And she replied, “Have you no curiosity about me?”
“Much,” he smiled. The word “much” had come to have local significance.
“You don’t ask whether I am a baroness or a saleslady, or Miss or Mrs.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Growing shy again?”
“Eh?”
“Or is it just urban rudeness?”
“Oh!” he laughed as he comprehended. “No. No. Not at all. I don’t want to know until I have to. I prefer the mystery, that is all. If you wish I’ll tell you who I am, but I hope you won’t wish, at least just at present. We’ll be together two weeks on that boat. They say ten days, but I know them. It’ll be a fortnight. It’ll all come out there. Let’s enjoy this thoroughly unusual companionship. It really is ideal——” he went on enthusiastically.
“Thank you,” she interrupted, though he hardly noticed.
“—The sort of thing that ought to happen on this earth every day. Human beings are utter strangers to one another. It takes a shipwreck or a national calamity to force them to acknowledge the existence of the neighbour they prate so much about loving. Let’s continue our primitive relationship. Call me Richard if you wish. It’s a good name. And I’ll call you,” he picked up the steamer-list and read a name, as he thought at random, but a light underscoring had unconsciously caught his eye.