"My name's Milton," the short, dark man introduced himself. "I've been trying to catch you up for some time."
"Why?" abruptly asked Loveland, suspicious of everybody and everything now.
"Why? Oh, well, I wanted the pleasure of a conversation with you."
"You know who I am?" Loveland enquired.
"Yes, I know who you are." Mr. Milton emphasised each word separately, as if with a tap of a miniature hammer. There was an intentional significance in his way of speaking, but the meaning was obscure to Loveland.
Val could not guess what the other's object was in following him, and in his smarting sensitiveness was on guard against some new indignity.
"I met Mrs. Milton and—your daughter, on the Mauretania," he ventured, by way of keeping on neutral ground until he should learn where to take his stand. And truth to tell, he had been so miserable in his homesickness, his sense of desertion and humiliation, that any friendly-seeming companionship was pitifully welcome. A few hours ago he would have quickly decided that he did not like the man's face or manner, and would have made no bones about snubbing him; but there was a high barrier between "then" and "now," and Lord Loveland almost clung to Mr. Milton.
"I know you met my wife and daughter on the Mauretania," said the watcher. "That's why I was anxious to make your acquaintance."
Loveland laughed. "You're the first person since I left the ship, who has wanted to make it," he retorted. "And it struck me this evening that neither Mrs. nor Miss Milton was keen on keeping it."
"Miss Milton is a child," answered Miss Milton's father. "She daren't say her soul's her own, if her mother says it isn't; and Mrs. Milton has reasons over and above what anyone else may have, for not wanting to know you, in front of me."