"Oh, father," broke in the girl, "tell him it was noble!"[Illustration: "Oh, father," broke in the girl, "tell him it was noble!"]
"Oh, father," broke in the girl, "tell him it was noble!"[Illustration: "Oh, father," broke in the girl, "tell him it was noble!"]
"It was noble," resumed Mr. Howland. "It was big and fine—you saved a score of lives, and for them you gave your tug and part of your crew. I cannot reward such men as you—I can pay just debts, though. Your men shall not suffer; neither shall the families of those who were lost."
Then he paused a minute and reached behind the door jamb, bringing out a water-soaked bit of plank. "One of our best men picked this from the water. You had been clinging to it. I thought you might like to have it in your cabin."
It was the name board of theFledgling.
As Dan seized the strip with its gilt letters and was about to reply, the yacht slung sideways, and a wave arising amidships smote the deck-house a lusty, full-bodied blow. It suddenly occurred to the tugboat captain that the craft, all the time he had been aboard trying to collect his bewildered senses, had acted strangely. He turned to Mr. Howland.
"What's the matter with your yacht?"
Howland was a good deal of a thoroughbred, and yet he could not conceal his eagerness as he spoke.
"The yacht was just what I wanted to speak to you about, Captain," he said. "I know I have no right to ask anything more of you, but if you have pulled together, I think we seem to need your assistance. Our Captain was washed off the bridge, and the first mate is below with a broken leg. The situation, I am afraid, is beyond young Terry, the second mate; I—"
As the import of what Mr. Howland was trying to say flashed across Dan's mind, he turned abruptly, without waiting for the completion of the sentence, and ran for the bridge.
Without a glance at the second officer, who seemed on the verge of a complete funk, he shouldered the two sailors from the wheel and hauled on the spokes with all the strength of his long arms. As the yacht began to respond he seized the indicator crank and called for full speed ahead. The whistle of the bridge speaking-tube sounded viciously, and Dan, placing his ear to the receiver, caught the words of the old chief engineer as they flowed up in profane vehemence.
"Say, do you know what you want up there? If I had a man down here who knew an engine from a plate of fruit, I'd 'a' been up there and snaked you off the bridge long ago. I've been on my back under that triply damned shaft for twelve hours and now—" the rest of the sentence was an assortment of well-chosen oaths.
The outburst greeted Dan's ears sweetly. Evidently Howland had a man down below the water line, anyway. He grinned as he clapped his lips to the tube.
"I've just come aboard to take charge of this craft," he yelled; "now you do as I say and do it quick. See!"
A great relieved, blasphemous roar came up the tube, and the next instant the engines were laying down to their work.
The bow began to cut nicely into the waves, and Dan turned to the two sailors.
"Here, you boys, tail on here and steer as I tell you." Whereupon, fingering a pocket compass, he called the course, after which he fastened the little instrument to the wreck of the binnacle.
"We will pull through," he said, turning to Mr. Howland, who, with his daughter, had followed him to the bridge. "We are somewhere off the Winter Quarter Shoals; if I can get the sun at noon I'll know exactly; anyway, we will make Norfolk if that shaft holds. If it doesn't—well, banking on that engineer you've got down below, I think it will hold." Then inclining his head in the direction of Miss Howland, he added, "I'd advise you to go below, Miss Howland." He thrilled as he uttered her name, "You're wet; and then—I may have to swear."
"I should love awfully to hear some one swear to some purpose," she replied. "Oh, I want to stay," she cried, speaking to her father, as Dan suddenly turned his back and spoke to the second mate. "Father, I am going to stay. The rest are seasick or frightened to pieces. I feel braver up here."
She was perfectly candid. She did feel braver there on the bridge. For Dan was the one dominant personality aboard the yacht. In her eyes he typified bravery, skill, strength—safety, in a word, for all. It was as though out of the wrack of despair and the overriding elements had arisen the spirit of a man and all that at best he stands for, to reclaim the lost honors of the darker hours. And so she clung to him with her eyes and felt she could smile at danger; her soul went out to him and enveloped him with gratitude and tenderness. And she neither knew nor cared whether in these emotions was the uprearing of woman's submerged, primal nature, giving all to the sheer power of the stronger sex, or whether it was the result of a burden of dread suddenly lifted from her heart—it made no difference which. She was living the moment—here and now—clear, serene, justified, and ennobled.
