Presently they were all at dinner; soup, but no Jim; fish, but no Jim.
Here was Jim at last, pale, freshly shaven, slipping into his place with
a muttered apology and averted eyes. With a sense of impending calamity
upon her, Julia struggled through her dinner; after a while she found
herself holding cards, under a bright light; after a while again, she
reached her stateroom.
Julia turned up the light. The room was close and empty, littered with
the evidences of Jim's hasty toilet. She opened a window, and the sweet
salt air filtered in, infinitely soothing and refreshing. She began to
go about the room, picking up Jim's clothes, and putting the place in
order. Once or twice her face twitched with pain, and once she stopped
and pressed Jim's coat to her heart with both hands, as if to stop a
wound, but she did not cry, and presently began her usual preparations
for bed in her usual careful fashion. The cherry-coloured gown had been
put away, and Julia, in an embroidered white kimono almost stiff enough
to stand alone, was putting her rings into their little cases when Jim
came in. She looked at him over her shoulder.
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