The Girl on the Boat - Penn State University

draw when abashed. One could not picture Jane
Hubbard flirting lightly at garden parties, but one could
picture her very readily arguing with a mutinous native
bearer, or with a firm touch putting sweetness and
light into the soul of a refractory mule. Boadicea in her
girlhood must have been rather like Jane Hubbard.
She smoked contentedly. She had rolled her cigarette
herself with one hand, a feat beyond the powers
of all but the very greatest. She was pleasantly tired
after walking eighty-five times round the promenade
deck. Soon she would go to bed and fall asleep the
moment her head touched the pillow. But meanwhile
she lingered here, for she felt that Billie had something
to confide in her.
“Jane,” said Billie, “have you ever been in love?”
Jane Hubbard knocked the ash off her cigarette.
“Not since I was eleven,” she said in her deep musical
voice. “He was my music-master. He was forty-seven
and completely bald, but there was an appealing weakness
in him which won my heart. He was afraid of cats,
I remember.”
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Girl</strong> on the Boat
58
Billie gathered her hair into a molten bundle and let
it run through her fingers.
“Oh, Jane!” she exclaimed. “Surely you don’t like
weak men. I like a man who is strong and brave and
wonderful.”
“I can’t stand brave men,” said Jane, “it makes them
so independent. I could only love a man who would
depend on me in everything. Sometimes, when I have
been roughing it out in the jungle,” she went on rather
wistfully, “I have had my dreams of some gentle clinging
man who would put his hand in mine and tell me
all his poor little troubles and let me pet and comfort
him and bring the smiles back to his face. I’m beginning
to want to settle down. After all there are other
things for a woman to do in this life besides travelling
and big-game hunting. I should like to go into Parliament.
And, if I did that, I should practically have to
marry. I mean, I should have to have a man to look
after the social end of life and arrange parties and receptions
and so on, and sit ornamentally at the head of
my table. I can’t imagine anything jollier than mar-