"I'm going to buy you some grapes—those whopping big black ones. It seems the obvious thing to do in Naples, doesn't it? Oh, by the way, I must pay a visit to the Bank of Scotland. You'd better give me five pounds."
"You're very extravagant," she laughed.
"Never mind. Any other trip I've been broke by this time, and in a devil of a mess as well. Lord knows what these bally dagoes will charge us for a car out to Pompeii. They're all on the make. But I don't care if they charge thirteen pounds—"
"Eight and fivepence," she added, laughing at him and running below to unlock her trunk and bring him the money without a glimmer of apprehension.
She put the five pounds into his hand in the alley-way. A minute later he was back with an enormous bunch of grapes lying amongst their green leaves.
"Lock your door when you come on deck, and shut your porthole," he told her. "We're coaling, and coal dust gets everywhere—in your eyes, your finger-nails, your food and your bed if you don't hermetically seal them all. It's a good place to be away from, a coaling ship."
He darted away before she could mention the grapes. She helped Jimmy dress, and then, turning him out, examined her three white frocks with minute care to see in which she should do honour to Pompeii. Often, in the past, she had dressed a part, but always her personality had been lost in the part she was playing. Now she consciously dressed as Marcella; it was probably the first time in her life she had looked interestedly in a mirror; comparing herself with Mrs. Hetherington, she felt vaguely dissatisfied: she wished she were much nicer. Noticing the vine leaves where she had twined them round the rail of her bunk, she broke off two or three and tucked them in her dress at the waist. Stepping back, she surveyed the effect, decided that it was as good as could be managed, and tapped at the partition. She had heard Louis moving about some time before.
There was no answer, and she decided that he must have gone on deck.
It was crowded with passengers waiting for the little boats to take them ashore; Italians went here and there selling fruit, postcards and jewellery straight from Birmingham; two flat coal lighters were drawing ponderously alongside. She could not see Louis.
From end to end she searched the ship, even going on to the upper deck, which to-day was not sacred to the upper-class passengers. But he was nowhere to be seen. A lump came into her throat, her knees felt a little shaky.