Meanwhile Loveland had not been wasting time.
He thought that Jim Harborough"s hint about "deep sea fish" was a wise one, wiser than he would have expected from Harborough. Still, there was no harm in keeping his eyes open; and having kept them open from the first moment after coming on board, he had discovered several very pretty girls. With a certain amount of eagerness, rather as one looks at one"s cards when beginning a new rubber of bridge, he glanced over the pa.s.senger-list, hoping that some of the names might be identical with those on his letters of introduction. But there were no such coincidences, and he, unluckily, was too ignorant of American society to know which of his fellow pa.s.sengers were most important. However, he made up his mind that one of the first things to do, was to find out.
Sure of his chair, on which the name of "Loveland" already appeared in the steward"s handwriting, he paced up and down and all round the deck, pipe in mouth and hands in pockets. It was a November day, of Indian summer warmth. The huge ship felt no impulse from the waves which fawned upon her sides, and Loveland, who had been bored by the necessity to leave his native land, began suddenly to feel happy, quite boyishly happy.
A great many other people were parading up and down also; pretty girls, walking alone, or with parents, or accompanied by youths with whom they intended to flirt during the voyage. Shrewd-faced men, with eyes good-natured yet keen, and an air of solid importance which might mean millions; handsome, prosperous-looking women whom Loveland guessed to be Newport and New York hostesses pleased to welcome prowling Marquesses; and besides these, numbers of vague persons whom to meet once was to forget twice.
After half an hour"s walk, Val had selected two girls from the "rosebud garden" which, he felt, bloomed for his benefit in this mammoth, floating flower-bed. There were so many attractive ones, that it was difficult to choose, yet Val did not doubt that he had weeded out the best; and he hoped that, of the pair, one might be the princ.i.p.al unmarried millionairess of the _Mauretania_.
There could hardly have been a greater contrast between girls than between these two whom Lord Loveland had mentally set apart for himself, as a man picks out the most becoming neckties from a box on a shop counter.
One, who walked the deck with an elderly man whose likeness of feature proclaimed him her father, was very tall, almost as tall as Loveland, who could be a six-footer when he took the trouble not to slouch. She was slender in all the right places, and rounded in all the right places, her waist being so slim that she seemed held together only by a spine and a lady-like ligament or two; which means faultlessness of figure according to fashion-plate standards. She had burnished auburn hair, and magnificent yellow-grey eyes rimmed with dark lashes. Her nose was aquiline, her mouth red and drooping at the corners, a combination which made her profile closely resemble a famous photograph of the Empress Eugenie in the prime of loveliness.
A number of the nicest looking people who came and went on deck seemed glad to claim acquaintance with this girl and her handsome father; but though they were warmly greeted again and again, the girl maintained a cool dignity not unworthy of Betty Bulkeley"s mother, the d.u.c.h.ess of Stanforth.
Val said to himself that the Mater would be pleased with a daughter-in-law of this type, and that such a girl would never make her husband ashamed. He could not imagine falling in love with her hard brilliance; but then he wasn"t going to America to fall in love. His intentions were strictly businesslike. And this girl was bound to be admired everywhere. She would look an ideal hostess, entertaining house parties at Loveland Castle, when her money had restored it to all and more than its ancient splendour.
Loveland"s second choice might have been his first, for some reasons, and in fact she was his first by impulse; only she did not look as obviously an heiress as the other. Neither was she so obviously a beauty; yet her charm leaped at the beholder with the briefest glance, especially if that beholder were a man; leaped at him through his eyes, and thrillingly through his nerves, in a mysterious, indescribable, curiously interesting way.
She was not very tall, and she was a slim slip of a creature, not in the least like a fashion plate, but suggestive of soft natural curves, even in her navy-blue tailor-made frock.
If she had been stage-struck, and had asked for a chance in the chorus, a theatrical manager would have found himself giving it to her, he hardly knew why, more because she said she wanted it than on the strength of her voice, or form, or features. Then, having yielded so far to her magnetism, he would have said to himself, "She isn"t striking enough for the front row, or even the second. She must go into the third." And there she would have gone docilely. Yet the critics and all other men with eyes would have picked her out; and presently she would have been more noticed than the beauties in the front row. By and by, when there arose a little part with a few lines to speak, she would have got it; and at last, in some way or other, it would have been she who was making the "hit of the piece."
Lord Loveland did not say anything of this sort to himself, but he felt a faint electric shock of interest every time they pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed each other; though after the first she did not look at him, with the big brown eyes that surely had the prettiest, most bewitching lashes ever seen.
Really, they were charming eyes. If nothing else were actually beautiful about the girl, her eyes undoubtedly were exquisite. They were very soft, and no man could look into them even for half a second in pa.s.sing without realizing deliciously that they were a woman"s eyes; yet they were not coquettish, except for that piquant effect of the curled lashes. They were full of sympathy and intelligence, and gazed frankly, sweetly out at the world, as if they could understand, and laugh or cry at things which other, commonplace eyes would never even see.
For the rest, she had the clear, colourless skin which shows every change of emotion, a sensitive mouth, not too small for generosity; in the firm little chin, a cleft which meant a keen sense of humour; and a slightly impertinent nose which might mean anything or nothing.