And standing thus she watched him as he snapped the yacht slantwise from the grip of succeeding sea hollows and guided her over the gray hills, panting and straining, with much of pudgy deliberation, but surely.
"We will make it easily," said Dan, "if nothing happens."
"Good," cried Mr. Rowland, and, taking his daughter by the arm, he added, "come below, Virginia, and give them the good news. Your friend Oddington has forgotten his cigarettes for a full twenty-four hours, and the Dale girls are candidates for a sanitarium." There was a chuckle of relief in his voice.
Dan turned to watch the girl as she followed her father from the bridge. He was certain he had never seen anything so inspiring as Virginia Howland standing braced square to the wind, her trim blue skirt winding and unwinding; her cap in her hand; the wind tossing her heavy hair in myriads of glowing pennons, which beat on the blush-surged cheeks, alternately hiding and disclosing the sparkle of the deep gray eyes or the flash of perfect teeth from between parted lips.
It was a picture upon which he permitted himself to ponder but an instant, however, for the wind was shifting again from the northeast, growling ominously, and the yacht, humping along at a ridiculous speed of six knots, made the situation less satisfactory than it had been. He spoke to Terry over his shoulder.
"As you see," he said, "we're running into some new sort of hell," and he glanced impatiently at the potential riot ahead. "Have these men keep the course and look out for things, will you? I'm going down to the engine-room for a few minutes."
"Very well, sir," said the young officer.
Dan found old Jim Arthur, the chief, swearing softly as he moved about his engines with a long-spouted oil can.
"It is beginning to breeze again," said Dan. "I'm the new Captain and I came down to tell you I don't think much of your machinery, and to ask if the shaft will hold out."
"The shaft'll hold," said the engineer. Then he paused and looked at Dan in supreme disgust. "Engines!" he snorted. "I've been holdin' 'em together with my fingers since we left San Domingo. Cap'n, they'd been fine for a Swiss cuckoo clock. Why, they're only held together by gilt paint and polish. See how old Howland's had 'em painted—like a bedizened old maid! I do believe he's got 'em perfumed. Well, they may hold—"
Dan, who had been glancing about the engine-room, interrupted the engineer's pessimistic outburst.
"What are your force pumps going for?" he asked.
"Well, it ain't fur to water no flowers," said Arthur, beckoning Dan to the shaft tunnel, where a foot and a half of frothy water was rolling to and fro, slushing against the stuffing box, laving the engine-room bulkhead.
Leaking! Dan's first impulse was to drop his hands then and there and let the yacht sink or do what she would for all he cared. He had fought out his fight with a better craft than this and had lost her. He did not yield to this; in truth, before he could think of yielding there came a second impulse—to relieve his mind of several hundred accumulated metaphors, to which inclination he surrendered unconditionally, while Arthur, in the face of the verbal torrent, gazed at the source in humble admiration.
"How—how much is she taking in?" the young man finally gasped.
"About thirty strokes a minute. I'd 'a' whistled up the tube about it before, only I thought you had enough to fill your mind."
"How does it strike you?" asked Dan.
"It's gained only six inches in the past hour. I will say that much. But if you ask me my honest opinion, I'd say this rotten old pleasure hull is a-gettin' ready to open up and spread out like a—like a—balloon with the epizoötic."
"All right, when she begins, come on up with your men without asking leave. Report every half-hour. I'll be on the bridge, of course. If I can pick up a steamship I'll call her and desert ship; if not—well, we're somewhere outside the Winter Quarter light-ship. I'll need about five hours of the speed we're making to pick up the light vessel and beach the yacht in the lee of Assateague; maybe not quite five hours, I can't say exactly."
"I think we can keep ahead of the water we're makin' that long," replied Arthur, cheerfully.
As Dan regained the bridge, the bad news he had received below was slightly compensated for by the fact that the storm seemed to be taking a new kink, swirling away to sea. The gray combers, however, were still disagreeably to be reckoned with. The second officer had by this time pulled himself together, and as he reported to Dan, the young Captain was happy to feel that he had at least a lieutenant who could be counted on. Now if Mulhatton were only with him—but "Mul" was below, flat on his back, suffering technically from submersion, and so were the other men of theFledglingwho had been pulled aboard the yacht.
At ten o'clock Arthur reported that the water had gained another six inches.
As Dan snapped back the tube a burst of laughter from the saloon reached his ears. Seasickness, fear, everything evil had been forgotten in the spirit of confidence and assurance of ultimate safety which Dan's skill and personality had infused throughout the wallowing craft. He shrugged his shoulders, staring vacantly into the angry sea.
