Europe Revised | Page 9

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