things were all thrown about, his
shaving tackle on the bunk, his pyjamas on the floor. Taking them up
with hands that trembled she noticed that there were no buttons on them.
The pathos of this was more than she could bear. On the floor were the
two cups in which he had made tea before they reached port that morning.
The teapot they had bought at Gibraltar lay overturned. Quite
mechanically she cleaned up the tea-leaves and washed the cups. Then she
could bear it no longer and, throwing herself on his bunk, she buried
her face in his pillow and sobbed until she was exhausted.
CHAPTER XIII
There were things to be endured the next few days. The purser came
along, got Knollys to pack Louis's things and then sealed them. This
meant that Marcella was shut away from all association with him; it
seemed an unwarrantable interference with what she considered her
property. The schoolmaster was surprisingly comforting and kind; he went
out of his way to entertain her: Knollys brought unexpected tea in the
morning in an attempt to make up for the loss of Louis. A young
Scotsman, a sugar planter going out to the Islands, to whom she had
talked until the fact that she was "another man's girl" had put a taboo
upon her, insisted that she should, in the cold evenings on deck, wear
his fur coat which he had brought rather unnecessarily; Jimmy tried to
comfort her with apples.
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