“I beg your pardon! I don’t quite understand—”
“Oh, it’s simple enough. Always do it myself on a long voyage. Much more satisfactory and amusin’ than just trustin’ to luck... Spot some one you like, and agree to sit together on deck, be partners at sports, moon about,—under the moon!—confide your woes, comfort and soothe, sentimentalise a bit—especially towards the end—”
Katrine threw him a glance, beneath lids haughtily dropped.
“Tha-anks. It sounds very interesting. And then—?”
“Oh, then?” Mr Murray twisted his moustache. “Then—you’re there, you know, and er—you say good-bye!”
“Very interesting!” commented Katrine once more, “but I’m afraid I can’t play. The idea doesn’t thrill me, and besides I have a—friend coming on board at Port Said, who will naturally expect some attention.”
“Rotten luck!” sighed Mr Murray, and for sixty seconds on end looked seriously downcast. “But of course,” he added thoughtfully, “if it were only to Port Said—”
“Just so. It would be a pity to break the continuity of your scheme. You have had quite a long voyage already. How is it that you have not already—” Katrine stopped short, as an expression of discomfiture flitted over the handsome face, and altered the character of her enquiry. “May I ask how many others you have asked before me?”
“Not—many!” stammered Mr Murray ingenuously. His gaze wandered uneasily round the deck, and Katrine’s following his, met a pair of mischievous brown eyes set in a plump girlish face. The eyes were fixed upon herself with an expression of such interest and curiosity as told its own tale, and Katrine hastily lowered her white umbrella. Simultaneously the plump girl lowered her own, but it shook! Austin Murray, looking from one wobbling frame to the other, chewed his moustache in disgust.
“Perhaps,” he explained stiffly, “I am too ambitious. One needs must love the highest... There are, of course, a dozen girls who would be only too glad—”