At length his eyes turned to the distress signals he had ordered hoisted; and suddenly the gulf between his lot in life and theirs, which the merriment suggested, disappeared, and his emotions thereby aroused,—emotions not untinged with self-pity, changed to deepest sympathy for those light-hearted ones who might soon be plunged into that gloom which heralds death. Grim, silent, he turned to his work, determined that so far as in him lay no shadow of death should invest a single one of those persons who must find so much in life to make it worth while. Another hour passed while the yacht stumbled her clumsy course to safety. Arthur reported another half-foot; in all three feet six inches of water swishing against the engine-room bulkhead.
"It will keep seepin' through," he said, "and wop! Suddenly the whole bulkhead'll go."
"Don't get caught," replied Dan. "Give us three more hours, chief. Oh, I say, there's not a drop getting into the fire room yet? Thank God for that!"
"For what?"
He faced about quickly and looked into the eyes of Virginia Howland. She was pale, but her face was brave. "I had just come out on deck," she said, "because somehow I was getting nervous—I wanted to be—to be near the Captain." She smiled. "I heard you talking through the speaking-tube; I didn't mean to listen—pardon me; I couldn't help it. We're in danger, then, are we? Don't hesitate to answer truthfully, Captain Merrithew."
"Why," replied Dan, "we—steady there, Mr. Terry; you men at the wheel attend to your business. Excuse me," turning to the girl, "danger—why, we've been in danger all the time; else I wouldn't be up here."
"You are evading," said the girl, slowly. "But perhaps you are right. I can say I trust you, Captain—we all do. I want to tell you again how we all appreciate your—what you have done—putting the yacht straight and—"
"I am doing it for myself as much as for you. More, perhaps; who knows?"
The girl gazed intently at his square-cut, bronzed face. Then she looked straight into his steel-gray eyes, peering hard ahead from under the flat peak of a cap he had picked up on the bridge.
"Yes," she said, as though speaking to herself, "I think I know." Then she started with an involuntary gesture.
"Haven't I seen you somewhere before, Captain Merrithew? Yes, yes, I have. Where could it have been? Do you recall?"
"Yes," was the simple reply. "I recall. It was about two years ago, at Norfolk, when you were at the coal docks on this yacht."
Virginia flushed eagerly and was about to say something, when some flashing thought, perhaps a realizing sense of their relative positions, closed her lips. "I remember very clearly now." She spoke quietly, then she closed her eyes for a second; when she opened them they were stern and hard.
"Captain Merrithew," she said, as though to hasten from the subject, "I know we are in danger. Your silence has said as much. Yet the yacht seems to be going finely—"
Dan made no reply.
"Do you think I am a coward? Is that the reason you are silent?"
Dan made no attempt to conceal his annoyance.
"Well, Miss Howland, if you are not a coward, if you can keep what you know to yourself, listen: We're taking in a little water. It's a race between the yacht and the leak; the yacht ought to win out. Now you know as much as I do."
"I am not frightened; my curiosity is natural. Is there a chance that the yacht may not get where you are taking her?"
"To the Assateague beach—no, I don't think there is—if all goes well."
"If all goes well! Then there is a chance—a chance we may—"
"Oh, we'll be all right." Dan was temperamentally straightforward and honest, and his assertions were uttered with a tentative inflection which fell far from carrying conviction to the aroused senses of the girl.
She stepped closer to Dan.
"May I say something? We are in danger. I have been thinking of things since you came aboard—since I have been sitting in the saloon with the men who are different—"
Dan could see that the girl, always evidently one of dominant emotions, was overwrought, and something told him she had no business to express the thoughts which filled her mind, that she would be sorry later that she had spoken. He had interrupted her by a gesture. Now his voice came cool and even.
"Miss Howland, don't. I've got to take care of this yacht."
A quick sense of just what he meant shot through the girl's mind. She raised her eyes and looked at him straight. They were blazing, not altogether with anger. She trembled; she flushed and moved uncertainly. Then, without a word, she turned and left him.
"A half-foot more water in the last half-hour," reported Arthur.
As Dan turned to Terry, that officer silently pointed to the northward, where a tall column of black smoke seemed to rise from the waters. A steamship! Yes, but was it coming toward them? Was it going away? Or would it pass them far out to sea? For fifteen minutes he watched it through his binoculars, and then he glanced down to the deck and called to a sailor to send Mr. Howland to the bridge.
