Free Full Tide by Celine Conway Page B

plainest of them looked young and dashing. The Captain, of course, wore full uniform in white drill—at least, he did in public.
    Lisa lunched that day at Laura Basson’s table. The rich widow had taken to Nancy, but she knew too much about children to press attention upon a child who obviously did not want it. Not that Nancy was rude, Or even stand-offish. The girl listened when the older woman spoke to her and gently indicated that she understood, but she made no attempt to prolong the conversation by putting a question or offering comment, and invariably escaped as quickly as she decently could.
    “Mrs. Basso n ’s all right,” was Nancy’s answer to Lisa’s private remonstrance, “but she looks broody. I’d rather be with happy people.”
    “That’s all very well, but the unhappy ones are more in need of friendship. I believe Mrs. Basson was once a merry person, but things went wrong for her.”
    “She has two of her own children,” protested Nancy.
    “ The trouble is, they can get along without her, and she feels unwanted, which is a nasty thing to feel.” Nancy could understand that. Her whole existence had altered with the knowledge that her Daddy wanted her with him. But she was not yet prepared to welcome Mrs. Basson into her very limited circle of friends.
    “Well, I like her jewellery,” she conceded dismissively. To Lisa, Mrs. Basson w as something of a puzzle. She never sewed or knitted, as other women did, and the same book had remained open on her lap at more or less the same page since they had first spoken together.
    Now that the voyage was well under way and the passengers were learning each other’s history, a certain amount of gossip filtered through the ship, but Mrs. Basson would have no part in it. She gave out the bare facts about herself and her purpose in visiting the Cape, and was uninterested in everybody save Lisa and Nancy. Which, in the light of her statement that she was dependent upon friendships, was strange.
    After lunch they visited the shop. Lisa’s predicament in the matter of evening wear had begun to rasp a little, and she had decided that one extra change could be effected by wearing a bolero with the white and adding a detachable touch of the same color to the frock itself. At the back of the shop two rolls of stiff watered silk were pushed away on the top shelf of a glass case. One was cream and the other a deep ruby red. Lisa chose the latter.
    “That floss-like hair of yours is a foil for any color,” said Mrs. Basson, as they came from the shop. “If I were a man I should long to bury my face in it.”
    “I’m glad you’re not, then,” laughed Lisa. “I wouldn’t have the smallest potion of how to deal with a man who did that.”
    “You would if it happened.” Her tone deepened. “You’re young, but you know what you’re after—or rather you know what you don’t want. At your age I was a ninny. I loved my husband, but he was wealthy and he never did believe that I hadn’t married him for his money. I used to protest and joke about it—we were always frank with each other—but under the jesting the belief was there like a steel core, that his money had been the attraction, not his personality.”
    “What a pity,” said Lisa softly.
    “No. In a way he was right. When we married I was guileless and showed a wild delight whenever he b ought me a ring or a bracelet. I came to regard him as the provider and he unconsciously fostered my attitude by giving me more and more. I was fairly satisfied because the children were young and needed me, but when he died and they went off, uncaring, to boarding school, I found myself alone, with a great deal of money and memories which were tinged with bitterness because I’d failed him.”
    “You mean that he loved you more than you loved him?”
    Laura Basson nodded. “ He always used to say that if he died I must marry again. But now I’m in his position. I’d never be sure that a man who was anxious to