seemed rather a coincidence my meeting her again.
“I shouldn’t mind talking to you on this trip,” I reflected, mollified. “The mischief of it is you’ll notice me about as much as you notice the ship’s stokers. You’re not the sort to scrape acquaintance, or else I miss my shot!”
I did not miss it. So much was instantly proved. As I passed her, on the mere chance that she might elect to acknowledge our encounter, I let my gaze impersonally meet hers. She started slightly. Evidently she remembered. But she turned toward the nearest door without a bow.
The dark, too-well-groomed man was emerging as she advanced. Instead of moving back, he blocked her path, looking—was it appraisingly, expectantly?—into her eyes. There was a pause while she waited rather haughtily for passage; then he effaced himself, and she disappeared.
Striking a match viciously, I lit a cigarette and strolled forward. Either the fellow had fancied that he knew her or he had behaved in a confoundedly impertinent way. The latter hypothesis seemed, on the whole, the more likely, and I felt a lively desire to drop him over the rail.
“But I don’t know what a girl of your looks expects, I’m sure,” I grumbled, “setting off on your travels with no chaperon and no companion and no maid! Where are your father and mother? Where are your brothers? Where’s the old friend of the family who dined with you last night? If chaps who have no right to walk the same earth with you get insolent, who is going to teach them their place, and who is going to take care of you if a U-boat pops out of the sea? Oh, well, never mind. It isn’t any of my business. But just the same if you need my services, I think I’ll tackle the job.”
Time was passing; night had fallen. Consulting my watch, I found that it was seven o’clock. I had been aboard more than two hours. An afternoon sailing, quotha! At this rate we would be lucky if we got off by dawn.
The dinner gong, a welcome diversion, summoned us below to lights and warmth. At one table the young Italian entertained his relatives, and at another the captain, a short, swart-faced, taciturn being, had grouped his officers and various officials of the steamship company at a farewell feast. The
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