“Yes, it must have seemed that way to you. But I’ve been merely one among a breathless audience.... And yet I can’t bear to leave in the very middle––not knowing how it is to end. Besides,” she added carelessly, “I have nobody to come back to except a rather remote relative, so my regrets are unmixed.”
There ensued a silence. He was afraid she was about to go, but couldn’t seem to think of anything to say to detain her.
For the girl was very attractive to a careless and amiably casual man of his sort––the sort who start their little journey through life with every intention of having the best kind of a time on the way.
She was so distractingly pretty, so confidently negligent of convention––or perhaps disdainful of it––that he already was regretting that he had not met her at the beginning of the voyage instead of at the end.
She had now begun to button up her ulster, as though preliminary to resuming her deck promenade. And he wanted to walk with her. But because she had chosen to be informal with him did not deceive him into thinking that she was likely to tolerate further informality on his part. And yet he had a vague notion that her inclinations were friendly.
“I’m sorry,” he said rather stupidly, “that I didn’t meet you in the beginning.”
The slightest inclination of her head indicated that although possibly she might be sorry too, regrets were now useless. Then she turned up the collar of her 33 ulster. The face it framed was disturbingly lovely. And he took a last chance.
“And so,” he ventured politely, “you have really been on board the Elsinore all this time!”
She turned her charming head toward him, considered him a moment; then she smiled.
“Yes,” she said; “I’ve been on board all the time. I didn’t crawl aboard in mid-ocean, you know.”