The Girl on the Boat - Penn State University

You have to use butter ….”
She shuddered.
“Don’t!”
“But I did. You have to with burnt cork.”
“Don’t tell me these horrible things.” Her voice rose
almost hysterically. “I never want to hear the words
burnt cork mentioned again as long as I live.”
“I feel exactly the same.” Sam moved to her side.
“Darling,” he said in a low voice, “it was like you to
ask me to meet you here. I know what you were thinking.
You thought that I should need sympathy. You
wanted to pet me, to smooth my wounded feelings, to
hold me in your arms and tell me that, as we loved
each other, what did anything else matter?”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh, you didn’t? I thought you did!” He looked at
her wistfully. “I thought,” he said, “that possibly you
might have wished to comfort me. I have been through
a great strain. I have had a shock ….”
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Girl</strong> on the Boat
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“And what about me?” she demanded passionately.
“Haven’t I had a shock?”
He melted at once.
“Have you had a shock too? Poor little thing! Sit down
and tell me all about it.”
She looked away from him, her face working.
“Can’t you understand what a shock I have had? I
thought you were the perfect knight.”
“Yes, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t what?”
“I thought you said it was a perfect night.”
“I said I thought you were the perfect knight.”
“Oh, ah!”
A sailor crossed the deck, a dim figure in the shadows,
went over to a sort of raised summerhouse with a
brass thingummy in it, fooled about for a moment, and
went away again. Sailors earn their money easily.
“Yes?” said Sam when he had gone.
“I forget what I was saying.”
“Something about my being the perfect knight.”
“Yes. I thought you were.”