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spoken to by the captain. After they exchanged a few words, the captain led them into the ship, and they disappeared from sight.
    He stood back in his room, closing the porthole tight. His mouth was open in shock. There was never any noise there. It was always quiet and calm, and new passengers were more than rare. Turning and pacing to his front door, he opened it and walked silently into a dark corridor.
    When he reached the edge of the hall, he stared out into the atrium. The captain was already in the lobby with the two women. The man ducked back into the shadows of the hall and continued to watch. One of the women caught his eye instantly.
    She was standing very quietly in the foyer, clothed in a dark, tight dress, holding a dripping wet cloak over her arm. She was the taller of the two, long and slender, yet voluptuous. He felt tightened at such a Junoesque appearance. Her black hair was wet and draped against her face from the rain, despite its pinned up style.
    He stepped back into the hall as she walked a little closer. He was still examining her when she began walking nearer to the stewardess at the desk. She approached a candle, and under its glow he was able to see her face in a good light.
    She was incredibly beautiful; the prettiest woman he had ever seen. She had bright blue eyes and flawless lips. Her face was perfectly symmetrical and thin. She was wearing a cravat tucked into her bodice with a netted brace across her bosom, and below she wore a long, dark underdress that draped to the floor and made her body impenetrable. Long sleeves hung down smoothly, and at the wrists the sleeves were tied together and frilled. She was dressed formally, but simply still. Her figure was so striking, and her manner of speech, from what he could hear as she conversed with the stewardess, had all the elegance that any man could want.
    He glanced at the other girl. She was plain, but well dressed—too extravagantly for his taste—and was shorter in stature than the other girl. Her green eyes were less elegant, and she was talking without end, giggling and beaming with gaiety. As polished a girl as she was, his eyes continued to stray toward the other. For some reason, a strange feeling kneaded at him when he looked at her.
    She flashed a glance in his direction, and he withdrew back into the hallway; so far back he couldn’t see the foyer anymore. She hadn’t seen him, and he didn’t want her to.
    Perhaps she would make it somewhere, wherever she thought this ship was headed. Or she might be another victim snared by the captain. He tried to think nothing of her as he turned back down the hallway and re-entered his stateroom. She was probably a typical first class woman who wanted nothing of…
    An immediate knock on the door startled him, and as soon as he pushed his thoughts aside, he apprehensively answered it.
    “ Hello, Romanoff,” the young man said as he opened the door from inside, regaining all composure.
    “ I felt her!” Romanoff, a thin, sharp-featured man said in exasperation.
    “ What the devil are you talking about?”
    “ The Mistress! I felt her in my head. I think something terribly good is going to happen! Can’t you feel it?”
    The man inside the door sighed. “No.”
    “ Well I know you saw those women as well,” the man stated blankly from the hall. “Why didn’t you greet either of them? Perhaps that is what Mistress—”
    “ Are you bloody mad? What do you mean, ‘Why didn’t I greet any of them?’”
    Romanoff laughed, his French nature prominent. “No I’m not mad; how dare you! I’m entirely serious!”
    The young man huffed, cocked his head toward the Frenchman, and closed the door on him. Sighing and faltering deeper into his bedroom hollow, he collapsed onto the end of his bed; his elbows leant on his knees. He ran his fingers through his hair in contemplation. He could not meet the girl he had instantly been attracted to. He felt so strange about it. He had never once