Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/25

 to move, a thousand handkerchiefs went fluttering. Everybody was waving to somebody. For a moment the girl's eyes blurred. "Doris Stanton, you're a fool; you're going to cry," she gulped in her throat and lifted her head defiantly.

The ship began to tremble and groan. The hazy smoke from her funnels changed to dense black. A widening crevasse yawned between deck and dock. The jagged skyline of New York became visible, a vague and spectral city against a vague and spectral sky. Miss Stanton wormed her small self away from the rail, got clear, and fled with her precious violin. On the way to her modest cabin she passed an open door; the odor of flowers stopped her. She paused and stared inside, at a wilderness of roses, masses of carnations, beds of violets—a profusion of orchids, silk hangings, silver trappings. The singer's maids were setting things to rights.

"I don't care; I don't care, I'm happy," she insisted, then rushed into her own room and snatched a shriveled bouquet from the basin. These were not the kind of flowers that florists pack with purple ribbons, but the kind that come from country gardens, tied up by country girls. Doris remembered every bush, and knew where every blossom had grown. She darted to the right hand deck, which was almost deserted, hastily picked her flowers to pieces and began