The Swindler and Other Stories

When you come to reflect that there are only a few planks between you and the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, it makes you feel sort of pensive. "I beg your pardon?" The stranger, smoking his cigarette in the lee of the deck-cabins, turned his head sharply in the direction of the voice. He encountered the wide, unembarrassed gaze of a girl's grey eyes. She had evidently just come up on deck. "I beg yours," she rejoined composedly. "I thought at first you were some one else." He shrugged his shoulders, and turned away. Quite obviously he was not disposed to be sociable upon so slender an introduction. The girl, however, made no move to retreat. She stood thoughtfully tapping on the boards with the point of her shoe. "Were you playing cards last night down in the saloon?" she asked presently. "I was looking on." He threw the words over his shoulder, not troubling to turn. The girl shivered. The morning air was damp and chill. "You do a good deal of that, Mr.—Mr.—" She paused suggestively. But the man would not fill in the blank. He smoked on in silence. The vessel was rolling somewhat heavily, and the splash of the drifting foam reached them occasionally where they stood. There were no other ladies in sight. Suddenly the clear, American voice broke through the man's barrier of silence. "I know quite well what you are, you know. You may just as well tell me your name as leave me to find it out for myself." He looked at her then for the first time, keenly, even critically. His clean-shaven mouth wore a very curious expression.