The Dark Star

Picking it up and unfolding it, he read: * * * * * May I see you this evening at eleven? My stateroom is 623. If there is

anybody in the corridor, knock; if not, come in without knocking.

I mean no harm to you. I give my word of honour. Please accept it for

as much as your personal courage makes it worth to you--its face

value, or nothing.

Knowing you, I may say without flattery that I expect you. If I am

disappointed, I still must bear witness to your courage and to a

generosity not characteristic of your sex.

You have had both power and provocation to make my voyage on this ship

embarrassing. You have not done so. And self-restraint in a man is a

very deadly weapon to use on a woman.

I hope you will come. I desire to be generous on my part. Ask yourself

whether you are able to believe this. You don't know women, Mr.

Neeland. Your conclusion probably will be a wrong one.

But I think you'll come, all the same. And you will be right in

coming, whatever you believe.

Ilse Dumont.

* * * * *

It was a foregone conclusion that he would go. He knew it before he

had read half the note. And when he finished it he was certain.

Amused, his curiosity excited, grateful that the adventure had not yet

entirely ended, he lighted a cigarette and looked impatiently at his

watch.

It lacked half an hour of the appointed time and his exhilaration was

steadily increasing.

He stuck the note into the frame of his mirror over the washstand with

a vague idea that if anything happened to him this would furnish a

clue to his whereabouts.

Then he thought of the steward, but, although he had no reason to

believe the girl who had written him, something within him made him

ashamed to notify the steward as to where he was going. He ought to

have done it; common prudence born of experience with Ilse Dumont

suggested it. And yet he could not bring himself to do it; and exactly

why, he did not understand.

One thing, however, he could do; and he did. He wrote a note to

Captain West giving the Paris address of the Princess Mistchenka, and

asked that the olive-wood box be delivered to her in case any accident

befell him. This note he dropped into the mailbox at the end of the

main corridor as he went out. A few minutes later he stood in an empty

passageway outside a door numbered 623. He had a loaded automatic in

his breast pocket, a cigarette between his fingers, and, on his

agreeable features, a smile of anticipation--a smile in which

amusement, incredulity, reckless humour, and a spice of malice were

blended--the smile born of the drop of Irish sparkling like champagne

in his singing veins.