Page:C Q, or, In the Wireless House (Train, 1912).djvu/88

 of golden mist out of which two voices broke in startling sibilants:

“What are you doing on this boat?” It was Mrs. Trevelyan speaking.

The man, her companion, gave a nervous laugh.

“Why not?” he answered, affecting a lightness that seemed strangely artificial at that place and hour.

"Don’t fence, Cosmo!” she retorted almost sharply. “Why not, indeed? You—in a shabby suit in the second cabin—with a beard!” She laughed in that clinquant laugh of hers that rivaled in clearness the light on the edges of the distant waves. “In a beard!” she repeated.

There was silence for a moment before the man replied. He seemed to be waiting. Then—

“Have you heard nothing?” he asked in dull tones.

“Heard? I? What do you mean?”

Again the silence.

“I hardly thought it possible that you had not, but, since you don’t knew, there is nothing to tell.” He spoke with infinite depression.