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from her shoulder and slid with feigned nonchalance into his pocket.
    What had she said? He was charming (that sinister word again) andeducated and clearly had money at his command: if he hadn’t emerged as the leader of the ship’s rich, bored, and unattached populace by midday tomorrow, I would eat my cloche. He looked about my age—twenty-four—which meant that either he had not seen active service during the War, or if he had, it was limited to the final months. He also looked to be exaggerating his drunkenness as an excuse for misbehaviour.
    A few minutes later, he repeated the ritual of freshening his glass, using it to end up beside the Awlwright girl. No: perhaps I would not reconsider my initial impression of young Darley. But as his absence created a space beside Miss Sato, I moved into it.
    “Mrs Russell,” she said, with that charming little half-bow. “Not so queasy now?”
    “Much better, thank you. But I have to ask. What did you tell the viscount that put him off?”
    The look she gave me was wide-eyed and oh-so-demure. “He ask me where I live in Japan. I tell him, Kobe, where my father is big manufacture of guns. Also my four brothers.”
    I laughed; she raised her glass, and her dark eyes sparkled at me over the rim. “Well, for fear of inviting a similar rebuke, my husband and I have a rather different kind of proposal for you. We wondered if you might be interested in teaching two foreigners a bit of Japanese, both language and customs?”
    She demurred, on the grounds that she was a poor teacher.
    “I can understand if you’re not interested, but we would be happy to pay you.”
    At that, she turned pink and tittered through her fingers. “Oh, no, I could not take your money!”
    “Still, think about it. We’d be grateful for any time you could give us, paid or not.”
    “But I would be most happy to meet with you and talk about Japan, teach you useful phrases. Many people in America did such for me. This would repay some kindness.”
    “Say, I’d like to learn a little Jap-talk—er, that is, Japan-talk, too.” This from the corn-fed Iowan, Mr Blankenship.
    I realised belatedly that I should not have made my request in such a public venue, since every young man in earshot chimed in to say they’d love Japanese lessons, too, followed (with a degree less enthusiasm) by the women. I started to object, then thought the better of it. Instead, I extended my hand to my petite neighbour. “That is most generous of you, Miss Sato. Shall we say seven o’clock tomorrow morning, in the library?”
    The early hour rather deflated the interest of the others, which was what I’d had in mind, but Miss Sato gave a little bob and said she would see us then.
    When the dinner bell sounded, Holmes collected me for our stroll down the grand stairway to the First-Class dining room, and our chosen table. He claimed a chair with a clear view of the Captain’s table: I did not comment, merely greeted our invited fellows as they arrived, making introductions all the while. A few deft questions dispelled any awkwardness, and soon the table was launched into the discovery of shared enthusiasms. When the purser came by with his seating chart, halfway through the fish course, none at our table indicated that they might be moving elsewhere.
    The two schoolteachers—a man and a woman—discovered a mutual passion for Greek mythology. The deaf artist, when she’d had the topic shouted into her ear, happily turned the page on her small sketch-book and began to punctuate the conversation with a series of witty (and occasionally risqué) interpretations of Olympus, with Zeus bearing a striking resemblance to our captain and Athena wearing a pair of spectacles remarkably like mine. Even the botany professor chimed in, with his opinion that the rites of Dionysius were fuelled not by wine but by a particular mountain herb, and that led to a merry debate on poisonous plants and the difficulties of determining cause of