In all this he did
not mean to be cruel or inconsiderate. It was just the way he was built;
and it never entered his head that "such people" had ears and brains.
In the rest of the ship's company were a dozen or so other Englishmen of
the upper classes, either army men on shooting trips, or youths going
out with some idea of settling in the country. They were a clean-built,
pleasant lot; good people to know anywhere, but of no unusual interest.
It was only when one went abroad into the other nations that inscribable
human interest could be found.
There was the Greek, Scutari, and his bride, a languorous rather
opulent beauty, with large dark eyes for all men, and a luxurious manner
of lying back and fanning herself. She talked, soft-voiced, in half a
dozen languages, changing from one to the other without a break in
either her fluency or her thought. Her little lithe, active husband sat
around and adored her. He was apparently a very able citizen indeed, for
he was going out to take charge of the construction work on a German
railway. To have filched so important a job from the Germans themselves
shows that he must have had ability. With them were a middle-aged
Holland couple, engaged conscientiously in travelling over the globe.
They had been everywhere--the two American hemispheres, from one Arctic
Sea to another, Siberia, China, the Malay Archipelago, this, that, and
the other odd corner of the world.
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