emper. Without warning
she would explode, scream, scratch, bite, and kick, until she got what
she wanted, when she would subside as suddenly into a self-centred
silence broken by hiccoughs and chokes. She wanted everything--the watch
and money out of your pocket and heart and liver out of your body.
'Angel child!' her mother would call her, and hang fondly over the
odious little brat. For the angel child was still supposed to be
'delicate.' Mrs. Evans had a case of champagne and a stock of Bovril,
and I dare say some of the displays I witnessed were due in part to
intoxication. The carpenter was busy all day making gates and fences
round the companion and bridge deck to prevent the delicate child from
crawling out and getting slung overboard. I used to sit in the cabin
with the angelic Babs on my knee, from which she was always slipping,
listening to Mrs. Evans' account of the diphtheria, and watching
Artemisia moving noiselessly to and fro in the bedroom or sitting just
inside the spare stateroom door sewing. I never enjoyed looking at a
girl so much in my life. She was not pretty in the ordinary sense of the
word. Her skin was not the buttery yellow you associate with
half-breeds. It was more the russet brown of a sunburned blonde. Her
cheeks had a soft peachy glow under the brown bloom that was beautiful.
And yet she did not give one the impression of sheer innocence and
youth which was implied in her unique complexion. Her eyes were
perfectly steady and unabashed, her figure was more mature and matronly
than Mrs. Evans', and she had a gravity of poise and deliberate movement
that one associates with the reflection born of experience. She gave me
the impression, I may say, of a young person who had chanced upon some
astounding revelation, and who was preoccupied with both past and future
more than the immediate present. It made her more attractive than less,
I think. She established a certain careless fondness for talking to Mr.
Chief, as she called me. I dare say I was in love with her even then.
She had a personality. I think Jack, who for all his crude psychology
was a pretty shrewd judge of humanity, saw something beyond a mere
desirable young girl in this nurse. He used to follow her round with his
eyes as though he couldn't make her out. He couldn't recover from the
shock of her name. He would sit in the saloon watching her with the
child, and mutter 'Artemisia! Humph!' She would glance up from her
occupation an