“It is something exceedingly difficult to define. It cannot be set down as lucidly as your exposition of etiquette. It was your air, rather than your manner at luncheon time. It was a very distant and exalted air, which said as plainly as words that you sat down with a company inferior to yourself.”
I could not help laughing aloud; the explanation was absolutely absurd.
“Why, my dear Miss Stretton, if I may call you so, you never even glanced at me during luncheon time; how, then, did you get such extraordinary notions into your head?”
“One did not need to glance at you to learn what I have stated. Now, during our conversation you have been frightened—no, that is not the word—you have been surprised—into a verbal honesty that has been unusual to you. Please make the confession complete, and admit that in your own mind you have not done justice to Mr. Hemster.”
“Miss Stretton, the word you have been searching for is ‘bluff.’ I have been bluffed into confessions, before now, which in my calmer moments I regretted. You see I have been in America myself, and ‘bluff’ is an exceedingly expressive word. And, madam, permit me to say that in this instance the bluff will not work. You cannot get me to admit that either by look or tone I think anything but what is admirable of Mr. Hemster.”
“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” cried the girl in mock despair. It was really wonderful how unconsciously friendly she had become after our tempestuous discussion. “Oh, dear, oh, dear! how you are fallen from the state of generous exaltation that distinguished you but a short time ago. Please search the innermost recesses of your mind, and tell me if you do not find there something remotely resembling contempt for a man who accepted you—appalling thought!—without even a note of introduction.”
“Very well, my lady, I shall make the search you recommend. Now we will walk quietly up and down the deck without a word being said by either of us, and during that time I shall explore those recesses of my mind, which no doubt you regard as veritable ‘chambers of horrors.’”
We walked together under the bridge, and then to the very stern of the ship, coming back to the bridge again. As we turned, the lady by my side broke the contract.
“Oh!” she cried with a little gasp, “there is Miss Hemster!”—and I saw the lady she mentioned emerge from the companion-way to the deck.
“Damnation!” I muttered, under my breath, forgetting for an instant in whose presence I stood, until she turned her face full upon me.