Some strong emotion, following all this enlightenment, compelled Joyce to cut their interview short.
"I hope she 'll enjoy it." She spoke stiffly, and turned away, prim with self-restraint. "Good-morning, captain."
"Now what did I say to make her mad?" wondered Captain Christy, watching as the fog veiled and enveloped her. "I'm sorry— Humph!— Funny critters."
Still perplexed over this, and downcast from the morning's work, he navigated among the autumnal stalks in the little garden, stopped to see if his hydrangea had shaken off its last petals, and then, skirting round to the back door, entered his workshop. Here a bench, of spinster-like neatness, ran athwart a noble confusion: old coats, oilskins, boots, lined the walls like votive offerings after ship-wreck; in the window a frigate-bird, badly stuffed, perked a vicious bill as if to puncture the balloon breast of a dried sea-robin; and in the corners, over the floor, on shelves, lay heaps of nautical rubbish,—bits of chain, pots of dried paint, resin, and tar, broken oars.
