Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/408



happened that Martin returned to New York, as he had come, on the St. Buryan. The ship was haunted with the phantoms of Leora dreaming, of Sondelius shouting on the bridge.

And on the St. Buryan was the country-club Miss Gwilliam who had offended Sondelius.

She had spent the winter importantly making notes on native music in Trinidad and Caracas; at least in planning to make notes. She saw Martin come aboard at Blackwater, and pertly noted the friends who saw him off—two Englishmen, one puffy, one rangy, and a dry-looking Scotsman.

"Your friends all seem to be British," she enlightened him, when she had claimed him as an old friend.

"Yes."

"You've spent the winter here."

"Yes".

"Hard luck to be caught by the quarantine. But I told you you were silly to go ashore! You must have managed to pick up quite a little money practising. But it must have been unpleasant, really."

"Ye-es, I suppose it was."

"I told you it would be! You ought to have come on to Trinidad. Such a fascinating island! And tell me, how is the Roughneck?"

"Who?"

"Oh, you know—that funny Swede that used to dance and everything."

"He is dead."

"Oh, I am sorry. You know, no matter what the others said, I never thought he was so bad. I'm sure he had quite a nice cultured mind, when he wasn't carousing around. Your wife isn't with you, is she?"

"No—she isn't with me. I must go down and unpack now." 398