"The box is mine," she affirmed with a cool and even gravity. "The
steward is right."
He choked back a counterclaim, which would have been unmannerly, and in
his embarrassment did something that he instantly realised was even
worse, approaching downright insolence in that it demanded confirmation
of her word: he bent forward and glanced at the tag on the bandbox.
It was labelled quite legibly with the name of Miss Eleanor Searle.
He coloured, painfully contrite. "I'm sorry," he stammered.
"I--ah--happen to have with me the precise duplicate of this box. I
didn't at first realise that it might have a--ah--twin."
The young woman inclined her head distantly.
"I understand," she said, turning away. "Come, steward, if you please."
"I'm very sorry--very," Staff said hastily in intense mortification.
Miss Searle did not reply; she had already resumed her upward progress.
Her steward followed, openly grinning.
Since it is not considered good form to kick a steward for knowing an
ass when he meets one, Staff could no more than turn away, disguise the
unholy emotions that fermented in his heart, and seek his stateroom.
"It _had_ to be me!" he groaned.
Stateroom 432-433 proved to be very much occupied when he found
it--chiefly, to be sure, by the bandbox, which took up most of the floor
space. Round it were grouped in various attitudes of dejection sundry
other pieces of travelling-gear and Mr. Iff. The latter was sitting on
the edge of the lower berth, his hands in his pockets, his brow puckered
with perplexity, his gaze fixed in fascination to the bandbox. On
Staff's entrance he looked up.
"Hello!" he said crisply.
"Afternoon," returned Staff with all the morose dignity appropriate to
severely wounded self-esteem.
Iff indicated the bandbox with a delicate gesture.
"No wonder," he observed mildly, "you wanted the ship to yourself."
Staff grunted irritably and, picking his way through and over the mound
of luggage, deposited himself on the transom opposite the berths.
"A present for the missis, I take it?" pursued Iff.
"You might take it, and welcome, for all of me.... Only it isn't mine.
_And_ I am not married."
"Pardon!" murmured Mr. Iff. "But if it isn't yours," he suggested
logically, "what the deuce-and-all is it doing here?"
"I'm supposed to be taking it home for a friend."
"Ah! I see.... A very, _very_ dear friend, of course....?"
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Staff regarded the bandbox with open
malevolence. "If I had my way," he said vindictively, "I'd lift it a
kick over the side and be rid of it."
"How you do take on, to be sure," Iff commented placidly. "If I may be
permitted to voice my inmost thought: you seem uncommon' peeved."
"I am."
"Could I soothe your vexed soul in any way?"
"You might tell me how to get quit of the blasted thing."
"I'll try, if you'll tell me how you got hold of it."
"Look here!" Staff suddenly aroused to a perception of the fact that he
was by way of being artfully pumped. "Does this matter interest you very
much indeed?"
"No more, apparently, than it annoys you.... And it is quite possible
that, in the course of time, we _might_ like to shut the door.... But,
as far as that is, I don't mind admitting I'm a nosey little beast. If
you feel it your duty to snub me, my dear fellow, by all means go to it.
I don't mind--and I dessay I deserve it."
This proved irresistible; Staff's humour saved his temper. To the
twinkle in Iff's faded blue eyes he returned a reluctant smile that
ended in open laughter.
"It's just this way," he explained somewhat to his own surprise, under
the influence of an unforeseen gush of liking for this good-humoured
wisp of a man--"I feel I'm being shamelessly imposed upon. Just as I was
leaving my rooms this morning this hat-box was sent to me, anonymously.
I assume that some cheeky girl I know has sent it to me to tote home for
her. It's a certificated nuisance--but that isn't all. There happens to
be a young woman named Searle on board, who has an exact duplicate of
this infernal contraption. A few moments ago I saw it, assumed it must
be mine, quite naturally claimed it, and was properly called down in the
politest, most crushing way imaginable. Hence this headache."
"So!" said Mr. Iff. "So that is why he doesn't love his dear little
bandbox!... A Miss Earle, I think you said?"
"No--Searle. At least, that was the name on her luggage."
"Oh--Searle, eh?"
"You don't happen to know her, by any chance?" Staff demanded, not
without a trace of animation.
"Who? Me? Nothing like that," Iff disclaimed hastily.
"I just thought you might," said Staff, disappointed.
For some moments the conversation languished. Then Staff rose and
pressed the call-button.
"What's up?" asked Iff.
"Going to get rid of this," said Staff with an air of grim
determination.
"Just what I was going to suggest. But don't do anything hasty--anything
you'll be sorry for."
"Leave that to me, please."
From his tone the assumption was not unwarrantable that Staff had never
yet done anything that he had subsequently found cause to regret.
Pensively punishing an inoffensive wrist, Iff subsided.
A steward showed himself in the doorway.
"You rang, sir?"
"Are you our steward?" asked Staff.
"Yes, sir."
"Your name?"
"Orde, sir."
"Well, Orde, can you stow this thing some place out of our way?"
Orde eyed the bandbox doubtfully. "I dessay I can find a plice for it,"
he said at length.
"Do, please."
"Very good, sir. Then-Q." Possessing himself of the bandbox, Orde
retired.
"And now," suggested Iff with much vivacity, "s'pose we unpack and get
settled."
And they proceeded to distribute their belongings, sharing the meagre
conveniences of their quarters with the impartiality of courteous and
experienced travellers....
It was rather late in the afternoon before Staff found an opportunity to
get on deck for the first time. The hour was golden with the glory of a
westering sun. The air was bland, the sea quiet. The Autocratic had
settled into her stride, bearing swiftly down St. George's Channel for
Queenstown, where she was scheduled to touch at midnight. Her decks
presented scenes of animation familiar to the eyes of a weathered
voyager.
There was the customary confusion of petticoats and sporadic displays of
steamer-rugs along the ranks of deck-chairs. Deck-stewards darted hither
and yon, wearing the harassed expressions appropriate to persons of
their calling--doubtless to a man praying for that bright day when some
public benefactor should invent a steamship having at least two leeward
sides. A clatter of tongues assailed the ear, the high, sweet accents of
American women predominating. The masculine element of the
passenger-list with singular unanimity--like birds of prey wheeling in
ever diminishing circles above their quarry--drifted imperceptibly but
steadily aft, toward the smoking-room. The two indispensable adjuncts to
a successful voyage had already put in their appearance: _item_, the
Pest, an overdressed, overgrown, shrill-voiced female-child, blundering
into everybody's way and shrieking impertinences; _item_, a short,
stout, sedulously hilarious gentleman who oozed public-spirited
geniality at every pore and insisted on buttonholing inoffensive
strangers and demanding that they enter an embryonic deck-quoit
tournament--in short, discovering every known symptom of being the Life
and Soul of the Ship.
Staff dodged both by grace of discretion and good fortune, and having
found his deck-chair, dropped into it with a sigh of content, composing
himself for rest and thought. His world seemed very bright with promise,
just then; he felt that, if he had acted on impetuous impulse, he had
not acted unwisely: only a few more hours--then the pause at
Queenstown--then the brief, seven-day stretch across the Atlantic to
home and Alison Landis!
It seemed almost too good to be true. He all but purred with his content
in the prospect.
Of course, he had a little work to do, but he didn't mind that; it would
help immensely to beguile the tedium of the voyage; and all he required
in order to do it well was the moral courage to shut himself up for a
few hours each day and to avoid as far as possible social
entanglements....
At just about this stage in his meditations he was somewhat rudely
brought back to earth--or, more properly, to deck.