The going-away gown was wrinkled, as though worn for a period of
time by one suddenly and sorely stricken in the midst of health.
The bride's once well-coifed hair hung in lank disarray about a
face that was the color of prime old sage cheese - yellow, with a
fleck of green here and there - and in her wan and rolling eye was
the hunted look of one who hears something unpleasant stirring a
long way off and fears it is coming this way.
Side by side the stewards stretched them prone on their chairs and
tucked them in. Her face was turned from him. For some time
both of them lay there without visible signs of life - just two
muffled, misery-stricken heaps. Then, slowly and languidly, the
youth stretched forth an arm from his wrappings and fingered the
swaddling folds that enveloped the form of his beloved.
It may have been he thought it was about time to begin picking the
coverlid, or it may have been the promptings of reawakened romance,
once more feebly astir within his bosom. At any rate, gently and
softly, his hand fell on the rug about where her shoulder ought
to be. She still had life enough left in her to shake it off - and
she did. Hurt, he waited a moment, then caressed her again. "Stop
that!" she cried in a low but venomous tone. "Don't you dare touch
me!"
So he touched her no more, but only lay there mute and motionless;
and from his look one might plumb the sorrows of his soul and know
how shocked he was, and how grieved and heartstricken! Love's
young dream was o'er! He had thought she loved him, but now he
knew better. Their marriage had been a terrible mistake and he
would give her back her freedom; he would give it back to her as
soon as he was able to sit up. Thus one interpreted his
expression.
On the day we landed, however, they were seen again. We were
nosing northward through a dimpled duckpond of a sea, with the
Welsh coast on one side and Ireland just over the way. People who
had not been seen during the voyage came up to breathe, wearing
the air of persons who had just returned from the valley of the
shadow and were mighty glad to be back; and with those others came
our bridal couple.
I inadvertently stumbled on them in an obscure companionway. Their
cheeks again wore the bloom of youth and health, and they were in
a tight clinch; it was indeed a pretty sight. Love had returned
on roseate pinions and the honeymoon had been resumed at the point
where postponed on account of bad weather.
They had not been seasick, though. I heard them say so. They had
been indisposed, possibly from something they had eaten; but they
had not been seasick. Well, I had my own periods of indisposition
going over; and if it had been seasickness I should not hesitate
a moment about coming right out and saying so. In these matters
I believe in being absolutely frank and aboveboard. For the life
of me I cannot understand why people will dissemble and lie about
this thing of being seasick. To me their attitude is a source of
constant wonderment.
On land the average person is reasonably proud of having been
sick - after he begins to get better. It gives him something to
talk about. The pale and interesting invalid invariably commands
respect ashore. In my own list of acquaintances I number several
persons - mainly widowed ladies with satisfactory incomes - who
never feel well unless they are ill. In the old days they would
have had resort to patent medicines and the family lot at Laurel
Grove Cemetery; but now they go in for rest cures and sea voyages,
and the baths at Carlsbad and specialists, these same being main
contributing causes to the present high cost of living, and also
helping to explain what becomes of some of those large life-insurance
policies you read about. Possibly you know the type I am
describing - the lady who, when planning where she will spend the
summer, sends for catalogues from all the leading sanatoriums.
We had one such person with us.
She had been surgically remodeled so many times that she dated
everything from her last operation. At least six times in her
life she had been down with something that was absolutely incurable,
and she was now going to Homburg to have one of the newest and
most fatal German diseases in its native haunts, where it would
be at its best. She herself said that she was but a mere shell;
and for the first few meals she ate like one - like a large, empty
shell with plenty of curves inside it.
However, when, after a subsequent period of seclusion, she emerged
from her stateroom wearing the same disheveled look that Jonah
must have worn when he and the whale parted company, do you think
she would confess she had been seasick? Not by any means! She said
she had had a raging headache. But she could not fool me. She
had the stateroom next to mine and I had heard what I had heard.
She was from near Boston and she had the near-Boston accent; and
she was the only person I ever met who was seasick with the broad
A.
Personally I abhor those evasions, which deceive no one. If I had
been seasick I should not deny it here or elsewhere. For a time
I thought I was seasick. I know now I was wrong - but I thought
so. There was something about the sardels served at lunch - their
look or their smell or something - which seemed to make them
distasteful to me; and I excused myself from the company at the
table and went up and out into the open air.
