“Measles. Just imagine a Brobdingnagian measle!”
“Are you, then, a type of the present inhabitants?”
“No. My ailment was due to being knocked insensible during a fire.”
Power reddened. “You are an adept in twisting the sense of the most commonplace remarks, to say the least,” he said, careless whether or not he annoyed her.
She parried this thrust with sublime unconcern: “I know. It’s horrid. But I had to tell you. Now I’ll be good, and take myself off. You’ll be heartily sick of my company after five thousand miles of it.”
Certainly Miss Marguerite Sinclair’s unusual methods of expressing herself struck a jarring note, and, whether by chance or by the exercise of rare intuition, the one note able to penetrate Power’s armor of indifference. Her somewhat bizarre personality was vivid in his mind long after she had left him; but night and the stars brought other thoughts, and blurred the sharp lines of the vignette.
Next morning he breakfasted early, and alone. After a long tramp on the upper deck, he asked a steward where a deck-chair ordered overnight had been placed. The man inquired his name, consulted a list, and led him through the music-room to the port side. The chair stood aft of the companionway, and it was irritating to find the neighboring chair occupied by a young and remarkably pretty woman, who seemed to be deeply engrossed in a book.
“I prefer the starboard side,” he said sharply. “Bring it along, and I’ll show you where to put it.”
The lady lifted her eyes to his in an amused, sidelong glance.
“Good-morning, Mr. Power,” she said. “You are pardoned for thinking there is a conspiracy floating around; but there isn’t.”