“Why didn’t you speak to me?” he asked brazenly, and again she smiled.
“I thought you were here—on business,” she said maliciously. “My steward told me that you spent most of your evenings in the smokeroom watching people play cards. I was wondering when you were coming into the library. You’re a subscriber now, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said awkwardly; “I believe I am.”
“I know because I signed your receipt,” she said.
“Oh, then, you’re—” He paused expectantly.
“I’m the person that signed the receipt.” Not a muscle of her face moved. And then:
“What is your name?” he asked bluntly.
“My name is Lansdown—Sybil Lansdown.”
“Of course, I remember!”
“You saw it on the receipt, of course?”
He nodded.
“It was returned to the library through the Dead Letter Office!” she went on ruthlessly.
“I never knew a human being who could make a man feel quite as big a fool as you,” he protested, laughing. “I mean, as you make me feel,” he corrected hastily.
And that ended the conversation until the evening. On the dark deck, side by side, they talked commonplaces, until—
“Start Light on the port bow, sir,” said a muffled voice on the bridge deck above.
The two people leaning over the rail in the narrow deck space forward saw a splash of light quiver for the fraction of a second on the rim of the dark sea and vanish again.
“That is a lighthouse, isn’t it?”
Dick edged himself a little closer to the girl, sliding himself stealthily along the broad rail.
“Start Light,” he explained. “I don’t know why they call it ‘Start’—‘Finish’ would be a better word, I guess.”
A silence, then:
“You are not American, are you?”
“Canadian by habit, British by birth—mostly anything people want me to be. A kind of renegade.”
He laughed softly in the darkness.
“I don’t think that is a nice word. I wondered if I should meet you when I came aboard at Madeira. There are an awful queer lot of people on board this ship.”
“Thank you for those kind words,” said Dick gravely, and she protested. He went on: “There never was an oceangoing ship that wasn’t full of queer people. I’ll give you a hundred million if you can travel on a packet where some passenger doesn’t say, ‘My, what a menagerie!’ about the others. No, Miss Lansdown, you’re not being trite. Life’s trite anyway. The tritest thing you can do is to eat and sleep. Try living originally and see how quick you go dead. Here’s another queer thing about ships—you never have the nerve to talk to the people you like till you’re only a day from port. What they do with themselves the rest of the time, I’ve never found out. Five days from Madeira—and I never spoke to you till this afternoon. That’s proof.”
She drew a little farther from him and straightened herself.
“I think I’ll go below now,” she said. “It is rather late and we have to get up early—”
“What you’re really thinking,” said Dick, very gently, “is that in a second or so I’ll be pawing your hand and saying wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could sail on like this forever under the stars and everything. I’m not. Beauty attracts me, I admit it. I know you’re beautiful because I couldn’t find anything odd about your face.” He heard her laughing. “That’s beauty in a sentence—something that isn’t odd. If your nose was fat and your eyes little and squeeny and your complexion like one of these maps that show the density of population, I’d have admired you for your goodness of heart, but I shouldn’t have raved you into the Cleopatra class. I’ll bet she wasn’t much to look at if the truth was known.”
“Are you going abroad again?” She turned the talk into a way that was less embarrassing, but regretted the necessity.
“No—I’m staying in London: in Claygate Gardens. I’ve got a pretty nice little flat; you can sit in the middle of any room and touch the walls without stretching. But it’s big enough for a man without ambitions. When you get to my age—I’ll be thirty on the fourteenth of September: you might like to send me flowers—you’re content to settle down and watch the old world wag around. I’ll be glad to get back. London takes a hold of you, and just when you’re getting tired of it, up comes a fog like glue-gas and you can’t find your way out.”
She sighed.
“Our flat is smaller than yours. Madeira was heaven after Coram Street!”
“What number?” asked Dick brazenly.
“One of the many,” she smiled. “And now I really must go. Goodnight.”
He did not walk back with her to the companionway, but strolled to the ship’s side, where he could watch the slim figure as it passed quickly along the deserted deck.
He wondered what had taken her to Madeira, for he guessed that she was not one of those fortunate people who, to escape the rigours of an English winter, could afford to follow the path of the vernal equinox. She was much more pretty than he had thought—beautiful in a pale, Oriental way—it was the slant of her grey eyes that suggested the East—not pale exactly—and yet not pink. Perhaps it was the geranium red of her lips that, by contrast, gave the illusion of pallor. Thin? He decided that she was not that. He thought of thin people in terms of brittleness—and she was supple and plastic.
Amazed to find himself analyzing her charm, he strolled along the deck and turned into the smoking-room. Although the hour was past eleven, the tables were occupied, and by the usual crowd. He walked to one in the corner and stood watching the play until, after many uneasy and resentful glances, the big man who, up till his arrival, had been the most jovial and the most successful player threw down his cards.
“Goin’ to bed,” he growled, gathered up his winnings and rose.
He stopped before Slick.
“You won a hundred from me last week,” he said. “You pay
