“Honestly—neither married nor unmarried.”
“Then-Q”—resignedly. “Your business—?”
But here Staff’s clerk touched the exasperated catechist on the shoulder and said something inaudible. The response, while equally inaudible, seemed to convey a sense of profound personal shock. Staff was conscious that Mr. Iff’s clerk glanced reproachfully in his direction, as if to suggest that he wouldn’t have believed it of him.
Divining that he and Mr. Iff were bargaining for the same accommodations, Staff endeavoured to assume an attitude of distinguished obliviousness to the entire proceeding; and would have succeeded but for the immediate and impatient action of Mr. Iff.
That latter, seizing the situation, glanced askance at dignified Mr. Staff, then smiled a whimsical smile, cocked his small head to one side and approached him with an open and ingenuous air.
“If it’s only a question of which berth,” said he, “I’m quite willing to forfeit my option on the lower, Mr. Staff.”
That gentleman started and stared.
“Oh, lord, man!” said Iff tolerantly—“as if your portrait hadn’t been published more times than you can remember!—as if all the world were unaware of Benjamin Staff, novelist!”
There was subtle flattery in this; and flattery (we are told) will warm the most austere of authors—which Staff was not. He said “Oh!” and smiled his slow, wry smile; and Mr. Iff, remarking these symptoms of a thaw with interest and encouragement, pressed his point.
“I don’t mind an upper, really—only chose the lower because the choice was mine, at the moment. If you prefer it—”