Page:An American Girl in India.djvu/53

 I groped my way towards the ladder, careless now that I was of the emerald hue known of yore to little Johnnie Jones and his sister Sue. I swung unsteadily at the top of the steps, clinging to the hand rail. 'Let me give you a hand,' said a familiar deep bass voice in my ears. I half turned feeling the desire for loneliness too great even to welcome this well-intentioned interruption, yet doubting withal if without help I could attain my end. Yet when I saw who it was, I steadied myself. Now I could not suffer myself to be rescued from my straits, however bad, by the friend of Dukes and Duchesses, who had sold me so horribly in the matter of his top-hat. So by a great effort I smiled. I even thought of speaking, but I felt just in time that that would be too dangerous. Even the smile threatened to cost me dear. Just then the roll of the boat was awful, and that wave of longing for solitude engulfed me. In a moment of mortal weakness I was about to give myself over into the hands of the enemy.

Then something happened. One of the Dukes suddenly rushed past us and stumbled rather than ran down the companion way. I just caught sight of his face as it flashed by. He was the Duke who had walked the platform at Charing Cross with his head erect and his glance fixed straight in front of him. Now he still looked straight ahead, but his expression wasn't quite the same. His chest somehow seemed to have fallen in and his back got hunched up—altogether a pitiable figure of a man.