Part 7 (1/2)
he explained. ”One of Fritz's sh.e.l.ls tore my face to pieces. People don't like to look at the result. Women particularly. You can't see my wrecked face, so you don't shudder and pa.s.s on. I suppose that is why I said that the way I did.”
”I see. You feel a little bit glad to come across some one who doesn't know whether your face is straight or crooked? Some one who accepts you sight unseen, as she would any man who spoke and acted courteously? Is that it?”
”Yes,” Hollister admitted. ”That's about it.”
”But your friends and relatives?” she suggested softly.
”I have no relatives in this country,” he said. ”And I have no friends anywhere, now.”
She considered this a moment, rubbing her cheek with a gloved forefinger. What was she thinking about, Hollister wondered?
”That must be rather terrible at times. I'm not much given to slopping over, but I find myself feeling sorry for you--and you are only a disembodied voice. Your fix is something like my own,” she said at last. ”And I have always denied that misery loves company.”
”You were right in that, too,” Hollister replied. ”Misery wants pleasant company. At least, that sort of misery which comes from isolation and unfriendliness makes me appreciate even chance companions.h.i.+p.”
”Is it so bad as that?” she asked quickly. The tone of her voice made Hollister quiver, it was so unexpected, so wistful.
”Just about. I've become a stray dog in this old world. And it used to be a pretty good sort of a world for me in the old days. I'm not whining. But I do feel like kicking. There's a difference, you know.”
He felt ashamed of this mild outburst as soon as it was uttered. But it was true enough, and he could not help saying it. There was something about this girl that broke down his reticence, made him want to talk, made him feel sure he would not be misunderstood.
She nodded.
”There is a great difference. Any one with any spirit will kick if there is anything to kick about. And it's always shameful to whine.
You don't seem like a man who _could_ whine.”
”How can you tell what sort of man I am?” Hollister inquired. ”You just said that I was only a disembodied voice.”
She laughed, a musical low-toned chuckle that pleased him.
”One gets impressions,” she answered. ”Being sightless sharpens other faculties. You often have very definite impressions in your mind about people you have never seen, don't you?”
”Oh, yes,” he agreed. ”I daresay every one gets such impressions.”
”Sometimes one finds those impressions are merely verified by actual sight. So there you are. I get a certain impression of you by the language you use, your tone, your inflections--and by a something else which in those who can see is called intuition, for lack of something more definite in the way of a term.”
”Aren't you ever mistaken in those impressionistic estimates of people?”
She hesitated a little.
”Sometimes--not often. That sounds egotistic, but really it is true.”
The steamer drew out of the mouth of Toba Inlet. In the widening stretch between the mainland and the Redondas a cold wind came whistling out of Homfray Channel. Hollister felt the chill of it through his mackinaw coat and was moved to thought of his companion's comfort.
”May I find you a warm place to sit?” he asked. ”That's an uncomfortable breeze. And do you mind if I talk to you? I haven't talked to any one like you for a long time.”
She smiled a.s.sent.
”Ditto to that last,” she said.
”You aren't a western man, are you?” she continued, as Hollister took her by the arm and led her toward a cabin abaft the wheelhouse on the boat deck, a roomy lounging place unoccupied save by a fat woman taking a midday nap in one corner, her double chin sunk on her ample bosom.