"Mr. Howland," said Dan, as the owner approached him, "I suppose Miss Howland has told you our fix."
"Yes, but she has told no one else."
"Bully for her!" exclaimed Dan.
"She said you were hopeful."
"More so now than ever before, I was making for the beach, but now—there's a steamship coming down on us. I wasn't sure at first, I am now. That smoke out there is heading dead for us. I am going to slow the boat down to steerage way and wait for her to come up. It's better than trying to make for Assateague; it's better to wait."
"Will the bulkhead hold?"
Mr. Howland asked his question in the even monotone which had characterized all his questions.
"I think so; if it doesn't, we'll get everybody off in the rafts and the launch; the sea is going down by the minute."
Mr. Howland glanced down at the deck where the crew of Scandinavians, inspired by the cool, cheerful commands of their new Captain, were working nonchalantly in preparing for eventualities. From amidships came the clatter of men trying to repair the launch, the one boat which had not been carried away in the night's storm. Others were clearing the life rafts so they could be launched without delay. He glanced at Dan with admiring eyes.
"I want to compliment you, Captain Merrithew," he said. "You have your crew well in hand."
"Thank you," replied Dan, "if you will keep your party in hand there'll be no danger at all. I don't care what happens, with the sea falling."
Another half-hour. The steamship, a stout coaster, had now climbed over the horizon. Mr. Howland, through the glasses, had picked out her red-and-black funnel and recognized her as one of his own boats. But it had plainly come to a race between the steamship and the straining bulkhead. No need now to tell any one of the situation. TheVeiled Ladyewas plainly settling astern. The engine-room bulkhead was quivering, ready to break. Arthur and his men had piled up from the engine-room, the engines still pulsing with no one to watch them. The sailors were splendid, going about their work quietly, calmly. They had carried the injured mate, groaning with his broken leg, to the deck. Mrs. Van Vleck, Mr. Rowland's sister, the chaperone, sat with her niece's arms about her, passing in and out of successive attacks of hysteria. A sailor had knocked one of the young men of the party down to quiet an incipient exhibition of panic. Ralph Oddington and Reginald Wotherspoon stood at the rail, trying with nerveless fingers to roll cigarettes. Two of the girls were weeping in each other's arms. The water bubbled under the turn of the yacht's counters. Two of the sailors were discharging blank shells from the rifle astern in hopes of calling attention to the plight of the craft. The deck was a conglomerate, nervous confusion of smart yachting costumes, uniforms, and greasy overalls.
Dan, noting the flutter, leaned back from the wheel.
"Don't get excited down there," he roared. "If the bulkhead holds, we're all right. If it doesn't, there'll be plenty of time for all. Do you understand? We can float for a week on the ocean the way it is now."
"It won't hold long, Mr. Howland," he added to the man at his side, "but it will hold until that steamship reaches us. She's seen us and is coming like hell."
A few minutes later a joyous shout sounded from the men on the bridge, a cry vibrant with electricity, which thrilled through the yacht and finally trembled on all tongues. For the steamship had sized the situation and was fairly leaping toward them. Great clouds of smoke were belching from her funnel. They could see sparks mingling with the thunderclouds of sepia, and theVeiled Ladyehobbled woundily to meet her. On came the freighter; her hull was plainly discerned now, picking the waves from under her bluff bows and throwing them impatiently to either side.
Cries of joy and appeals for the succoring vessel to hurry sounded from the yacht's decks.
As the vessel drew nearer. Miss Howland ran to the bridge and took her father by the arm.
"Father!" she cried. "You must come now. Isn't there anything in your cabin you want to save?" With a muttered "By George!" Mr. Howland dived below and the girl faced Dan.
"Captain Merrithew—"
Oddington's voice thrilling in joyous, cadence sounded from beneath the bridge.
"Virginia, Virginia, where are you? Oh, up there! Come down quickly! Don't you see we are coming alongside? And Merrithew, old chap—Virginia, will you come! You are to be put aboard after your aunt. Hurry!" There was a half-note of proprietorship in his voice.
As the girl turned to leave, Dan gave the wheel to Terry and ran to the deck with a speaking-trumpet in his hand. As he passed Oddington, who had assisted Miss Howland from the bridge, he spoke to him quietly.
"The man with the broken leg leaves this ship first."
