Schuyler started back. He forced a laugh.
"Were I a superstitious man," he remarked, "I might take that for an omen."
And then he was gone.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
YOUNG PARMALEE—AND THE WOMAN.
He came slinking down the deck of the liner, furtive of eye, uneven of tread. A young man he was—and yet old; for while his body told of youth, his face bespoke age—the unnatural forced age—the hot-housed growth of they who live in the froth of life—in the froth that it is hard to tell from the scum.
He was tall, and well-set-up. His clothes hung well about his body; they were of fine texture and make, yet unpressed, uncared for. He had been handsome; but he was no longer; for the eyes looked forth from hollows in his face. His cheeks were sunken. His lips were leaden. He was unshaven, ungroomed, unkempt.
Looking nervously, this way and that, he made his way among the jostling throngs to one of the passages. Searching with sunken eyes for a numbered door, he knocked upon it with the knuckles of his left hand; his right rested at his side, covered with a handkerchief of white silk…. He knocked; and stepped back, quickly. There was no answer; the door remained shut. He stepped forward again, thrusting the door wide open. The stateroom was empty. He turned. Out upon the deck he strode; then, starting back, he concealed himself in the passageway that he had just left.
Coming down the deck was a woman, a woman darkly beautiful, tall, lithe, sinuous. Great masses of dead black hair were coiled about her head. Her cheeks were white; her lips very red. Eyes heavy lidded looked out in cold, inscrutable hauteur upon the confusion about her. She wore a gown that clung to her perfectly-modelled figure—that seemed almost a part of her being. She carried, in her left arm, a great cluster of crimson roses.