Loveland felt that it would be interesting to know this girl, even if she were not an heiress, but he hoped that she might prove to be one, because it would be hard to learn the wisdom of ceasing to know her if she turned out as poor as himself.
The difficulty in judging these American girls, Val began to think as he watched the charming review, was that they all looked like millionairesses. They walked as if they were so used to being young persons of importance, that they graciously waived the fact of their own greatness: which means, that they had the air of G.o.ddesses, or princesses at the least. They were all dressed perfectly, and groomed perfectly. Their frocks fitted perfectly, and every detail of their toilets was perfect, from the b.u.t.tons of their English gloves to the toes of their American boots. So how was a man to judge which were _the_ ones, and which the other ones?
Val made up his mind at last that he would walk no more, but would sit down and think this question over. Besides, for some moments the enchanting girl in the navy-blue frock had ceased to flit to and fro.
Therefore he went towards the sheltered corner where he knew his deck chair was waiting for him, and to his extreme surprise found her comfortably installed in it.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Girl in the Chair
For a moment Loveland was more conceited than he had ever been in his life,--which is saying not a little. He told himself that the girl must have found out who he was, and that this was her artful way of sc.r.a.ping acquaintance. She had taken possession of his chair, with his name upon it, waiting for him to come and claim his property, and expecting the conversation which would be sure to follow.
He was conscious of a shock of disappointment. In spite of the witching, curled eyelashes, he had not fancied her that sort of obvious, flirting girl; and like other spoiled young men a conquest which fell to him easily was less worth making. Nevertheless, he still wanted to know her.
No man, even a spoiled one, could help wanting to know a girl with eyes like those: and he intended to go through the whole programme which he believed that she had deliberately planned out for him; yet he wished that she had not made herself so cheap.
The chair next to his was unoccupied, though usurpers were warned off by the name of "Mr. James R. Smythe," boldly painted in black letters across the back. Stretching away to the left was a row of Smythe chairs, which Val did not trouble to count. He merely received the impression of a large family of impending Smythes, and was glad that they were not a.s.sembled. Their absence gave him a splendid chance to make the girl with the eyes a present of the flirtation she encouraged.
Val, risking the avalanche of Smythehood which might overwhelm him at any instant, sat down in the empty chair next to his own, expecting the girl to glance up and down, and flutter the coquettish lashes. To his bewilderment her tactics were more subtle. She did not look up at all, but calmly went on reading her book, a volume of disagreeably intellectual suggestion.
This development of the game was interesting, because surprising, but Val still regarded it as a game. He looked at the girl, while she, apparently unconscious of or indifferent to his nearness, slowly turned leaf after leaf. She turned so many that Loveland grew impatient.
Besides, a man had begun to walk up and down in front of the line of Smythe chairs, fastening upon him so baleful an eye that he feared at any instant to be dispossessed of his borrowed resting-place.
At last he decided to be bold and wait no longer.
"What am I to do if Mr. James R. Smythe comes along and orders me out?"
he asked pleasantly, in a low yet conversational tone.
The girl glanced up for the first time, suddenly and as if startled. She had the air of having been deeply absorbed in her book, and of not being sure that her neighbour had spoken to her. Also she looked extremely young and innocent.
"I said, what am I to do if Mr. James R. Smythe comes along and orders me out?" Val repeated.
"That"s what I thought you said," replied the girl, meeting his admiring, quizzical eyes with a somewhat bewildered yet defensive gaze.
"But--why should you say it to me?"
"Isn"t that rather hard-hearted of you?" asked Loveland.
"I don"t understand you at all," said the girl. "You look like a gentleman, so I suppose you can"t mean to be rude or impertinent. But if not, you seem to be talking nonsense."
This was straightforward, to say the least, yet her voice was so sweet and girlish, with such a dainty little drawl in it, that the rebuke did not sound as severe as if spoken with sharper accents.
"Of course I don"t mean to be rude or impertinent," Loveland defended himself, at a loss for the next move in the game. "But I thought--that is, I mean--you know, that _is_ my chair. I"m delighted you should have it----"
"Your chair?" echoed the girl. "Oh, you are mistaken. No wonder, if you thought that I--but even then, you couldn"t have dreamed I"d take it on purpose?"
"No--o, I----" began Loveland, looking guilty.
Her eyes were on him. "You did think so!" she exclaimed. "I see you did.
That was why you--and yet I don"t see how you could have fancied I should know who you were, unless--Are you a very famous person in the life to which it"s pleased London to call you?"
Lord Loveland laughed rather foolishly. But he reddened a little, which made him look boyish, so that the foolishness was rather engaging.
"I think you"ve punished me enough," he said.
"Then you admit that you deserve to be punished?"
"Perhaps."
"Which means that you did believe I took your chair on purpose."
"I didn"t stop to think," said Loveland, telling the truth as usual, but less truculently than usual.
"You _are_ English, aren"t you?" the girl asked, looking at him with her brown, bewildering eyes.
"Oh yes," replied Loveland, in a tone which added "Of course." But he would have realised now, if he had not been sure before, that the girl was genuinely ignorant of his important ident.i.ty.