QUEENSTOWN

Immediately he had allowed himself to be persuaded, Staff felt sure he should not have agreed to change his seat to the table occupied by Mrs.

Ilkington's party, especially if he meant sincerely to try to do any real work aboard the Autocratic; and it wasn't long after he had taken his place for the first dinner that he was convinced that he had blundered beyond remedy or excuse.

The table was round and seated seven, though when the party had a.s.sembled there remained two vacant places. Staff was a.s.signed the chair on Mrs. Ilkington's right and was sensitive to a not over subtle implication that his was the seat of honour. He would cheerfully have exchanged it for a place on the lady's left, which would have afforded a chance to talk to Miss Searle, to whom he earnestly desired to make an explanation and such amends as she would permit. But a male person named Bangs, endowed with impressive self-a.s.surance, altogether too much good-looks (measured by the standards of the dermatological inst.i.tute advertis.e.m.e.nts) and no excess baggage in the way of intellect, sat on Mrs. Ilkington's left, with Miss Searle beyond him. The latter had suffered Staff to be presented to her with (he fancied) considerable repressed amus.e.m.e.nt. Not that he blamed her, but ...

His position was rendered unhappy to the verge of being impossible, however, by the lady on his own right, a Mrs. Thataker: darkly temperamental and buxom, a divorcee and (she lost no time in telling him) likewise a playwright. True, none of her plays had ever been produced; but that was indisputably due to a managerial conspiracy; what she really needed was a friend at court--some clever man having "the ear of the manager." (Staff gathered that a truly clever man could warm up a play and pour it into the ear of the managers like laudanum and sweet-oil.) With such a man, he was given to understand, Mrs. Thataker wouldn't mind collaborating; she had ma.n.u.scripts in her steamer-trunk which were calculated to prove a number of things ...

And while he was easing away and preparing to run before the wind to escape any such hideous complication, he was abruptly brought up all-standing by the information that the colour of the lady's soul was pink. She knew this to be a fact beyond dispute, because she never could do her best work save when garbed exclusively in pink. She enumerated several articles of wearing apparel not customarily discussed between comparative strangers but which--always provided they were pink--she held indispensable to the task of dramatic composition.

In his great agony, happening to glance in Miss Searle's direction, he saw her with head bent and eyelids lowered, lips compressed, colour a trifle heightened, shoulders suspiciously a-quiver.

Incongruously, the impression obtruded that they were unusually handsome shoulders.

For that matter, she was an unusually handsome young woman: tall, fair, with a face featured with faint, exquisite irregularity, brown eyes and brows in striking contrast to the rich golden colour of her hair; well-poised and balanced--sure but not too conscious of herself ...

Staff heard himself saying "Beg pardon?" to a third repet.i.tion of one of Mrs. Thataker's gratuitous revelations.

At this he took fright, drew back into his reserve for the remainder of the meal, and as soon as he decently could, made his excuses and fled to join Iff in the smoking-room....

He found the little man indulging his two pa.s.sions; he was drinking whiskey-and-sodas and playing bridge, both in the most masterly fashion.

Staff watched the game a while and then, the opportunity offering, cut in. He played till ten o'clock, at which hour, wearied, he yielded his seat to another, leaving Mr. Iff the victor of six rubbers and twelve whiskey-and-sodas. As Staff went out on deck the little man cut for the seventh and ordered the thirteenth. Neither indulgence seemed to have had any perceptible effect upon him.

Staff strolled forward, drinking in air that seemed the sweeter by contrast with the reeking room he had just quitted. The wind had freshened since nightfall; it blew strong and cool, but not keen. And there was more motion in the seas that sang overside, wrapped in Cimmerian blackness. The sky had become overcast; there were no stars: only the 'longsh.o.r.e lights of Ireland twinkled, small, bright, incredibly distant over the waters. The decks were softly aglow with electric lights, lending a deeper shade of velvety denseness to the night beyond the rails.

He hadn't moved far forward when his quick sight picked out the shimmer of a woman's hair, like spun gold, about amidships in the rank of deck-chairs. He made sure it was Miss Searle; and it was. She sat alone, with none near her, her head resting against the back of the chair, her face turned a trifle forward; so that she was unaware of his approach until he stopped before her.

"Miss Searle--" he began diffidently.

She looked up quickly and smiled in what he thought a friendly way.

"Good evening," said she; and moved her body slightly in the deck-chair, turning a little to the left as if expecting him to take the vacant chair on that hand.

He did so without further encouragement, and abruptly found himself wholly lacking words wherewith to phrase what he had in mind to say. In such emergency he resorted to an old, tried and true trick of his and began to talk on the first subject, unrelated to his dilemma, that popped into his head.

"Are you a good sailor?" he enquired gravely.

The girl nodded. "Very."

"Not afraid of seasickness?"

"No. Why?"

"Because," said Staff soberly, "I've been praying for a hurricane."

She nodded again without speaking, her eyes alone questioning.

"Mrs. Thataker," he pursued evenly, "confided to me at dinner that she is a very poor sailor indeed."

Miss Searle laughed quietly. "You desire a punishment to fit the crime."

"There are some crimes for which no adequate punishment has ever been contrived," he returned, beginning to see his way, and at the same time beginning to think himself uncommonly clever.

"Oh!" said Miss Searle with a little laugh. "Now if you're leading up to a second apology about that question of the bandbox, you needn't, because I've forgiven you already."

He glanced at her reproachfully. "You just naturally had to beat me to that, didn't you?" he complained. "All the same, it _was_ inexcusable of me."

"Oh, no; I quite understood."

"You see," he persisted obstinately, "I really did think it was my bandbox. I actually have got one with me, precisely like yours."

"I quite believed you the first time."

Something in her tone moved him to question her face sharply; but he found her shadowed eyes inscrutable.

"I half believe you know something," he ventured, perplexed.

"Perhaps," she nodded, with an enigmatic smile.

"What do you know?"

"Why," she said, "it was simple enough. I happened to be in Lucille's yesterday afternoon when a hat was ordered delivered to you."

"You were! Then you know who sent it to me?"

"Of course." Her expression grew curious. "Don't you?"

"No," he said excitedly. "Tell me."

But she hesitated. "I'm not sure I ought ..."

"Why not?"

"It's none of my affair--"

"But surely you must see ... Listen: I'll tell you about it." He narrated succinctly the intrusion of the mysterious bandbox into his ken, that morning. "Now, a note was promised; it must have miscarried.

Surely, there can be no harm in your telling me. Besides, I've a right to know."

"Possibly ... but I'm not sure I've a right to tell. Why should I be a spoil-sport?"

"You mean," he said thoughtfully--"you think it's some sort of a practical joke?"

"What do you think?"

"_Hmm-mm_," said Staff. And then, "I don't like to be made fun of," he a.s.serted, a trace sulkily.

"You are certainly a dangerously original man," said Miss Searle--"almost abnormal."