Only partially satisfied, he retired. He did not go to sleep for some time—and when he awakened in the morning, with the sun raining bronze needles at the blue sea, his first recollection was of the incident on the previous night. Considered in daylight, it lost its dark significance, but, nevertheless, made him vaguely uneasy.
This brooding discontent grew with the day. Dana Charteris was not in the dining-salon at breakfast, nor did she come on deck during the morning. He sat near her chair, waiting, his mind barred against either condemnation or justification. He would reserve his decision until he heard what she had to say. When she appeared (and it seemed that she never would) she could probably clear the incident with a few words, an explanation that would no doubt shed a light of absurdity upon his apprehensions.
But she did not appear, not even at tiffin, and he passed a restless afternoon. He walked the vessel from bow to stern, from bridge to the torrid depths where beings heaved fuel into her hungry stomach, impatient with the unseen forces that controlled his affairs.
He saw Hsien Sgam several times, but avoided him, for his mood was not a friendly one. A short interview with Guru Singh—who clung to the integrity of his honor—only served to irritate him, and a few minutes later when he came upon Tambusami, in the steerage, confabbing with the snake-charmer (he of the scar and the drooping eyelid) he snapped him up in his laconic way for having removed the dressing from his cut.
(And it would not have improved his mental estate had he seen the manner in which the snake-charmer's afflicted eye watched him leave the steerage.)
The sun sank. Its sullen crimson bled upon cirrus clouds; faded with dusk; was absorbed as night bound the sky with gauzy blue and stars came forth to cool the fevered pulse of day.
Trent had just taken his seat in the dining-salon when Dana Charteris entered. White shoulders rose above the silver-cloth and flame-blue tulle of an evening frock. The startling shade of blue challenged out the deeper tints of her eyes; her pallor was made more lustrous by red lips and russet-gold hair. At sight of her he felt the blood throb in his throat.
"I hope you haven't been ill," he said as he placed her chair.
She smiled in a rather strained manner, he thought.
"I've been a poor sailor to-day."