She simply has lost her head. Luckily the
world needn't know. But suppose that something similar had happened at
home. It would have been extremely awkward. Oh! yes, I will come. I will
go anywhere. I can't stand this hulk, those people, this infernal Cage.
I believe I should fall ill if I were to remain here."
The inward detached voice of Jorgenson made itself heard near the
gangway saying: "The boat has been waiting for this hour past, King
Tom."
"Let us make a virtue of necessity and go with a good grace," said
d'Alcacer, ready to take Mr. Travers under the arm persuasively, for he
did not know what to make of that gentleman.
But Mr. Travers seemed another man. "I am afraid, d'Alcacer, that you,
too, are not very strong-minded. I am going to take a blanket off this
bedstead. . . ." He flung it hastily over his arm and followed d'Alcacer
closely. "What I suffer mostly from, strange to say, is cold."
Mrs. Travers and Lingard were waiting near the gangway. To everybody's
extreme surprise Mr. Travers addressed his wife first.
"You were always laughing at people's crazes," was what he said, "and
now you have a craze of your own. But we won't discuss that."
D'Alcacer passed on, raising his cap to Mrs. Travers, and went down the
ship's side into the boat. Jorgenson had vanished in his own manner like
an exorcised ghost, and Lingard, stepping back, left husband and wife
face to face.
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