She had an instinct that the general would do something disagreeable about the French and English ports of departure for America. But perhaps he would not think of the Italian ports. That night she set out for Genoa, and three days later, in a different dress and with her hair done as she never wore it, sailed as Miss Mary Stevens for America on a German Mediterranean boat.
She had taken the whole of a cabin on the quieter deck below the promenade, paying for it nearly half of what was left of the four thousand francs. The first three days she kept to her cabin except at the dinner-hour, when she ventured to the deck just outside and walked up and down for exercise. Then followed four days of nasty weather during which she did not leave her bed. As the sea calmed, she, wretched and reckless, had a chair put for herself under her window and sat there, veiled and swathed and turning her face away whenever a rare wandering passenger happened to pass along. Toward noon a man paused before her to light a cigarette. She, forgetting for the moment her precautions, looked at him. It chanced that he looked at her at exactly the same instant. Their glances met. He started nervously, moved on a few steps, returned. Said she mockingly:
"You know you needn't speak if you don't want to, Stanley."
"There isn't a soul on board that anybody ever knew or that ever knew anybody," said he. "So why not?"
"And you look horribly bored."
"Unspeakably," replied Baird. "I've spoken to no one since I left Paris."
"What are you doing on this ship?" inquired she.
"To be perfectly honest," said he, "I came this way to avoid you. I was afraid you'd take passage on my steamer just to amuse yourself with my nervousness. And—here you are!"
"Amusing myself with your nervousness."
"But I'm not nervous. There's no danger. Will you let me have a chair put beside yours?"