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 passed 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 e