More About Peggy | Page 8

board had some dear one waiting for them in Old England, some one who had loved them faithfully through the years of absence, and who was even now counting the days until their return. The mothers boasted to each other concerning the doings of the children whom they had left at school, and in the midst of laughter turned aside suddenly to conceal their tears; the men thought lovingly of the wives from whom they had parted years before; and one or two radiant bridegrooms exhibited photographs of the brides whom they were going to carry back to cheer their exile.
After a fortnight at sea the company on board this particular steamer might be said to be divided into four distinct cliques--namely, members of military and diplomatic services, Civil Service employees, second- class passengers, and--Miss Mariquita Saville. The young lady must be taken as representing a class by herself, because while each of the other divisions kept, or was kept, severely to itself, Peggy mixed impartially with all, and was received with equal cordiality wherever she turned. The little person had made such a unique position for herself that there is no doubt that if a vote had been taken to discover the most popular person on board, she would have headed the list by a large majority; but whether her unfailing affability was due more to pride or humility, Hector Darcy, among others, found it difficult to determine.
Major Darcy had attached himself to the Saville party with a determination hardly to be expected in so languid a man, had even lowered his dignity to the extent of asking the fellow-passenger who occupied the coveted seat at table to exchange places with himself, so that breakfast, lunch, and dinner found him seated at Peggy's side, finding ever-fresh surprises in her society. Sometimes the surprise was the reverse of pleasant, for Miss Saville was a prickly little person, and upon occasion would snap him up in the middle of an argument with a lack of respect which took away his breath. When any difference arose between them, she never seemed to have a shadow of a doubt that she was in the right, and as Hector was equally positive about his own position, relationships frequently grew so strained that Peggy would rise from the table half-way through the meal, and stalk majestically out of the saloon. She invariably repented her hastiness by the time she reached the deck, for dessert was the part of the meal which she most enjoyed, so that when the major followed ten minutes later on, bearing a plate of carefully selected fruit as a peace-offering, he was sure of a gracious welcome.
"But you must never contradict me on Tuesdays, I can't support it!" she said on one of these occasions, as he seated himself beside her, and watched her raising the grapes to her lips with her little finger cocked well in the air. "Especially when I am in the right, as you must admit--"
"I admit nothing; but I pray and beseech you not to begin the discussion over again. I am nine years older than you, and must surely be supposed to know a little more."
"If you only realised it, that is just the reason why you don't. The world advances so rapidly with every decade, that you of the last generation have necessarily enjoyed fewer opportunities than myself and my contemporaries, and are therefore behind the times. It's not your fault, of course, and I don't advance it in any way as a reproach, but still--"
Major Darcy stared at her, struck dumb by an insinuation of age which was even more hurtful than that of inferior knowledge; but before he had recovered himself sufficiently to reply, his companion had finished her dessert, presented him calmly with the empty plate, and risen to take her departure.
"Where are you going?" he queried in an injured tone; for it was one of his pet grievances that the girl refused to be appropriated by himself whenever he wished to enjoy her society. "Can't you sit still for an hour at least? You have been rushing about all the morning. Surely now you can take a rest!"
But Peggy shook her head.
"Impossible! I'm engaged straight away from now until tea-time. The nurse of those peevish little Mortons is worn out, for the mother is ill, and can't help her at all, so I promised to amuse the children for an hour after lunch while she takes a nap. Then I have to play a game of halma with old Mr Schute, and help Miss Ranger to dress and come on deck. She thinks she can manage it to-day, and it will do her a world of good to get some fresh air."
"But why need you fag yourself for all these