On the boat-train, en route for Liverpool, Mr. Staff found plenty of
time to consider the affair of the foundling bandbox in every aspect
with which a lively imagination could invest it; but to small profit. In
fact, he was able to think of little else, with the damned thing
smirking impishly at him from its perch on the opposite seat. He was
vexed to exasperation by the consciousness that he couldn't guess why or
by whom it had been so cavalierly thrust into his keeping. Consequently
he cudgelled his wits unmercifully in exhaustive and exhausting attempts
to clothe it with a plausible _raison d'etre_.
He believed firmly that the Maison Lucille had acted in good faith; the
name of Staff was too distinctive to admit of much latitude for error.
Nor was it difficult to conceive that this or that young woman of his
acquaintance might have sent him the hat to take home for her--thus
ridding herself of a cumbersome package and neatly saddling him with all
the bother of getting the thing through the customs. But ...! Who was
there in London just then that knew him well enough so to presume upon
his good nature? None that he could call to mind. Besides, how in the
name of all things inexplicable had anybody found out his intention of
sailing on the Autocratic, that particular day?--something of which he
himself had yet to be twenty-four hours aware!
His conclusions may be summed up under two heads: (a) there wasn't any
answer; (b) it was all an unmitigated nuisance. And so thinking, divided
between despair and disgust, Mr. Staff gave the problem up against his
arrival on board the steamship. There remained to him a single gleam of
hope: a note of explanation had been promised; he thought it just
possible that it might have been sent to the steamship rather than to
his lodgings in London.
Therefore, the moment he set foot aboard the ship, he consigned his
hand-luggage to a steward, instructing the fellow where to take it, and
hurried off to the dining-saloon where, upon a table round which
passengers buzzed like flies round a sugar-lump, letters and telegrams
for the departing were displayed. But he could find nothing for Mr.
Benjamin Staff.
Disappointed and indignant to the point of suppressed profanity, he
elbowed out of the thronged saloon just in time to espy a steward (quite
another steward: not him with whom Staff had left his things)
struggling up the main companionway under the handicap of several
articles of luggage which Staff didn't recognise, and one which he
assured himself he did: a bandbox as like the cause of all his
perturbation as one piano-case resembles another.
Now if quite out of humour with the bandbox and all that appertained
thereunto, the temper of the young man was such that he was by no means
prepared to see it confiscated without his knowledge or consent. In two
long strides he overhauled the steward, plucked him back with a
peremptory hand, and abashed him with a stern demand:
"I say! where the devil do you think you're going, my man?"
His man showed a face of dashed amazement.
"Beg pardon, sir! Do you mean _me_?"
"Most certainly I mean you. That's my bandbox. What are you doing with
it?"
Looking guiltily from his face to the article in question, the steward
flushed and stammered--culpability incarnate, thought Staff.
"Your bandbox, sir?"
"Do you think I'd go charging all over this ship for a silly bandbox
that wasn't mine?"
"But, sir--"
"I tell you, it's mine. It's tagged with my name. Where's the steward I
left it with?"
"But, sir," pleaded the accused, "this belongs to this lidy 'ere. I'm
just tikin' it to 'er stiteroom, sir."
Staff's gaze followed the man's nod, and for the first time he became
aware that a young woman stood a step or two above them, half turned
round to attend to the passage, her air and expression seeming to
indicate a combination of amusement and impatience.
Precipitately the young man removed his hat. Through the confusion
clouding his thoughts, he both foreglimpsed humiliation and was dimly
aware of a personality of force and charm: of a well-poised figure
cloaked in a light pongee travelling-wrap; of a face that seemed to
consist chiefly in dark eyes glowing lambent in the shadow of a
wide-brimmed, flopsy hat. He was sensitive to a hint of breeding and
reserve in the woman's attitude; as though (he thought) the contretemps
diverted and engaged her more than he did who was responsible for it.