“Interferes with what?” This time she did not know what.
“With any rational conversation,” he explained calmly. “I don’t mind your company. In fact, I have enjoyed it. But I do like to be alone. I’ve spent most of my life alone. On this trip abroad I’ve fought my right to be my own travelling-companion. These are just facts, like the boat’s sailing to-night at nine; but a man can’t tell them to a pretty woman (“Thank you,” she slipped in) without her pretending to take them personally. So she says ‘thank you!’—only in jest, I know—and then I must say some foolish flattery, but the conversation is—well, it cannot go on with the same directness with which a man talks to a man.... You see I’m not complaining. This is just another fact. I’m really interested in it.... Men are forced to treat women like pretty children. Why do women stand it?”
“They don’t always like it,” she wrinkled her forehead and puzzled over the matter, “but men are such ‘jolliers,’ you know.”
“Fancy a man flattering another man!” he went on. The idea interested him. He seemed to be forgetting the woman beside him; certainly he had completely forgotten the thought born of her first approach, that she was just the sort of person to have plenty of money—somebody else’s, a father’s or a husband’s—and to offer it, too. Of course he had not intended to ask for anything. He knew enough to know that she would lend. He had been in that precise predicament before. Money had always come to him. You see, if he had looked the part of poor-man, beggar-man, thief, the world would have turned coldly away; but he was built on mighty prosperous lines. One felt, at the first glance, that here was an athletic aristocrat. He was just that in reality; but he was mortgaged to the last hedge-row.
So the thought of taking her predestined offer of money slipped from him. He was not a scheming mind. The gods took care of such things. Let them! The important matter just now was the consideration of the droll picture of two males saying sweet things apropos of each other’s eyes and noses.
He chuckled. “Fancy trying to have a discussion with a man on the subject, say, of a possible life after death, and have him lean over, stare at the top of your head, and with a tremendous assumption of interest exclaim, ‘Jove, man, I do like the way you brushed your hair this morning! With the sun striking the brown edges it is absolutely stunning!’”
They discussed flattery and women. The man slowly forgot his reserve, while the woman, with subtle native flattery, listened. Four bells rang out sharply from forward, repeated far off in the engine-room below. Ten o’clock.
“Well!” the lady exclaimed. “Perhaps I should prefer to see Naples and Pompeii alone, but I haven’t the nerve. I’m willing to knock around in Paris or London, but when it comes to Italy I’m scared. The men look at me, especially the toughs, in a way that makes my flesh creep. Goodness knows I wish men would forget I’m a woman, but they don’t seem to want to.... See here ... why can’t we take the trip together? Oh, I’d let you be practically alone,” she answered his quick uplook. “You’d just be there as a protection.... Will you?”
He turned his head and regarded her quizzically, like an amused elder brother. He was older. His clean-shaven face had a medley of lines in it which showed superior years.
“I should be delighted,” he remarked. His intonation carried precisely the information that his phrase was absolutely polite and absolutely non-committal.