Lucy awaits Edmund late in the evening

Edmund and Clarissa dined together in their stateroom that evening.

Lucy sat with the girls in a corner of the dining room next to the kitchen. The Great and Good who traveled by air were having a fine time of it, though Lucy could discern two younger couples who looked neither well-turned-out enough to be Old Money nor expensively ostentatious enough to be New Money. From their looks and inclinations toward one another within each pair, they must be honeymooners traveling on the gift of some well-to-do relation, or one thrifty and generous enough for the sake of this special occasion. For all that, looking round the room, Lucy would have classed herself as a governess, Sabrina as New Money, and Annie as...well. Lucy couldn't place Annie at all, here. Her dress was presentable, but a touch too plain, and her manner with Sabrina was familiar and confident, and she was uncowed by the lords, ladies, plutocrats and pompous he-and she-asses round about the tables. Well, perhaps Annie could pass for Sabrina's poor relation.

After the evening sitting, Lucy played cards with Sabrina and Annie for a few short hands, then listened to Sabrina hold forth again about the finishing school they were traveling to. During a trip to the WC, a pause outside Edmund and Clarissa's stateroom satisfied Lucy that Edmund was doing his husbandly duty by Clarissa again, to Clarissa's vocal appreciation. Lucy smiled. Golden slumbers, Clarissa, she thought, hoping it would be so.

While Lucy and the girls had been at the dining room, the stewards had converted Sabrina and Annie's stateroom from day to night, folding out the aluminium upper bunk from the wall and converting the broad bench seat into a lower bunk.

Sabrina played with the switch for the electrical illumination, frowning at it. "I suppose it'll do," she said.

Annie laughed. "Oh, leave off, Sabrina, it's perfectly good."

Lucy reminded them to clean their teeth, kissed Annie on the cheek, and bade them good night. Sabrina insisted on a kiss too. Maybe the extended separation from family already had Sabrina a little homesick.

Lucy satisfied herself that her last-minute accommodations were ready. They had set up a cot in an empty storage chamber, unused during the shorter Continental hops. Edmund had been persuasive, but there simply had been no empty staterooms from London. Later there should be something that would let her feel more like a passenger and less like crew -- or cargo. Lucy went to the ladies' to make her own evening ablutions. The little bidet was a welcome touch. She then went back to her storage-room cabin. She read a novel for a short while until she decided the dim light was bothering her eyes, then found a quiet corner of the observation gallery where she could await Edmund. The moon illuminated the clouds below the airship, making them even more magical fairy castles. Lucy hoped the girls would stay asleep and not keep each other awake or go prowling the airship, but who knew what might happen on a bright moonlit night?

Lucy read her novel for a while as the other passengers gradually retired. When all was quiet, Lucy dozed a bit until she was awakened by someone's entrance to the observation gallery. Lucy looked about, but from where she was sitting, neither she nor the newcomer could see each other right away.