Under the intentness of their gaze
she made as if she would pass out without speaking; and the tender
curves of her limbs, as she wavered, could not have been matched out of
mediaeval stained glass. But her courage, or her conviction, came back to
her at the door, and she raised her hand and pointed at Hilda.
"She's got a soul worth saving."
Then the portiere fell behind her, and nothing was said in the room
until the pad of her bare feet had ceased upon the stair.
"She came out in the _Bengal_ with us," Hilda told him--this is not a
special instance of it, but she could always gratify Duff Lindsay in
advance--"and she was desperately seedy, poor girl. I looked after her a
little, but it was mistaken kindness, for now she's got me on her mind.
And as the two hundred and eighty million benighted souls of India are
her continual concern, I seem a superfluity. To think of being the two
hundred and eighty-first millionth oppresses one."
Lindsay listened with a look of accustomed happiness.
"You weren't at that end of the ship!" he demanded.
"Of course I was--we all were. And some of us, little Miss Stace, for
instance--thankful enough at the prospect of cold meat and sardines for
tea every night for a whole month.
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