“I tell you, it’s mine. It’s tagged with my name. Where’s the steward I left it with?”
“But, sir,” pleaded the accused, “this belongs to this lidy ’ere. I’m just tikin’ it to ’er stiteroom, sir.”
Staff’s gaze followed the man’s nod, and for the first time he became aware that a young woman stood a step or two above them, half turned round to attend to the passage, her air and expression seeming to indicate a combination of amusement and impatience.
Precipitately the young man removed his hat. Through the confusion clouding his thoughts, he both foreglimpsed humiliation and was dimly aware of a personality of force and charm: of a well-poised figure cloaked in a light pongee travelling-wrap; of a face that seemed to consist chiefly in dark eyes glowing lambent in the shadow of a wide-brimmed, flopsy hat. He was sensitive to a hint of breeding and reserve in the woman’s attitude; as though (he thought) the contretemps diverted and engaged her more than he did who was responsible for it.
He addressed her in a diffident and uncertain voice: “I beg pardon....”
“The box is mine,” she affirmed with a cool and even gravity. “The steward is right.”
He choked back a counterclaim, which would have been unmannerly, and in his embarrassment did something that he instantly realised was even worse, approaching downright insolence in that it demanded confirmation of her word: he bent forward and glanced at the tag on the bandbox.
It was labelled quite legibly with the name of Miss Eleanor Searle.
He coloured, painfully contrite. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I—ah—happen to have with me the precise duplicate of this box. I didn’t at first realise that it might have a—ah—twin.”
The young woman inclined her head distantly.