Among the women were some who were quite young. Many of them were
pretty, and not a few of them, naturally enough, fell in love with the
good-looking young man who befriended them. Like the children, but with
a different kind of ardour, they waited for his coming, and laid
feminine snares for him. Two girls, to particularize, thought of little
else than Sydney Green as they lay in their bunks, recovering from that
horrible malady at which we all laugh, and all quail. One was a fair
girl, named Alice Merton. She was one of the riders, and was extremely
pretty, with blue eyes and a complexion like cream and roses. She was
very slight and dainty, and looked fragile; but she was a very good
equestrienne, and when on a horse displayed extraordinary nerve.
The other girl--her name was Isabel Devigne, a stage name, no doubt--was
tall, dark-eyed, with the regular features and blue-black hair of a
Spaniard. She also was a rider; she had been in the business--pardon!
profession--since she could walk, and her experiences of life were many
and peculiar. Perhaps because of their contrasting characteristics, she
and Alice Merton had been drawn towards each other, and were fast
friends. They occupied opposite bunks, walked and talked together, and
were both in love with Sydney Green, who ministered to both, in his
capacity of amateur ship doctor, with strict though unconscious
impartiality.
Derrick was not of the susceptible genus, and, if he had been, he was
too much driven by the incessant work to spare time for even the mildest
flirtation. Besides, whenever he found time for thought, his mind always
went back to a certain room in Brown's Buildings, far away in London, to
a girl's face looking down at him from over the balustrade. He thought
of her only; scarcely once had his mind wandered from her to Miriam, the
girl he had loved, the girl for whom he had sacrificed himself.
Sometimes, when he put his hand in his breast pocket, he could feel the
five-pound note; and whenever he did so, back came the scene, and his
heart grew warm.
The bad weather lasted for a week; then the storm abated, the sea grew
calmer, and one morning the invalids began to crawl up to the deck.
Derrick, busy with the horses, some of which had suffered terribly,
paused for a moment and looked at the wretched folk as they emerged from
the companion-way. One of them was Alice Merton, and he was moved to
such pity by the sight of her white face and evident weakness that he
put down his curry-comb and brush and went to help her. Her face was
flooded with colour as she raised her piteous blue eyes to him, and her
hand shook as he drew it through his arm.