There
were many young girls, as there always are everywhere, but there were not
many young men, and such as there were kept to the smoking-room. There
was no sign of flirtation among them; he would have given much for a
moment of the pivotal girl, to see whether she could have brightened
those gloomy surfaces with her impartial lamp. March wished that he could
have brought some report from the outer world to cheer his wife, as he
descended to their state-room. They had taken what they could get at the
eleventh hour, and they had got no such ideal room as they had in the
Norumbia. It was, as Mrs. March graphically said, a basement room. It was
on the north side of the ship, which is a cold exposure, and if there had
been any sun it could not have got into their window, which was half the
time under water. The green waves, laced with foam, hissed as they ran
across the port; and the electric fan in the corridor moaned like the
wind in a gable.
He felt a sinking of the heart as he pushed the state-room door open, and
looked at his wife lying with her face turned to the wall; and he was
going to withdraw, thinking her asleep, when she said quietly, "Are we
going down?"
"Not that I know of," he answered with a gayety he did not feel.
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