“Why?”
“Because I would not then be on my way to India.”
“But you are going out to your people, and are just the sort of girl that will have a ripping time!”
“I am afraid you are wrong again—real pearls and ripping times are not for me! I am on my way to be a governess in Naini Tal.”
For a moment he was too stupefied to speak, his eyes seemed to travel over me from my necklace, my lace blouse (remnant of better days) to my neat evening shoes, and he exclaimed:
“By Jove! You don’t say so! Anyone would take you for the daughter of a millionaire.”
After this evening I seemed no longer to have any special interest for Captain Bilton; he scarcely spoke to me at meals, and then in an off-hand, patronising manner, that I secretly resented; yet on deck, the night of our last conversation, he had assured me he had never in all his life been so much struck by a girl as by me, and we must not lose sight of one another. He added that he would write—and send me a fan from Gib.
How thankful I was that I had received this overture with civil discouragement, for when we touched Gibraltar, Captain Bilton had so far forgotten my existence as not even to wish me good-bye!
The Mediterranean was warmer than the Bay, and I was nearly suffocated by the perfumes in my cabin, for my companion (Madame Garda) would not suffer the ports to be opened; and really between patchouli and cigarette smoke, I felt all but asphyxiated. Two days before we reached Port Said I missed the string of pearls—my sole and paltry ornament: I remembered that I had worn it the previous night, and taken it off when I undressed; and now it was gone. I searched very carefully. No, there was not a trace of it. I applied to Madame Garda when she swung into the cabin before tea.
“Pearls! Never knew you had such things! We must have a good look. Imitation, you say? Well, even so, you don’t want to lose them, do you?” and she good-naturedly went down on her knees, and raked under the berth with an umbrella, searched all over the floor with her large bejewelled hands—and found nothing!