"And are you coming in this ship? And to Naples, too? Well, upon my
word! Miss Werner, may I introduce him?"
And he did so without a blush, describing me as an old schoolfellow
whom he had not seen for months, with wilful circumstance and
gratuitous detail that filled me at once with confusion, suspicion, and
revolt. I felt myself blushing for us both, and I did not care. My
address utterly deserted me, and I made no effort to recover it, to
carry the thing off. All I would do was to mumble such words as
Raffles actually put into my mouth, and that I doubt not with a
thoroughly evil grace.
"So you saw my name in the list of passengers and came in search of me?
Good old Bunny; I say, though, I wish you'd share my cabin. I've got a
beauty on the promenade deck, but they wouldn't promise to keep me by
myself. We ought to see about it before they shove in some alien. In
any case we shall have to get out of this."
For a quartermaster had entered the wheelhouse, and even while we had
been speaking the pilot had taken possession of the bridge; as we
descended, the tender left us with flying handkerchiefs and shrill
good-bys; and as we bowed to Miss Werner on the promenade deck, there
came a deep, slow throbbing underfoot, and our voyage had begun.
It did not begin pleasantly between Raffles and me. On deck he had
overborne my stubborn perplexity by dint of a forced though forceful
joviality; in his cabin the gloves were off.
"You idiot," he snarled, "you've given me away again!"
"How have I given you away?"