“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 asserted, a trace sulkily.
“You are certainly a dangerously original man,” said Miss Searle – “almost abnormal.”
“The most unkindest slam of all,” he murmured.
He made himself look deeply hurt. The girl laughed softly. He thought it rather remarkable that they should enjoy so sympathetic a sense of humour on such short acquaintance…
“But you forgive me?”
“Oh, yes,” he said generously; “only, of course, I couldn’t help feeling it a bit – coming from you.”
“From me?” Miss Searle sat up in her deck-chair and turned to him. “Mr. Staff! you’re not flirting with me?”
“Heaven forfend!” he cried, so sincerely that both laughed.
“Because,” said she, sinking back, “I must warn you that Mrs. Ilkington has been talking …”
“Oh,” he groaned from his heart – “damn that woman!”
There was an instant of silence; then he stole a contrite look at her immobile profile and started to get up.
“I – Miss Searle,” he stammered – “I beg your pardon …”
“Don’t go,” she said quietly; “that is, unless you want to. My silence was simply sympathetic.”
He sat back. “Thank you,” he said with gratitude; and for some seconds considered the case of Mrs. Ilkington, not charitably but with murder in his bosom. “Do you mean,” he resumed presently, “she has – ah – connected my name with – ”
“Yes,” nodded the girl.
“‘Something lingering in boiling oil,’” he mused aloud, presently… “What staggers me is how she found out; I was under the impression that only the persons most concerned knew about it.”
“Then it’s true? You are engaged to marry Miss Landis? Or is that an impertinent question?” Without pause the girl answered herself: “Of course it is; only I couldn’t help asking. Please forget I spoke – ”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” he said wearily; “now that Mrs. Ilkington has begun to distribute handbills. Only … I don’t know that there’s a regular, hard-and-fast engagement: just an understanding.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Searle. “I promise not to speak of it again.” She hesitated an instant, then added: “To you or anybody else.”
“You see,” he went on after a little, “I’ve been working on a play for Miss Landis, under agreement with Jules Max, her manager. They want to use it to open Max’s newest Broadway theatre late this autumn. That’s why I came across – to find a place in London to bury myself in and work undisturbed. It means a good deal to me – to all of us – this play… But what I’m getting at is this: Alison – Miss Landis – didn’t leave the States this summer; Mrs. Ilkington (she told me at dinner) left New York before I did. So how in Heaven’s name – ?”
“I had known nothing of Mrs. Ilkington at all,” said Miss Searle cautiously, “until we met in Paris last month.”
He was conscious of the hint of uneasiness in her manner, but inclined to assign it to the wrong cause.
“I trust I haven’t bored you, Miss Searle – talking about myself.”
“Oh, no; indeed no. You see – ” she laughed – “I quite understand; I keep a temperament of my own – if you should happen to wonder why Mrs. Ilkington interests herself in me. I’m supposed to have a voice and to be in training for grand opera.”
“Not really?”
And again she laughed. “I’m afraid there isn’t any cure for me at this late date,” she protested; “I’ve gone so far I must go farther. But I know what you mean. People who sing are difficult. However …” She stirred restlessly in her chair, then sat up.
“What is that light over there?” she asked. “Do you know?”
Staff’s gaze sought the indicated direction. “Roches Point, I imagine; we’re about due at Queenstown …”
“As late as that?” The girl moved as if to rise. Staff jumped up and offered her a hand. In a moment she was standing beside him. “I must go below,” said she. “Good night.”
“You won’t tell me who it was in Lucille’s, yesterday?” he harked back pleadingly.
She shook her head gaily as she turned forward to the main companionway entrance: “No; you must find out for yourself.”
“But perhaps it isn’t a practical joke?”
“Then —perhaps– I shall tell you all – sometime.”
He paused by the raised door-sill as she stepped within the superstructure. “Why not stop up and see the tender come off?” he suggested. “It might be interesting.”
She flashed him a look of gay malice. “If we’re to believe Mrs. Ilkington, you’re apt to find it more interesting than I. Good night.”
“Oh – good night!” he muttered, disturbed; and turned away to the rail.
His troubled vision ranged far to the slowly shifting shore lights. The big steamship had come very close inshore – as witness the retarded speed with which she crept toward her anchorage – but still the lights, for all their singular brightness, seemed distant, incalculably far away; the gulf of blackness that set them apart exaggerated all distances tenfold. The cluster of sparks flanked by green and red that marked the hovering tender appeared to float at an infinite remove, invisibly buoyed upon the bosom of a fathomless void of night.
Out of this wind-swept waste of impenetrable darkness was to come the answer to these many questions that perplexed him – perhaps. Something at least would come to influence him; or else Mrs. Ilkington’s promise had been mere blague… Then what?
Afterwards he assured himself that his stupidity had been unparalleled inconceivable. And indeed there