Page:O Douglas - Olivia in India.djvu/30

18 He turned, regarded me with his sad prominent eyes. "Do I look as if I enjoyed it?" asked this Monsieur Melancholy, and went back to his bread-and-butter. G. choked, and I finished my tea hurriedly and in silence.

Nearly everyone on board seems nice and willing to be pleasant. I am on smiling terms with most and speaking terms with many, but one really sees very little of the people outside one's own little set. It is odd how people drift together and make cliques. There are eight in our particular set. Colonel and Mrs. Crawley, Major and Mrs. Wilmot; Captain Gordon, Mr. Brand, G., and myself. The Crawleys, the Wilmots, and Captain Gordon are going back after furlough; Mr. Brand and G. and I are going only for pleasure and the cold weather. Our table is much the merriest in the saloon. Mrs. Crawley is a fascinating woman; I never tire watching her. Very pretty, very smart with a pretty wit, she has the most delightfully gay, infectious laugh, which contrasts oddly with her curiously sad, unsmiling eyes. Mrs. Wilmot has a Madonna face. I don't mean one of those silly, fat-faced Madonnas one sees in the Louvre and elsewhere, but one's own idea of the Madonna; the kind of face, as someone puts it, that God must love.