Part 9 (1/2)
Nothing could have been more natural, spontaneous and unaffected. In an instant his every doubt and misgiving was erased--blotted out and as if it had never been. He caught and held her hands, for the moment speechless. But his eyes were all too eloquent: under their steadfast sincerity her own gaze wavered, s.h.i.+fted and fell. She coloured consummately, then with a gentle but determined manner disengaged her hands.
”Don't,” she said in the low, intimate voice she knew so well how and when to employ--”don't! People are looking ...” And then with a bewildering s.h.i.+ft, resuming her former spirit: ”Of all things wonderful, Staff--to meet you here!”
She was acting--masking with her admirable art some emotion secret from him. He knew this--felt it intuitively, though he did not understand; and the knowledge affected him poignantly. What place had dissimulation in their understanding? Why need she affect what she did not feel--with him?
Distressed, bewildered, he met evasion with native straightforwardness.
”I'm stunned,” he told her, holding her eyes with a grave, direct gaze; ”I'm afraid I don't understand.... How does this happen?”
”Why, of course,” she said, maintaining her artificial elation--”I infer--you've finished the play and are hurrying home. So--we meet, dear boy. Isn't it delightful?”
”But you're here, on this side--?”
”Oh, just a flying trip. Max wanted me to see Bisson's new piece at the Porte St. Martin. I decided to go at the last moment--caught the Mauretania on eight hours' notice--stayed only three days in Paris--booked back on this tub by telegraph--travelled all day to catch it by this wretched, roundabout route. And--and there you are, my dear.”
She concluded with a gesture charmingly ingenuous and disarming; but Staff shook his head impatiently.
”You came over--you pa.s.sed through London twice--you stayed three days in Paris, Alison--and never let me know?”
”Obviously.” She lifted her shoulders an inch, with a light laugh.
”Haven't I just said as much?... You see, I didn't want to disturb you: it means so much to--you and me, Staff--the play.”
Dissatisfied, knitting his brows faintly, he said: ”I wonder ...!”
”My dear!” she protested gaily, ”you positively must not scowl at me like that! You frighten me; and besides I'm tired to death--this wretched rush of travelling! Tomorrow we'll have a famous young pow-wow, but tonight--! Do say good night to me, prettily, like a dear good boy, and let me go.... It's sweet to see you again; I'm wild to hear about the play.... Jane!” she called, looking round.
Her maid, a tight-mouthed, unlovely creature, moved sedately to her side. ”Yes, Miss Landis.”
”Have my things come up yet?” The maid responded affirmatively. ”Good!
I'm dead, almost....”
She turned back to Staff, offering him her hand and with it, bewitchingly, her eyes: ”Dear boy! Good night.”
He bent low over the hand to hide his dissatisfaction: he felt a bit old to be treated like a petulant, teasing child....
”Good night,” he said stiffly.
”What a bear you are, Staff! Can't you wait till tomorrow? At all events, you must....”
Laughing, she swept away, following her maid up the companion stairs.
Staff pursued her with eyes frowning and perplexed, and more leisurely with his person.
As he turned aft on the upper deck, meaning to go to the smoking-room for a good-night cigarette--absorbed in thought and paying no attention to his surroundings--a voice saluted him with a languid, exasperating drawl: ”Ah, Staff! How-d'-ye-do?”
He looked up, recognising a distant acquaintance: a man of medium height with a tendency toward stoutness and a taste for extremes in the matter of clothes; with dark, keen eyes deep-set in a face somewhat too pale, a close-clipped grey moustache and a high and narrow forehead too frankly betrayed by the derby he wore well back on his head.
Staff nodded none too cordially. ”Oh, good evening, Arkroyd. Just come aboard?”
Arkroyd, on the point of entering his stateroom, paused long enough to confirm this surmise. ”Beastly trip--most tiresome,” he added, frankly yawning. ”Don't know how I should have stood it if it hadn't been for Miss Landis. You know her, I believe? Charming girl--charming.”
”Oh, quite,” agreed Staff. ”Good night.”