The steamer ``Santiago,'' carrying ``passengers, bullion, and coffee,'' was headed to pass Porto Rico by midnight, when she would be free of land until she anchored at the quarantine station of the green hills of Staten Island.She had not yet shaken off the contamination of the earth; a soft inland breeze still tantalized her with odors of tree and soil, the smell of the fresh coat of paint that had followed her coaling rose from her sides, and the odor of spilt coffee-grains that hung around the hatches had yet to be blown away by a jealous ocean breeze, or washed by a welcoming cross sea.
The captain stopped at the open entrance of the Social Hall.
``If any of you ladies want to take your last look at Olancho you've got to come now,'' he said.``We'll lose the Valencia light in the next quarter hour.''
Miss Langham and King looked up from their novels and smiled, and Miss Langham shook her head.``I've taken three final farewells of Olancho already,'' she said: ``before we went down to dinner, and when the sun set, and when the moon rose.I have no more sentiment left to draw on.Do you want to go?'' she asked.
``I'm very comfortable, thank you,'' King said, and returned to the consideration of his novel.
But Clay and Hope arose at the captain's suggestion with suspicious alacrity, and stepped out upon the empty deck, and into the encompassing darkness, with a little sigh of relief.
Alice Langham looked after them somewhat wistfully and bit the edges of her book.She sat for some time with her brows knitted, glancing occasionally and critically toward King and up with unseeing eyes at the swinging lamps of the saloon.He caught her looking at him once when he raised his eyes as he turned a page, and smiled back at her, and she nodded pleasantly and bent her head over her reading.She assured herself that after all King understood her and she him, and that if they never rose to certain heights, they never sank below a high level of mutual esteem, and that perhaps was the best in the end.