They found their places in the haphazard way of the first luncheon, before the seating is arranged. By ones and twos others came in, till the table, at which Nan was the only woman, was full. The strangers at her end seemed disposed to silence. Such words as fell audibly, though English and addressed chiefly to the waiter, bore out the impression given by the faces. Napier saw the steward about it afterward. There were to be no Germans at his table as finally selected. He wished afterward he had added, and no American actors. In which case Miss Nan wouldn't have come up from dinner with Mr. Vivian Roxborough and walked the deck at his side a good half-hour. If it were only for Julian's sake, she couldn't be left to Mr. Vivian Roxborough. Napier made it his business to avert the chance.
That next day—forever and forever the sunshine and the sweetness of those hours would leave something of their flavor and their light behind. If only they could go on sailing, sailing, and never land!
So Napier said to himself, as he hurried back on the second afternoon, after a talk with the captain—a talk somewhat marred by a flickering fear as to whether that actor might have appropriated the guardian chair. No; one of those Germans! Napier's change of table had neither prevented Nan from bowing to some of the men she had broken bread with during that first meal on board, nor prevented chance conversation (initiated by one or other of the Germans) upon that promising opening, "You are American?"
Even Nan knew that the handsome big man who stood by her now was an officer. He may have been thirty-eight, and he was certainly in the pink of condition. In the midst of whatever it was he had been saying, Napier carried the lady off to the lower and less-frequented deck.
"How they must laugh at the stupid English, those Germans!" he muttered, as he strode along at her side. "Here we are, six months after the declaration of war, and enemy aliens still going back and forth as easily as in times of peace. Those that don't find their way back into the German Army—"
"How can they!"
"What's to prevent them? Anyway, those who don't take the popular pleasure trip, New York to Genoa and so to Germany, can be trusted to advance the German propaganda in the two Americas. But they won't find traveling so easy after this."
"Why? Who will prevent them?" Her questions had come quickly.
"The British Government will prevent them—after the Intelligence Department gets my report." He took out of his pocket a paper destined to have an effect, the least part of which was to give Napier many a sleepless night months after he had posted it.
The first eyes to rest on the report after Napier's own, regarded it, as he felt even at the time, with something more than disapproval.