"For—for not recognizing you the other day." It was not in the least what he had meant to say, but it was said, and he must go on as best he could. "Not expecting to see you, you know, and all that."
She stood shaking her hair in the breeze and smiling. While she evidently bore no resentment, she was not helping him out in his apology.
"One sees so many faces in traveling," he went on lamely, "and all so much alike."
"I'd have known your face anywhere," she said.
He took a step downward, but she did not move. Instead she leaned nonchalantly against the wall and began braiding her hair.
"I know your name, too," she said, with a look half daring and half quizzical. "I looked you up on the passenger-list."
"But how did you know—"
"Oh, it was easy to spot you. You were the only man on board who would fit 'The Honorable Percival Hascombe and Valet.'"
Percival found her scoffing tone intolerable. He descended two more steps, but she stopped him with a request.
"If you don't mind," she said, flinging the finished braid over her shoulder, "I wish you'd write your grand name on my Panama hat sometime; it's going to be a souvenir of the trip."