once at the cabin-plan to make his decision. He had sailed on the Empress before. All he had to do was to see whether his old cabin, which had been a comfortable one, was unoccupied. It was unoccupied. He jotted down its number to give to the clerk when he came back.

Heloise and her companion were not so decisive. Heloise, at least, showed all the hesitance proper to people unaccustomed to sea travel. The other woman was making suggestions, but Clement did not pay any attention to her. She was so obviously a companion, a servant, though of the cultured sort.

The clerk had tactfully pointed out a large cabin. After having spoken in glowing terms of it, he had gone off leaving the decision to the ladies. Clement had nothing against that clerk. As a clerk, he knew his business, which was to fill up[Pg 12] cabins. He was merely doing his duty in suggesting that cabin to people who did not know the art of selecting cabins—there were so many people who knew it too well, and would leave that cabin on his hands.

[Pg 12]

Clement noted the battle of indecision with some amusement. Also with some interest, because Heloise (only he didn’t know she was Heloise, then) was extremely pretty. Also he thought she was of that trusting and sweet disposition that will take the word of anybody—even of shipping clerks. Obviously, she was going to follow his suggestion.

When the shipping clerk went to the back of the office Clement saw to it that she didn’t. He looked up at her as she puzzled over the deck plan, smiled in a disarming way, and said, “I say, if you don’t mind my butting in, I wouldn’t take that inner room. You’ll find it hot and rather airless, and there’s no light at all except artificial light.”

She answered him before she thought about who he was. “Are you sure of that?”

“Quite,” he told her. “I know the Empress of Prague well; you’ll be quite comfortable on her, particularly if you take, say, that cabin over there, instead of that inner one.”

As he spoke he heard an indignant sniff from the companion. He looked beyond the girl and saw a comely, chilly, thick-set, middle-aged woman. A woman who had a broad and attractive smile[Pg 13] which, somehow, did not seem to penetrate deeper than the surface of her skin. It was the sniff and the smile that led Clement to christen her the Gorgon, then and there.

[Pg 13]

But the 

 Prev. P 8/176 next