People usually spend the first hours of a voyage in squeezing themselves into their cabins, taking their little precautions, either so excessive or so inadequate¹, wondering how they can pass so many days in such a hole and asking idiotic² questions of the stewards³, who appear in comparison such men of the world. My own initiations were rapid, as became an old sailor, and so it seemed were Miss Mavis’s, for when I mounted to the deck at the end of half an hour I found her there alone, in the stern of the ship, looking back at the dwindling⁴ continent. It dwindled⁵ very fast for so big a place. I accosted⁶ her, having had no conversation with her amid the crowd of leave-takers and the muddle⁷ of farewells before we put off; we talked a little about the boat, our fellow-passengers and our prospects⁸, and then I said — ‘I think you mentioned last night a name I know — that of Mr. Porterfield.’

‘Oh no, I never uttered it,’ she replied, smiling at me through her closely-drawn veil.

‘Then it was your mother.’

‘Very likely it was my mother.’ And she continued to smile, as if I ought to have known the difference.

‘I venture to allude⁹ to him because I have an idea I used to know him,’ I went on.

‘Oh, I see.’ Beyond this remark she manifested no interest in my having known him.

‘That is if it’s the same one.’ It seemed to me it would be silly to say nothing more; so I added ‘My Mr. Porterfield was called David.’

‘Well, so is ours.’ ‘Ours’ struck me as clever.

分享到：