Chapter II

CHAPTER II

The process of getting into the dining room was a nightmare to him.
Between halts and stumbles, jerks and lurches, locomotion had at
times seemed impossible. But at last he had made it, and was
seated alongside of Her. The array of knives and forks frightened
him. They bristled with unknown perils, and he gazed at them,
fascinated, till their dazzle became a background across which
moved a succession of forecastle pictures, wherein he and his mates
sat eating salt beef with sheath-knives and fingers, or scooping
thick pea-soup out of pannikins by means of battered iron spoons.
The stench of bad beef was in his nostrils, while in his ears, to
the accompaniment of creaking timbers and groaning bulkheads,
echoed the loud mouth-noises of the eaters. He watched them
eating, and decided that they ate like pigs. Well, he would be
careful here. He would make no noise. He would keep his mind upon
it all the time.

He glanced around the table. Opposite him was Arthur, and Arthur's
brother, Norman. They were her brothers, he reminded himself, and
his heart warmed toward them. How they loved each other, the
members of this family! There flashed into his mind the picture of
her mother, of the kiss of greeting, and of the pair of them
walking toward him with arms entwined. Not in his world were such
displays of affection between parents and children made. It was a
revelation of the heights of existence that were attained in the
world above. It was the finest thing yet that he had seen in this
small glimpse of that world. He was moved deeply by appreciation
of it, and his heart was melting with sympathetic tenderness. He
had starved for love all his life. His nature craved love. It was
an organic demand of his being. Yet he had gone without, and
hardened himself in the process. He had not known that he needed
love. Nor did he know it now. He merely saw it in operation, and
thrilled to it, and thought it fine, and high, and splendid.

He was glad that Mr. Morse was not there. It was difficult enough
getting acquainted with her, and her mother, and her brother,
Norman. Arthur he already knew somewhat. The father would have
been too much for him, he felt sure. It seemed to him that he had
never worked so hard in his life. The severest toil was child's
play compared with this. Tiny nodules of moisture stood out on his
forehead, and his shirt was wet with sweat from the exertion of
doing so many unaccustomed things at once. He had to eat as he had
never eaten before, to handle strange tools, to glance
surreptitiously about and learn how to accomplish each new thing,
to receive the flood of impressions that was pouring in upon him
and being mentally annotated and classified; to be