Below there was a dull crash and clouds of steam burst through the ventilators and the engine-room gratings. The bulkhead had succumbed, but no one cared now. The steamship was turning in about a hundred yards away. Dan directed his trumpet to the bridge.
"Scrape close alongside," he yelled. "Open one of your cargo ports and we'll board you through it."
The freighter's Captain had already anticipated this suggestion, and as the vessel slid alongside, Dan ranged the sailors along the deck.
In perfect order the mate with the broken leg was slid into the port as though he were merely being passed into another room. Then went the women, then the men of the party, and after them the sailors. Dan and Mr. Howland alone were left now. As the elder man prepared to enter the port he looked at Dan a moment and smiled.
"Some day I hope to cancel this debt."
They were simple words, but potentially they meant much to Dan. He was to find they involved the realization of dreams, ambitions he had long held; another rung on the ladder which eventually—— But there was no time to think of the future now. Turning from the porthole he ran along the deck, calling to make sure that every one was off. When he returned, Miss Howland and several others were leaning over the rail above.
"For heaven's sake, Captain Merrithew, will you please come off that yacht!" The girl's voice rang imperiously.
With a last look at the bridge upon which he had passed the recent thrilling hours, he leaped aboard the freighter, and when ten minutes later the whiteVeiled Ladyethrew up her bow with a great clanking sigh and slid swiftly from view, Dan Merrithew was fast asleep in the Captain's cabin.
A week later, Dan, in accordance with an engagement made with Mr. Howland when parting with him at the railroad station at Norfolk, whither the rescuing vessel had taken the shipwrecked party, called at the office of the Coastwise and West Indian Shipping Company in the Bowling Green Building and asked to see the president.
It was a large office, filled with clerks and all of them busy. The young man who received the caller's request looked at him sharply and shook his head.
"Mr. Rowland's engaged now," he said, "at a company meeting. If you'll call in an hour or two I'll find out if he will see you."
Dan drew from his pocket a card with a pencilled memorandum and glanced at it.
"He made an appointment with me for eleven o'clock to-day. So I guess I'll have to ask you to take in my card."
The clerk shrugged his shoulders and walked away. When he returned a few minutes later all signs of mistrust had vanished. Opening the gate with a sort of flourish he said:
"Mr. Howland says for you to come right in."
As Dan entered the president's office, Mr. Howland arose from a long, polished oaken table littered with papers, at which several men were seated, and advanced to meet him.
"Captain Merrithew," he said, "I am glad to see you again. And now," he added, the formalities of introducing Dan to the various officers of the company being completed, "I have gone into the matter of the men lost when theFledglingsank and have sent a check for five thousand dollars to the wife of your engineer, Crampton, who I understand carried some life insurance, and a check for three thousand dollars to Welch's mother." His voice was crisp and business-like, but his manner intimated clearly the sympathy and gratitude which had dictated his gifts.
"Yes, sir, they are adequate," replied Dan, feelingly.
"I have sent checks to your mate, Mulhatton, who, I am informed, is still in the employ of the Phoenix Company, as well as that fellow Noonan and the steward; which brings us to you."
"Mr. Howland," said Dan, flushing, "I'm simply not—"
"Just a moment, if you please," interrupted Mr. Howland; "I assume you are qualified to navigate the ocean?"
"Yes," replied Dan, trembling slightly; "I've the best of broad ocean papers and seven harbor endorsements."
"That ought to be enough," smiled the vice-president, Mr. Horton, who seemed perfectly in touch with the trend of the situation.
"Yes," resumed Mr. Howland, "what I am getting at is this, Captain Merrithew. The Coastwise Transportation Company is looking for men like you. We want you with us, in short. As you probably know, we have a fleet consisting of steamers of various sizes, but all pretty much the same type; that is to say, seaworthy, comfortable, and well engined. We cannot place you in command of one of our newest vessels, of course. But there is theTampico, the commander of which, Captain Harrison, we are to retire for age. She is a good boat, running to San Blanco, and she is fitted for passengers; so you will find opportunity to develop your social proclivities, if you have any to develop."
As Mr. Howland was talking the color had slowly departed from Dan's face, and now, as the president ceased speaking and regarded the young man, he spoke haltingly, with dry lips.
"Do I understand you to mean that you are going to make me Captain of theTampico?"
"You are to understand that we have," corrected Mr. Howland.
