Pandora | Page 6

reflected that they would now be much
older than that. It was true they were apt to advance, like this one,
straight upon their victim. Yet the present specimen was no longer
looking at him, and though she passed near him it was now tolerably
clear she had come above but to take a general survey. She was a quick
handsome competent girl, and she simply wanted to see what one could
think of the ship, of the weather, of the appearance of England, from
such a position as that; possibly even of one's fellow-passengers. She
satisfied herself promptly on these points, and then she looked about,
while she walked, as if in keen search of a missing object; so that
Vogelstein finally arrived at a conviction of her real motive. She passed
near him again and this time almost stopped, her eyes bent upon him
attentively. He thought her conduct remarkable even after he had
gathered that it was not at his face, with its yellow moustache, she was
looking, but at the chair on which he was seated. Then those words of
his friend came back to him--the speech about the tendency of the
people, especially of the ladies, on the American steamers to take to
themselves one's little belongings. Especially the ladies, he might well
say; for here was one who apparently wished to pull from under him
the very chair he was sitting on. He was afraid she would ask him for it,
so he pretended to read, systematically avoiding her eye. He was
conscious she hovered near him, and was moreover curious to see what
she would do. It seemed to him strange that such a nice-looking

girl--for her appearance was really charming--should endeavour by arts
so flagrant to work upon the quiet dignity of a secretary of legation. At
last it stood out that she was trying to look round a corner, as it
were--trying to see what was written on the back of his chair. "She
wants to find out my name; she wants to see who I am!" This reflexion
passed through his mind and caused him to raise his eyes. They rested
on her own-- which for an appreciable moment she didn't withdraw.
The latter were brilliant and expressive, and surmounted a delicate
aquiline nose, which, though pretty, was perhaps just a trifle too
hawk-like. It was the oddest coincidence in the world; the story
Vogelstein had taken up treated of a flighty forward little American girl
who plants herself in front of a young man in the garden of an hotel.
Wasn't the conduct of this young lady a testimony to the truthfulness of
the tale, and wasn't Vogelstein himself in the position of the young man
in the garden? That young man--though with more, in such connexions
in general, to go upon--ended by addressing himself to his aggressor, as
she might be called, and after a very short hesitation Vogelstein
followed his example. "If she wants to know who I am she's welcome,"
he said to himself; and he got out of the chair, seized it by the back and,
turning it round, exhibited the superscription to the girl. She coloured
slightly, but smiled and read his name, while Vogelstein raised his hat.
"I'm much obliged to you. That's all right," she remarked as if the
discovery had made her very happy.
It affected him indeed as all right that he should be Count Otto
Vogelstein; this appeared even rather a flippant mode of disposing of
the fact. By way of rejoinder he asked her if she desired of him the
surrender of his seat.
"I'm much obliged to you; of course not. I thought you had one of our
chairs, and I didn't like to ask you. It looks exactly like one of ours; not
so much now as when you sit in it. Please sit down again. I don't want
to trouble you. We've lost one of ours, and I've been looking for it
everywhere. They look so much alike; you can't tell till you see the
back. Of course I see there will be no mistake about yours," the young
lady went on with a smile of which the serenity matched her other

abundance. "But we've got such a small name--you can scarcely see it,"
she added with the same friendly intention. "Our name's just Day--you
mightn't think it WAS a name, might you? if we didn't make the most
of it. If you see that on anything, I'd be so obliged if you'd tell me. It
isn't for myself, it's for my mother; she's so dependent on her chair, and
that one I'm looking for pulls out so beautifully. Now that you sit down
again and hide the lower part it does look just like ours. Well,