"I consider it unchristian to bear a grudge," said Mr. Chichester coldly. "But the purser had distinctly promised me that cabin."
"Pursers are such busy men, aren't they?" I said vaguely. "I suppose they're bound to forget sometimes."
Mr. Chichester did not reply.
"Is this your first visit to Africa?" I inquired conversationally.
"To South Africa, yes. But I have worked for the last two years amongst the cannibal tribes in the interior of East Africa."
"How thrilling! Have you had many narrow escapes?"
"Escapes?"
"Of being eaten, I mean?"
"You should not treat sacred subjects with levity, Miss Beddingfeld."
"I didn't know that cannibalism was a sacred subject," I retorted, stung.
As the words left my lips, another idea struck me. If Mr. Chichester had indeed spent the last two years in the interior of Africa, how was it that he was not more sunburnt? His skin was as pink and white as a baby's. Surely there was something fishy there? Yet his manner and voice were so absolutely it. Too much so perhaps. Was he—or was he not—just a little like a stage clergyman?
I cast my mind back to the curates I had known at Little Hampsly. Some of them I had liked, some of them I had not, but certainly none of them had been quite like Mr. Chichester. They had been human—he was a glorified type.
I was debating all this when Sir Eustace Pedler passed down the deck. Just as he was abreast of Mr. Chichester, he stooped and picked up a piece of paper which he handed to him, remarking "You've dropped something."
