The heartbreaking sense of recognition passed over me again. Did I seem the same wasteful fool to those who had known me and condemned me? Oh, pitiful, pitiful creature to have spent his preternatural life in this of all places, so painfully artificial, with its old and sad passengers, in unremarkable chambers of tawdry finery, insulated from the great universe of true splendours that lay beyond.

Only after a great while did he bow his head just a little, and run the fingers of his right hand slowly down his jacket lapel. A cat licking its own fur had never looked more relaxed or self-indulgent. How lovingly he stroked this bit of unimportant cloth! It was more eloquent of the whole tragedy than any other single thing he had done.

Then, rolling his head to one side and then the other, and seeing only a couple of passengers to his far right, who were facing an entirely different direction, he suddenly rose off the boards and immediately disappeared!

Of course, no such thing had really happened. He had merely taken to the air. And I was left shuddering inside the glass door, the sweat breaking out all over my face and back as I looked at the empty place beyond, and felt David’s quick whisper in my ear.

“Come, old chap, let’s go on to the Queens Grill and have our supper.”

I turned and saw the forced expression on his face. Of course James was still within range to hear both of us! To hear anything out of the ordinary without so much as a deliberate scan.

“Yes, the Queens Grill,” I said, trying not to consciously think of Jake’s words of last night that the fellow had yet to appear for a meal in that room. “I’m not really hungry, but it’s awfully tiresome, isn’t it, hanging around here?”

David, too, was trembling. But he was powerfully excited, as well.

“Oh, I must tell you,” he said, carrying on the same false manner, as we walked back through the lounge and towards the nearby stairway. “They’re all in black tie up there, but they have to serve us, as we’ve just come aboard.”

“I don’t care if they’re all naked. It’s going to be a hell of a night.”

The famous first-class dining room was a bit more subdued and civilized than other rooms through which we’d passed. All done in white upholstery and black lacquer, it was quite pleasant with its generous blaze of warm light. The decor had a hard brittle quality to it, but then so did everything aboard the vessel; it wasn’t at all ugly, however, and the carefully prepared food was quite good.

When some twenty-five minutes had passed since the dark bird had flown, I ventured several quick remarks. “He can’t use a tenth of his strength! He’s terrified of it.”

“Yes, I agree with you. So frightened is he that he actually moves as if he were drunk.”

“Ah, that’s it, you have it. And he wasn’t twenty feet away from me, David. And he had absolutely no sense that I was there.”