comfortably from his place and after a while turned his eyes to the
other quarter, where the elements of air and water managed to make
between them so comparatively poor an opposition. Even his American
novelist was more amusing than that, and he prepared to return to
this author. In the great curve which it described, however, his
glance was arrested by the figure of a young lady who had just
ascended to the deck and who paused at the mouth of the
companionway.

This was not in itself an extraordinary phenomenon; but what
attracted Vogelstein's attention was the fact that the young person
appeared to have fixed her eyes on him. She was slim, brightly
dressed, rather pretty; Vogelstein remembered in a moment that he
had noticed her among the people on the wharf at Southampton. She
was soon aware he had observed her; whereupon she began to move
along the deck with a step that seemed to indicate a purpose of
approaching him. Vogelstein had time to wonder whether she could be
one of the girls he had known at Dresden; but he presently 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