What was she carrying that she did not want him to see? It could not have been of value or she would not have disposed of it in that manner. But....
He ran his fingers through his hair; puffed on his pipe.
Was it possible--? No, the very suspicion was preposterous; he was surprised that it should even occur to him. Yet, he acknowledged, a certain king of Ithaca believed in the beauty of Calypso. Forcing himself to face the situation, he reviewed his short acquaintance with Dana Charteris in a cold, scrutinizing light. The result was not altogether pleasing. Their midnight encounter on the portico at Benares was hardly reassuring, now that he looked at it through a different lens, nor was the meeting in the Chinese quarter, in Calcutta.... _Intermezzo!_ Would it end in discord? He smiled grimly, confessing to himself that grave doubts (and, deeper than doubts, an ache that was not physical) had arisen from this new development. Had he been a fool?
He fortified his mind against such thoughts. What substantial reason had he to suspect that her interest in him was other than personal? (Personal! That word was fine ego.) The incident on deck--Well, he evaded, it might have been anything that she threw overboard, a handkerchief ... or.... At least, he would not be so unjust as to suspicion her--or anyone, he enlarged--upon such meager suppositions.
Only partially satisfied, he retired. He did not go to sleep for some time--and when he awakened in the morning, with the sun raining bronze needles at the blue sea, his first recollection was of the incident on the previous night. Considered in daylight, it lost its dark significance, but, nevertheless, made him vaguely uneasy.
This brooding discontent grew with the day. Dana Charteris was not in the dining-salon at breakfast, nor did she come on deck during the morning. He sat near her chair, waiting, his mind barred against either condemnation or justification. He would reserve his decision until he heard what she had to say. When she appeared (and it seemed that she never would) she could probably clear the incident with a few words, an explanation that would no doubt shed a light of absurdity upon his apprehensions.
But she did not appear, not even at tiffin, and he passed a restless afternoon. He walked the vessel from bow to stern, from bridge to the torrid depths where beings heaved fuel into her hungry stomach, impatient with the unseen forces that controlled his affairs.