“She? She'll tell me twice every meal that American girls are not brought up with a knowledge of cooking. She will tell me how she has met them at Kaffeeklatsches, and how they confessed that they didn't cook! No, no; you must try another one!”
“Well, if you object to her, there's that quiet gentleman who is eating his ice with the aid of two pairs of spectacles. That gentleman is a specialist in bacilli. He has little steel-bound bottles in his room which, if you were to break them among this ship-load of passengers, would depopulate the ship. I think he is taking home the bacilli of the bubonic plague as a present to our country. Remember, if you got on the right side of him, that you would have a vengeance beyond the dreams of the Borgias at your command!”
“Oh, the terrible creature! Mr. Payne, how could you mention him? What if he were to take me for a guinea-pig or a rabbit? No, I prefer the English-looking mummy over there.”
“Who? Miss Hull? She's not half bad. She's a great traveller. She has been almost everywhere, and is now hastening to make it everywhere. She carries her own tea with her, and steeps it at five exactly every afternoon. She tells me that once, being shipwrecked, she grasped her tea-caddy, her alcohol-stove, and a large bottle of alcohol, and prepared for the worst. They drifted four days on a raft, and she made five-o'clock tea every day, to the great encouragement of the unfortunates. Miss Hull is an English spinster, who has a fortune and no household, and who is going about to see how other folks keep house—Feejee-Islanders, and Tagals, and Kafirs. She likes them all, I believe. Indeed, she says she likes everything—except the snug English village where she was brought up. She says that when she lived there she did exactly the same thing between sunup and sundown for eight years. For example, she had the curate to tea every Wednesday evening during that entire time, and when possible she had periwinkles.”
“And nothing came of it?”
“Oh yes, an enormous consumption of tea-biscuits-nothing more. Then it occurred to her to travel. So she went to the next shire, and liked it so well that she plunged off to London, then to the Hebrides. After that there was no stopping her. She likes the islands better than the continents, and is collecting hats made of sea-grass. She already has five hundred and forty-two varieties. Really, you would not find her half so bad.”
Helen Curtis finished her coffee, and laid her napkin beside her plate.
“Oh, if it comes to the negative virtues, you haven't been so disagreeable yourself to-day as you might have been. I'm under obligations to you. It was rather nice to meet an old acquaintance.”
The tone was formal, and put Payne ten thousand leagues away from her. “Thank you,” he said, with mock gratitude. “I'm under obligations for your courtesy, madam.” She dropped her handkerchief as she arose, and he picked up the trifle and gave it to her. Their fingers met, and he withdrew his hand with a quick gesture.
“You must allow me to see you safely to your room,” he urged. “Or else to your deck chair.”