At
Cherbourg an emotional French tender came out to the ship, very different
in her clamorous voices and excited figures from the steady self-control
of the English tender at Plymouth; and they thought the French
fortifications much more on show than the English had been. Nothing
marked their youthful date so much to the Marches, who presently joined
them, as their failure to realize that in this peaceful sea the great
battle between the Kearsarge and the Alabama was fought. The elder couple
tried to affect their imaginations with the fact which reanimated the
spectre of a dreadful war for themselves; but they had to pass on and,
leave the young people unmoved.
Mrs. March wondered if they noticed the debarkation of the pivotal girl,
whom she saw standing on the deck of the tender, with her hands at her
waist, and giving now this side and now that side of her face to the
young men waving their hats to her from the rail of the ship. Burnamy was
not of their number, and he seemed not to know that the girl was leaving
him finally to Miss Triscoe. If Miss Triscoe knew it she did nothing the
whole of that long, last afternoon to profit by the fact. Burnamy spent a
great part of it in the chair beside Mrs.
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