“Letter have got, John?”
“Lessah have got.”
“Take it back. Say, at once.”
“Lessah. At wullunce.”
“Lessah,” he added two moments later. “Catchee lettah, them lady, and she say, she say, go to hellee!”
“What! What’s that, John? She said nothing of the sort!”
“Lessah, said them. No catchee word, that what she mean. Lady, one time she say, she say, go topside when have got plenty leady for come.”
“Go back to your work, John,” said I. And I waited with much dignity, for perhaps ten minutes or so, before I heard any signs of life from the after suite. Then I heard the door pushed back, and saw a head come out, a head with dark tendrils of hair at the white neck’s nape, and two curls at the temple, and as clean and thoroughbred a sweep of jaw and chin as the bows of the Belle Helène herself. She did not look at me, but studiously gazed across the river, pretended to yawn, idly looked back to see if she were followed; as she knew she was not to be.
At length, she turned as she stepped out on the deck. She was fresh as the dew itself, and like a rose. All color of rose was the soft skirt she wore, and the little bolero above, blue, with gold buttons, covered a soft rose-colored waist, light and subtle as a spider’s web, stretched from one grass stalk to another of a dewy morning. She was round and slender, and her neck was tall and round, and in the close fashion of dress which women of late have devised, to remind man once more of the ancient Garden, she seemed to me Eve herself, sweet, virginal, as yet in a garden dew-sweet in the morning of the world.
She turned, I say, and by mere chance and in great surprise, discovered me, now cap in hand, and bowing.