II
People usually spend the first hours of a voyage in squeezing themselves into their cabins, taking their little precautions, either so excessive or so inadequate, wondering how they can pass so many days in such a hole and asking idiotic questions of the stewards, who appear in comparison rare men of the world. My own initiations were rapid, as became an old sailor, and so, it seemed, were Miss Mavis’s, for when I mounted to the deck at the end of half an hour I found her there alone, in the stern of the ship, her eyes on the dwindling continent. It dwindled very fast for so big a place. I accosted her, having had no conversation with her amid the crowd of leave-takers and the muddle of farewells before we put off; we talked a little about the boat, our fellow-passengers and our prospects, and then I said: “I think you mentioned last night a name I know—that of Mr. Porterfield.”
“Oh no I didn’t!” she answered very straight while she smiled at me through her closely-drawn veil.
“Then it was your mother.”
“Very likely it was my mother.” And she continued to smile as if I ought to have known the difference.
“I venture to allude to him because I’ve an idea I used to know him,” I went on.
“Oh I see.” And beyond this remark she appeared to take no interest; she left it to me to make any connexion.
“That is if it’s the same one.” It struck me as feeble to say nothing more; so I added “My Mr. Porterfield was called David.”
“Well, so is ours.” “Ours” affected me as clever.
“I suppose I shall see him again if he’s to meet you at Liverpool,” I continued.