‘Don’t let’s worry about it,’ I suggested, taking his arm. I was not worried about it myself. Indeed for the moment my island monopolised my mind, and my attachment to Beatrice was not of such a romantic character as to make me ready to be jealous on slight grounds. Mrs Hipgrave said the engagement was based on ‘general suitability.’ Now it is difficult to be very passionate over that. [Pg 18] [Pg 18] ‘If you don’t mind, I don’t,’ said Denny reasonably. ‘That’s right. It’s only a little way Beatrice—’ I stopped abruptly. We were now on the steps outside the restaurant, and I had just perceived a scrap of paper lying on the mosaic pavement. I stooped down and picked it up. It proved to be a fragment torn from the menu card. I turned it over. ‘Hullo, what’s this?’ said I, searching for my eye-glass, which was (as usual) somewhere in the small of my back. Denny gave me the glass, and I read what was written on the back. It was in Greek, and it ran thus: ‘By way of Rhodes—small yacht there—arrive seventh.’ I turned the piece of paper over in my hand. I drew a conclusion or two; one was that my tall neighbour was named Stefanopoulos; another that he had made good use of his ears—better than I had made of mine; for a third, I guessed that he would go to Neopalia; for a fourth, I fancied that Neopalia was the place to which the lady had declared she would accompany him. Then I fell to wondering why all these things should be so, why he wished to remember the route of my journey, the date of my arrival, and the fact that I meant to[Pg 19] hire a yacht. Finally, those two chance encounters, taken with the rest, assumed a more interesting complexion. [Pg 19] ‘When you’ve done with that bit of paper,’ observed Denny, in a tone expressive of exaggerated patience, ‘we might as well go on, old fellow.’ ‘All right. I’ve done with it—for the present,’ said I. But I took the liberty of slipping Mr Constantine Stefanopoulos’s memorandum into my pocket. The general result of the evening was to increase most distinctly my interest in Neopalia. I went to bed still thinking of my purchase, and I recollect that the last thing which came into my head before I went to sleep was, ‘What did she mean by pointing to
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