"Mr. Howland, gentlemen," said Dan, "I—I can't say anything except—thank you—I—" He hesitated, confusedly.
"There's nothing for you to say," interpolated the president, "except that you'll go down to the ship, which is loading at Pier 36, East River, and assume command. Captain Harrison will remain aboard for two or three trips to break you in to the trade." There was that in his voice which intimated the end of the interview, and Dan with a bow was turning to leave, when Mr. Howland uttered an exclamation.
"Oh, by the way," he said, "here is a note my daughter asked me to give you. It will explain itself, I think; and since you are now serving under the house flag of this company, I can say only that obedience to orders contained therein is imperative. We all obey orders from that source," and with a chuckle Mr. Rowland turned to his confreres and was speedily immersed in other important affairs of the company.
Dan did not open the envelope in the office. First of all he wanted fresh air. The quick, calm, business-like manner in which his promotion had taken place; the noiseless, well-ordered, automatic opening of another door leading to the future of his ambitions, so utterly at variance with preconceived ideas in this regard, had all but unnerved him. He had always held it as assured that some day he should walk his own bridge. But until a half-hour ago, this day seemed still to lie far ahead, a day to be attained, well, he could not say exactly how—but at least with a sort of metaphorical roaring of guns and waving of flags, and great spiritual exaltation.
But now—a few short sentences, a handshake, and presto! Captain Merrithew, of the Coastwise line steamshipTampico, by your leave. The wonder of it all dazed him; yet withal he knew he had never before been so stirred to the very depths of his being. He was not yet in a position to estimate his good fortune in comprehensive terms. As a matter of fact, he did not try. One thought alone kept flaming through his brain—his age. Twenty-six, twenty-six; the numerals flew through his mind as though the years of his life were the most important elements in the situation.
By the time he reached the Battery sea-wall, he had somewhat adjusted his mental attitude, and, gazing with a degree of calmness over the waters of the bay toward the hills of Staten Island, he recalled the note from Miss Howland.
All along it had lain a pleasant substratum in his mind, and now as he tore open the envelope and read the contents, a peculiar, grim smile lighted his eyes for a second.
"DEAR CAPTAIN MERRITHEW:—Next Thursday we are going to have a reunion of the castaways at our house. It will be for dinner, and we have all agreed it will not be complete without the man who made this gathering possible.
"I am not going to let you make any excuse, for my dinner-party will have an empty space without you. It will be very informal. Father for several years has refused to wear evening dress at dinner, so none of the other men will. Now remember, I shall expect you on Thursday evening, at seven; you need not bother sending an acceptance.
"Very sincerely yours,
"VIRGINIA WALTON ROWLAND."
Virginia met her aunt at the foot of the stairs, and, slipping an arm about her waist, laughed nervously.
"Well, my dear, to-night we entertain the tug-boat hero. It's horrid to feel so, but do you know I wish I had suggested to father that we have the dinner on one of his vessels. Do you remember last Fall, what fun it was? I have the impression, don't you know, that things would be less strained than here. He would find the atmosphere more adaptable."
"He? Oh, the tugman," laughed her aunt. "I shouldn't worry if I were you."
"I'm not worrying about that," protested the girl; "but oh, I don't know—I hate to have the success of a dinner in the air, especially when you have a sort of reputation in that way, don't you know."
"Nonsense," replied the older woman, glancing admiringly at the tall, lithe girl in her white evening gown as she moved through the drawing-room to the dining-room, where the butler was adding the final deft fillips to a centrepiece of roses, in which a candy yacht was sinking.
"You see," said the girl, pointing to a dinner card bearing Merrithew's name, "I am going to place him between you and me. Will you—won't you arrange things so he'll take you in. No; never mind! I'll arrange that—you're always such a dear about such things, and you won't mind, will you?"
"Certainly not," smiled her aunt, "I shall ask him to tow me in."
They both laughed. Their understanding was perfect. Ever since the older woman had entered her brother's house, years before, to care for a motherless child, the bond of sympathy between the two had been of the strongest, and throughout she had remained the best friend and counsellor, if only because she was the wisest.
When Dan entered the Howlands' drawing-room all the guests had arrived. He accomplished this difficult feat, which is considered an art in fashionable schools, with easy grace and unconsciousness and received Virginia's welcome courteously.
