Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/64

 dozen strides away. So William's superstition cried out that the Lord had put her there not without some definite purpose concerning one William Grogan. How the Lord intended him to act he could not surmise, but he was determined to hang around on the job until the call came.

For the first time in his life he recognized a real barrier. Here was a mixed-up family, bound together by a curious set of ties for six months. In a week or so, he cynically argued, everybody would know everybody else, family histories and so forth. And yet he hadn't the nerve to go over and speak to the girl. Why? Was it something in the fine profile, something in its expression that spoke of secret sorrow? He could not analyze what it was, but he knew, then and there, that he would never be able to speak to her with the free-dom he had previously used toward typewriter-girls, shop-girls, girls in the lunch-rooms, and the girl in the manicure-shop. He turned on his heels, fuming at both his lack of courage and this invisible barrier. He hated red hair and freckles. He looked at his hands. Well, they weren't so bad, even if they were as large as hams. The size of his feet had always troubled him; but the Lord knew they had to be big to carry around his weight. The inventory was highly unsatisfactory. For more than an hour he wandered about the decks. He was like a friendly outcast dog, striving to catch some one's eye and invariably failing. He was all alone. Most of the tourists