Page:The Author of Beltraffio, Pandora, Georgina's Reasons, The Path of Duty, Four Meetings (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1885).djvu/106

102 spite of Mr. and Mrs. Day and the young man in the smoking-room, she had fixed his attention.

It was the evening after the scene with the captain that he joined her, awkwardly, abruptly, irresistibly, on the deck, where she was pacing to and fro alone, the evening being mild and brilliant and the stars remarkably fine. There were scattered talkers and smokers and couples, unrecognizable, that moved quickly through the gloom. The vessel dipped with long, regular pulsations; vague and spectral, under the stars, with its swaying pinnacles spotted here and there with lights, it seemed to rush through the darkness faster than by day. Vogelstein had come up to walk, and as the girl brushed past him he distinguished Pandora's face (with Mrs. Dangerfield he always spoke of her as Pandora) under the veil that seemed intended to protect it from the sea-damp. He stopped, turned, hurried after her, threw away his cigar, and asked her if she would do him the honor to accept his arm. She declined his arm, but accepted his company, and he walked with her for an hour. They had a great deal of talk, and he remembered afterwards some of the things she said. There was now a certainty of the ship getting into dock the next morning but one, and this pretext afforded an obvious topic. Some of Miss Day's expressions struck him as singular, but, of course, as he knew, his knowledge of English was not nice enough to give him a perfect measure.

"I am not in a hurry to arrive; I am very happy