Pandora | Page 5

bridge, and the delay at
Southampton came to an end. The gangway was removed and the
vessel indulged in the awkward evolutions that were to detach her from
the land. Count Vogelstein had finished his cigar, and he spent a long
time in walking up and down the upper deck. The charming English
coast passed before him, and he felt this to be the last of the old world.
The American coast also might be pretty--he hardly knew what one
would expect of an American coast; but he was sure it would be
different. Differences, however, were notoriously half the charm of
travel, and perhaps even most when they couldn't be expressed in
figures, numbers, diagrams or the other merely useful symbols. As yet
indeed there were very few among the objects presented to sight on the
steamer. Most of his fellow-passengers appeared of one and the same
persuasion, and that persuasion the least to be mistaken. They were
Jews and commercial to a man. And by this time they had lighted their
cigars and put on all manner of seafaring caps, some of them with big
ear-lappets which somehow had the effect of bringing out their peculiar
facial type. At last the new voyagers began to emerge from below and

to look about them, vaguely, with that suspicious expression of face
always to be noted in the newly embarked and which, as directed to the
receding land, resembles that of a person who begins to perceive
himself the victim of a trick. Earth and ocean, in such glances, are
made the subject of a sweeping objection, and many travellers, in the
general plight, have an air at once duped and superior, which seems to
say that they could easily go ashore if they would.
It still wanted two hours of dinner, and by the time Vogelstein's long
legs had measured three or four miles on the deck he was ready to settle
himself in his sea-chair and draw from his pocket a Tauchnitz novel by
an American author whose pages, he had been assured, would help to
prepare him for some of the oddities. On the back of his chair his name
was painted in rather large letters, this being a precaution taken at the
recommendation of a friend who had told him that on the American
steamers the passengers--especially the ladies--thought nothing of
pilfering one's little comforts. His friend had even hinted at the correct
reproduction of his coronet. This marked man of the world had added
that the Americans are greatly impressed by a coronet. I know not
whether it was scepticism or modesty, but Count Vogelstein had
omitted every pictured plea for his rank; there were others of which he
might have made use. The precious piece of furniture which on the
Atlantic voyage is trusted never to flinch among universal concussions
was emblazoned simply with his title and name. It happened, however,
that the blazonry was huge; the back of the chair was covered with
enormous German characters. This time there can be no doubt: it was
modesty that caused the secretary of legation, in placing himself, to
turn this portion of his seat outward, away from the eyes of his
companions--to present it to the balustrade of the deck. The ship was
passing the Needles--the beautiful uttermost point of the Isle of Wight.
Certain tall white cones of rock rose out of the purple sea; they flushed
in the afternoon light and their vague rosiness gave them a human
expression in face of the cold expanse toward which the prow was
turned; they seemed to say farewell, to be the last note of a peopled
world. Vogelstein saw them very comfortably from his place and after
a while turned his eyes to the other quarter, where the elements of air
and water managed to make between them so comparatively poor an

opposition. Even his American novelist was more amusing than that,
and he prepared to return to this author. In the great curve which it
described, however, his glance was arrested by the figure of a young
lady who had just ascended to the deck and who paused at the mouth of
the companionway.
This was not in itself an extraordinary phenomenon; but what attracted
Vogelstein's attention was the fact that the young person appeared to
have fixed her eyes on him. She was slim, brightly dressed, rather
pretty; Vogelstein remembered in a moment that he had noticed her
among the people on the wharf at Southampton. She was soon aware he
had observed her; whereupon she began to move along the deck with a
step that seemed to indicate a purpose of approaching him. Vogelstein
had time to wonder whether she could be one of the girls he had known
at Dresden; but he presently