He wore a well-fitting blue suit of conventional cut and neither his hands nor his feet seemed to bother him a bit. And yet among the men of the company he stood out in sharp contrast. Miss Howland marked this particularly when Oddington presented himself with an air of good-humored camaraderie,—he, the successful young lawyer, with a growing reputation as a man about town and the glamour which surrounds the most popular all-around man at his university still about him; a man who did well everything he tried to do, and able to give the impression that the things he could not do were not worth the attempt; whose every action, every word, every expression was marked with the undefinable stamp of the metropolis, and the various lessons it teaches. Merrithew, on the other hand, standing tall and broad-shouldered, looking about him as he talked, with quick, observant glances; a face weather-beaten, but not rough, a typical Anglo-Saxon fighting face, but kindly withal; certainly not truculent. Miss Howland had met young army and navy officers who had aroused in her similar impressions; she had, in fact, no difficulty in defining Merrithew's type. He was of the class which does strong things out of the beaten track; men who in the process of civilization have retained some of the wandering or combative or predatory instincts of earlier ages and have been set apart in the scheme of natural selection to fight battles, explore countries, kill wild beasts, navigate waters, to the end that a greater proportion of their fellow men may peaceably advance the interests of commerce, science, the arts, and, other affairs of a humdrum world.
Oddington took Miss Howland in. At the last moment her father had telephoned from the office he would be late and not to wait for him. This necessitated a hasty rearrangement of the dinner cards; and Mrs. Van Vleck was further disturbed by the butler, who was batting his eyes fiercely at the cringing second man, token that something had occurred, or more probably had been about to occur, to mar that service which was his pride.
Dan, therefore, who sat at her right, finding relief from the rapid-fire conversation which she had directed at him, obviously with intention to put him at his ease, found time to glance up and down the table. There were perhaps a dozen persons, and he recognized most of them as members of theVeiled Ladye'sparty. Reginald Wotherspoon, upon dry land once more, out of danger, sure of himself, was bantering one of the girls across the table, in the dry, masterful tone of one who fancies he understands women; and the rest were laughing at the confused indignation which marked her replies.
Dan recalled this girl. She had been especially cool aboard the yacht; and certain pictures of Wotherspoon flashing through his mind, an amused smile lighted his eyes for an instant. Miss Howland, who at the moment had turned from Oddington, caught the smile, and following his gaze, instinctively divined the cause. She was not annoyed. On the contrary, she was pleased, for it indicated to her that Dan was perfectly at ease, and she noted, moreover, that he was dealing with the various courses with a greater degree ofsavoir faire, so to speak, than she had thought probable. She dismissed forthwith all fears she had entertained regarding Wotherspoon's prediction that "among the features of the dinner would be a lifelike imitation of a towboat skipper swallowing his knife."
He followed Mrs. Van Vleck's leads in conversation, and once responded with crisp cleverness to a gay remark addressed to him by a girl across the table. But he seemed to take it for granted that Miss Howland would be occupied with Oddington; and in fact he had spoken to her but once, and then to thank her when she pushed a dish of almonds toward him.
The girl had noted a similar tendency of late on the part of other men, but had thought of it only in as far as it had impressed upon her the fact that she and Ralph had grown to understand each other rather well and were very good friends. She had arrived at that age where she had begun to feel that perhaps, after all, this might be what the world called love and that women who attributed to the word emotions deeper, more absorbing, more thrilling, were mere sentimentalists, who derived their plans and ideas from a world of dreams or from fiction both classical and popular; or else they were women of deeper feeling than she knew herself to be.
It was all a problem. She had reason to feel that a time was approaching when Oddington might reasonably expect a clearer, better-defined relation. Whether she would be willing to grant this was another matter. It was possible she might; it was possible she might not. She did not know. It was a situation which perplexed if it did not inspire her, which interested if it did not thrill.
And yet now Dan's tacit aloofness piqued her. She admitted she did not understand him at all. Here was a man, a tugboat captain, of course a product of the water front; primarily, no doubt, a dock-rat, and yet a man who had not tangled himself in the use of his forks, who spoke in even, well-modulated tones, and looked like a gentleman. Miss Howland was not snobbish in these thoughts. She had never been a snob; she was simply considering facts. And she did not want him to be aloof.
"Captain Merrithew," she said in a tone designed to draw him and the others into general conversation, "Ralph—Mr. Oddington, has been saying things again about my favorite cousin Percy Walton."
Ignoring the polite chorus of mild expostulation, Miss Howland turned to Dan, speaking with great vivacity.
