"Oh, not more than an hour or two, they say, sir."
"H-m-m"—Vogel stared reflectively at the table—"I'll have to buy Cadogan a good smoke when he comes back. He saved me ninety or a hundred pounds on that high field."
They resumed play.
II
Lavis was pacing the wide promenade deck and sniffing the air as he paced. It was as if a breath of the north were on them, and yet—having reached the uncovered part of the deck astern he looked up to observe the steamer's smoke—the wind was not from the north.
Such passengers as were still making their rounds were doing so determinedly, in sweaters or top-coats. Without halting in their rapid walking they, too, at times drew short, sharp breaths through high-held nostrils. It surely was growing colder. But why? A group held up an officer who was smoking his pipe in the lee of the canvas forward to ask him why. He at once set them right about it. Why, surely it should be cool—on the North Atlantic, in April, and well on in the evening!
A couple that Lavis knew for bride and groom turned out to lean over the rail. He was pointing down by the ship's side. "Hardly a ripple on it—see!" he exclaimed. "Only for the bubbling up from underneath, none at all. Like an endless belt sliding by so smoothly, isn't it? And above—see, sweetheart—a clear sky."
"Ah-h, a beautiful night!" she murmured. "On such a night—" Lavis, as he turned the corner of the house, saw him snatch her close and kiss her.
In lounge and smoking rooms all was cosey, cheerful, lively company. Lavis in passing had only to glance into air-ports to be sure of that. It was card-playing and easy gossip in the one, and not infrequent drinks being brought to impatient men by alert, deferential, many-buttoned servants in the other. In the grill those who must have a special little bite before turning in were having it; and, this being a chilly sort of a night, there were those who were also having a warming drink, with the bite or without it.
It was growing late. The deck was now almost deserted. Lavis took a last look over the rail, a last gulp of the cooling air, and went into the loungeroom. Here he got from the steward paper and envelopes, sat down and wrote: