the ship all right by one-thirty--an there was a tempest
blowing. That helped Florence a good deal. For we were not ten minutes
out from Sandy Hook before Florence went down into her cabin and her
heart took her. An agitated stewardess came running up to me, and I went
running down. I got my directions how to behave to my wife. Most of them
came from her, though it was the ship doctor who discreetly suggested
to me that I had better refrain from manifestations of affection. I was
ready enough. I was, of course, full of remorse. It occurred to me that
her heart was the reason for the Hurlbirds' mysterious desire to keep
their youngest and dearest unmarried. Of course, they would be
too refined to put the motive into words. They were old stock New
Englanders. They would not want to have to suggest that a husband must
not kiss the back of his wife's neck. They would not like to suggest
that he might, for the matter of that. I wonder, though, how Florence
got the doctor to enter the conspiracy--the several doctors.

Of course her heart squeaked a bit--she had the same configuration of
the lungs as her Uncle Hurlbird. And, in his company, she must have
heard a great deal of heart talk from specialists. Anyhow, she and they
tied me pretty well down--and Jimmy, of course, that dreary boy--what in
the world did she see in him? He was lugubrious, silent, morose. He had
no talent as a painter. He was very sallow and dark, and he never shaved
sufficiently. He met us at Havre, and he proceeded to make himself
useful for the next two years, during which he lived in our flat in
Paris, whether we were there or not. He studied painting at Julien's, or
some such place....

That fellow had his hands always in the pockets of his odious,
square-shouldered, broad-hipped, American coats, and his dark eyes were
always full of ominous appearances. He was, besides, too fat. Why, I was
much the better man....

And I daresay Florence would have given me the better. She showed signs
of it. I think, perhaps, the enigmatic smile with which she used to look
back at me over her shoulder when she went into the bathing place was a
sort of invitation. I have mentioned that. It was as if she were saying:
"I am going in here. I am going to stand so stripped and white and
straight--and you are a man...." Perhaps it was that....

No, she cannot have liked that fellow long. He looked like sallow putty.
I understand that he had been slim and dark and very g