"
"Not going over?"
"Well...perhaps not by this boat." Again he felt a stealing
indecision. "I may probably have to go back to London.
I'm--I'm waiting...expecting a letter...(She'll think me a
defaulter," he reflected.) "But meanwhile there's plenty of
time to find your trunk."
He picked up his companion's bundles, and offered her an arm
which enabled her to press her slight person more closely
under his umbrella; and as, thus linked, they beat their way
back to the platform, pulled together and apart like
marionettes on the wires of the wind, he continued to wonder
where he could have seen her. He had immediately classed
her as a compatriot; her small nose, her clear tints, a kind
of sketchy delicacy in her face, as though she had been
brightly but lightly washed in with water-colour, all
confirmed the evidence of her high sweet voice and of her
quick incessant gestures.She was clearly an American, but
with the loose native quality strained through a closer woof
of manners: the composite product of an enquiring and
adaptable race. All this, however, did not help him to fit
a name to her, for just such instances were perpetually
pouring through the London Embassy, and the etched and
angular American was becoming rarer than the fluid type.
More puzzling than the fact of his being unable to identify
her was the persistent sense connecting her with something
uncomfortable and distasteful.
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