Chance

I asked Mr. Powell whether the captain and his wife never conversed on

deck. He said no--or at any rate they never exchanged more than a couple

of words. There was some constraint between them. For instance, on that

very occasion, when Mrs. Anthony came out they did look at each other;

the captain's eyes indeed followed her till she sat down; but he did not

speak to her; he did not approach her; and afterwards left the deck

without turning his head her way after this first silent exchange of

glances.

I asked Mr. Powell what did he do then, the captain being out of the way.

"I went over and talked to Mrs. Anthony. I was thinking that it must be

very dull for her. She seemed to be such a stranger to the ship."

"The father was there of course?"

"Always," said Powell. "He was always there sitting on the skylight, as

if he were keeping watch over her. And I think," he added, "that he was

worrying her. Not that she showed it in any way. Mrs. Anthony was

always very quiet and always ready to look one straight in the face."

"You talked together a lot?" I pursued my inquiries. "She mostly let me

talk to her," confessed Mr. Powell. "I don't know that she was very much

interested--but still she let me. She never cut me short."

All the sympathies of Mr. Powell were for Flora Anthony nee de Barral.

She was the only human being younger than himself on board that ship

since the Ferndale carried no boys and was manned by a full crew of

able seamen. Yes! their youth had created a sort of bond between them.

Mr. Powell's open countenance must have appeared to her distinctly

pleasing amongst the mature, rough, crabbed or even inimical faces she

saw around her. With the warm generosity of his age young Powell was on

her side, as it were, even before he knew that there were sides to be

taken on board that ship, and what this taking sides was about. There

was a girl. A nice girl. He asked himself no questions. Flora de

Barral was not so much younger in years than himself; but for some

reason, perhaps by contrast with the accepted idea of a captain's wife,

he could not regard her otherwise but as an extremely youthful creature.

At the same time, apart from her exalted position, she exercised over him

the supremacy a woman's earlier maturity gives her over a young man of

her own age. As a matter of fact we can see that, without ever having

more than a half an hour's consecutive conversation together, and the

distances duly preserved, these two were becoming friends--under the eye

of the old man, I suppose.