Kitty searched diligently and found the object of her quest on the
main-deck, starboard, leaning against one of the deck supports and
reading from a book which lay flat on the broad teak rail, in a blue
shadow. The sea smiled at Kitty and Kitty smiled at the sea. Men are
not the only adventurers; they have no monopoly on daring. And what
Kitty proposed doing was daring indeed, for she did not know into what
dangers it might eventually lead her.
"Mr. Webb?"
Thomas looked up. "You are wanting me, miss?"
"If you are not too busy."
"Really, no. I have been reading." He closed the book, loose-leafed
from frequent perusals. "I am at your service."
"Do you read much, Mr. Webb?"
The reiteration of the prefix to his name awakened him to the marvelous
fact that for the present he was no longer the machine; she was
recognizing the man.
"Perhaps, for a man in my station, I read too much, Miss Killigrew."
Kitty's scarlet lips stirred ever so slightly. It was the first time
he had added the name to the prefix: he in his turn was recognizing the
woman. And this rather pleased her, for she liked to be recognized.
"May I ask what it is you are reading?"
He offered the book to her. Morte d'Arthur. Kitty's eyebrows, a
hundred years or more ago, would have stirred to tender lyrics the
quills of Prior and Lovelace and Suckling: arched when interested, a
funny little twist to the inner points when angered, and when laughter
possessed her. . . . Let Thomas indite the sonnet! Just now they were
widely arched.
"I am very fond of the book," explained Thomas diffidently. "I love
the pompous gallantry of these fairy chaps. How politely they used to
hack each other into pieces!"
"Are you by chance a university man?"
"No. I am self-educated, if one may call it that. My father was a
fellow at Trinity. For myself, I have always had to work."
"Do you like your present occupation?"
"It was the best I could find." How he would have liked to throw
discretion to the winds and tell her the whole miserable story!
"Are you good at accounting?"
"Fairly." What was all this about? He began to riffle the leaves of
the book, restively.
"Could you tell an honest man from a dishonest one?"
"I believe so." Thomas had eyebrows, too, but he did not know how to
use them properly. Tell an honest man from a dishonest one, forsooth!