"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 a.s.sume 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, a.s.sumed 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-b.u.t.ton.
"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 a.s.sumption 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 hara.s.sed 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 a.s.sailed the ear, the high, sweet accents of American women predominating. The masculine element of the pa.s.senger-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 b.u.t.tonholing 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.
A voice shrieked excitedly: "_Why_, Mr. Staff!"
To be precise, it miscalled him "Stahf": a shrill, penetrating, overcultivated, American voice making an attempt only semi-successful to cope with the broad vowels of modern English enunciation.
Staff looked up, recognised its owner, and said beneath his breath: "O Lord!"--his soul crawling with recognition. But nothing of this was discernible in the alacrity with which he jumped up and bent over a bony but bedizened hand.
"Mrs. Ilkington!" he said.
"R"ally," said the lady, "the world _is_ ve-ry small, isn"t it?"