In
the very midst of a knot of eager, excited men, Weldon was leaning
on the rail, talking so earnestly to Carew that he was quite
unconscious of the girl, twenty paces behind him. She hesitated for
a moment. Then, as she walked away to the farther end of the deck,
she told herself that Weldon was like all other men, regardful of
women only when no more vital interest presented itself. Already she
regretted the girlish vanity which had dictated the choice of the
gown in which she was to go ashore. For all the young Canadian was
likely to know to the contrary, she might be clad in a calico
wrapper and a blanket shawl, rather than the masterpiece of a London
tailor.
The Dunottar Castle was forging steadily ahead through the blue
waters of Table Bay. Beyond the bay, Cape Town nestled in its bed of
living green, backed by the sinister face of Table Mountain, and
fringed with a thicket of funnels and of raking masts. To the girl,
familiar with the harbor when Cape Town had been a peaceful seaport,
it seemed that the navies of the world were gathered there before
her eyes. It seemed to her, too, that the low, squat town never
looked half so fair as it did now, viewed from a softening distance
and ringed about with its summer setting of verdure.
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