A Pair of Patient Lovers | Page 2

while she did something to her hair before the
morsel of mirror: "Why I wanted to know if you had noticed those
people was because they are the reason of his being here."
"Did he tell you that?"
"Of course not. But I knew it, for he asked if I had seen them, or could
tell him who they were."
"It seems to me that he made pretty good time to get so far as that."
"I don't say he got so far himself, but you men never know how to take
steps for any one else. You can't put two and two together. But to my
mind it's as plain as the nose on his face that he's seen that girl
somewhere and is taking this trip because she's on board. He said he
hadn't decided to come till the last moment."
"What wild leaps of fancy!" I said. "But the nose on his face is
handsome rather than plain, and I sha'n't be satisfied till I see him with
the lady."
"Yes, he's quite Greek," said Mrs. March, in assent to my opinion of his
nose. "Too Greek for a clergyman, almost. But he isn't vain of it. Those
beautiful people are often quite modest, and Mr. Glendenning is very
modest."

"And I'm very hungry. If you don't hurry your prinking, Isabel, we shall
not get any dinner."
"I'm ready," said my wife, and she continued with her eyes still on the
glass: "He's got a church out in Ohio, somewhere; but he's a
New-Englander, and he's quite wild to get back. He thinks those people
are from Boston: I could tell in a moment if I saw them. Well, now, I
am ready," and with this she really ceased to do something to her hair,
and came out into the long saloon with me where the table was set.
Rows of passengers stood behind the rows of chairs, with a detaining
grasp on nearly all of them. We gazed up and down in despair.
Suddenly Mrs. March sped forward, and I found that Mr. Glendenning
had made a sign to her from a distant point, where there were two
vacant chairs for us next his own. We eagerly laid hands on them, and
waited for the gong to sound for dinner. In this interval an elderly lady
followed by a young girl came down the saloon toward us, and I saw
signs, or rather emotions, of intelligence pass between Mr.
Glendenning and Mrs. March concerning them.
The older of these ladies was a tall, handsome matron, who bore her
fifty years with a native severity qualified by a certain air of wonder at
a world which I could well fancy had not always taken her at her own
estimate of her personal and social importance. She had the effect of
challenging you to do less, as she advanced slowly between the wall of
state-rooms and the backs of the people gripping their chairs, and eyed
them with a sort of imperious surprise that they should have left no
place for her. So at least I read her glance, while I read in that of the
young lady coming after, and showing her beauty first over this
shoulder and then over that of her mother, chiefly a present amusement,
behind which lay a character of perhaps equal pride, if not equal
hardness. She was very beautiful, in the dark style which I cannot help
thinking has fallen into unmerited abeyance; and as she passed us I
could see that she was very graceful. She was dressed in a lady's
acceptance of the fashions of that day, which would be thought so
grotesque in this. I have heard contemporaneous young girls laugh at
the mere notion of hoops, but in 1870 we thought hoops extremely
becoming; and this young lady knew how to hold hers a little on one

side so as to give herself room in the narrow avenue, and not betray
more than the discreetest hint of a white stocking. I believe the
stockings are black now.
They both got by us, and I could see Mr. Glendenning following them
with longing but irresolute eyes, until they turned, a long way down the
saloon, as if to come toward us again. Then he hurried to meet them,
and as he addressed himself first to one and then to the other, I knew
him to be offering them his chair. So did my wife, and she said, "You
must give up your place too, Basil," and I said I would if she wished to
see me starve on the spot. But of course I went and joined Glendenning
in his entreaties that they would deprive us of our chances of dinner (I
knew what the second table was on the