The girl was speaking the thoughts in which she had vainly sought comfort.  She ceased abruptly, and, moving to the side, stood with her eyes turned yearningly back over the sea, oppressed by her loneliness and the home-sickness that had not left her since the shores of England faded from her sight.

Jim felt a stir of something like resentment at his heart.  He found in the girl’s words a reflection of the beliefs of his native village, and perhaps justification of them, and saw her for the moment as the embodiment of the respectability, the piety, and all the narrowness of Chisley.  The thought revived his habitual reserve.  He meditated an escape, already regretting that he had permitted himself to drift into this extraordinary position.

IV

MRs.  Macdougal came to Done’s rescue a moment later.  She sauntered languidly up to the young couple in her character of the interesting invalid, careful to make a charming picture in the moonlight.

‘It is a delightful night, Mr. Done, is it not?’ she said.

Jim admitted as much, without any display of interest, and the lady continued: 

’You know our dear girl is not strong.  You must not keep her in the night air.  Why, Lucy, how foolish you are! not a single wrap, and the wind so chilly!  You’ll certainly have a sickness.’

‘I shall not be ill, Mrs. Macdougal,’ said Lucy.  ‘But you are very good.’

Mrs. Macdougal’s plump figure was covered with furs, and a handsome shawl trailed from her arm; but it was characteristic of Mrs. Macdougal to profess the sweetest solicitude for other people, whilst appropriating for her own use and pleasure all the comfortable, pleasant, and pretty things.  She was not more than thirty-three, and looked like a gipsy spoiled by refinements.  Her social schooling had been confined to a long course of that delectable literature devoted to the amours of a strictly honourable aristocracy with superior milkmaids, nursery governesses, and other respectable young persons in lowly walks.  Indeed, Mrs. Macdougal, having had no early training worth speaking of, had successfully modelled her manners upon those of a few favourite heroines.  She fancied the expression, ‘It is, is it not?’ lent an air of exquisite refinement to ordinary conversation.  She was naturally artificial.  Artifice would have been her certain resort in whatever path it had pleased Fate to plant her small feet.  Her temper was excellent so far as it went, and her manner tender and clinging.  She would have preferred to have been tragic with such eyes and such hair, but with her plump figure it was not possible.  She loved attention, particularly the attentions of men, and employed many artifices to secure them, usually with success.  She had engaged Captain Evan on the deck during every afternoon for a whole week, fanning away a purely hypothetical headache.  Altogether Mrs. Macdougal was a delightful fool; almost everybody liked her.