"Percy, you know, was educated to win football games for Yale, and at the last moment went to Princeton. But he did not play there, because Uncle Horace, his father, in a fit of disgust, made him go to work." She glanced smilingly at Oddington. "Mr. Oddington and Mr. Wotherspoon say he was proselyted by Princeton. We've had more fights about it—"
"Well, he was proselyted," laughed Oddington, "stolen from us bodily."
"Wasn't it some time ago?" asked Dan.
"Why, that's just the point," said Mrs. Van Vleck. "It was at least five or six years ago. I am afraid Ralph and Reggie will never be able to realize they are not undergraduates."
Oddington smiled.
"Oh, I don't know," he said. "At all events, it keeps us young. As for Walton, I'd be ashamed to own him for a cousin," winking at Dan. "Why, Merrithew, all his family had been Yale from great-grandfather down."
"There; you hear him, Captain Merrithew," cried Miss Howland; "don't you think that's a horrid way to talk?"
Dan smiled, tapping lightly on the table with his fingers.
"I don't believe he was stolen," he said slowly, as though not quite certain whether he ought to venture an opinion. "Whether he was or not, I don't believe he'd ever have made the Yale team or the Princeton eleven either."
Virginia started in her chair and glanced at him swiftly.
"Indeed!" she said, flushing. "You don't mean to say—what do you know about Percy Walton?"
"Now you're in for it, Merrithew," grinned Oddington. "What do you know about Walton?"
Dan picked up his dinner card and spun it between his thumb and forefinger for a few seconds, and then with a slight smile replied:
"Why, not a great deal. Next to nothing, personally." He paused a moment, and then glancing down at the table added, "I was captain of the eleven on which Walton played at Exeter."
* * * * * *
After the guests had gone, Virginia, her father, and Mrs. Van Vleck sat for a few minutes in a small apartment between the drawing and dining rooms. The girl's eyes were bright.
"Well, father, I actually believe you could have knocked me down with a feather to-night."
Mr. Howland drew his cigar-cutter from his pocket and slowly inserted the end of a perfecto.
"I suppose you refer to Merrithew."
"Certainly," said Mrs. Van Vleck; "why in the world didn't you tell us, Horace?"
"Yes, why didn't you?" The girl had arisen and approached her father's chair. "You might have known, father dear, that both Aunt Helen and I lay awake nights wondering whether he would bring a boat-hook or a sou'wester to the dinner, and do—oh, all sorts of outlandish things, making us the joke of the season. And to think—a football captain in Percy's class at prep school, quiet, easy-mannered—"
Mr. Howland snapped the end from his cigar and placed the cutter in his pocket.
"Are you quite through, Virginia?" he said.
"Quite," replied the girl, who thereupon disproved her assertion by beginning where she had left off. "And I do believe you knew all the time and were simply teasing us."
"That is not exactly true," smiled her father. "Of course I looked him up a bit before offering him the command of theTampico. He comes from near New Bedford. You know my mother's family lived there."
The girl nodded. "Yes? Go on."
Mr. Howland lighted a match and held it burning for a while before applying it to his cigar.
"You know," he said, "there are no better people in the world than some of those New England seafaring families. The Merrithews, I believe, were very substantial.₀ So you see where your supposed wharf-rat acquired the manner which you marked in him, and his good English, and—and well, whatever else you marked."
"What is he going to do now?" asked Mrs. Van Vleck. "Oh, of course, theTampico. Is he qualified to be a captain?"
"Why, naturally; I haven't the slightest doubt of it. But Harrison will stay with the ship for two or three more trips to break him in thoroughly. Both companies by whom he was employed while in tugboat work speak of him in the highest terms. It's all rather a departure. But I feel I owe it to Merrithew; and besides, I have an idea he is the sort of man we want. This West Indian trade is not all beer and skittles."
"It is very interesting," said Virginia, stifling a yawn. "I hope to see something more of him; he's a new sort and worth studying. And—oh, father, is there any chance that we'll have that house-party at our San Blanco estate next Spring? I mean—of course you've promised that. What I meant was, will we go on theTampico? Now don't smile, father; you have said a dozen times you were through with steam yachts."
"I'm not smiling," said Mr. Howland. "It is quite possible we'll go down on theTampico—unless Merrithew manages to sink her in the meantime."
"Bully," cried the girl. "Good-night.₀ I think," she said, speaking slowly over her shoulder—"I think we had a very successful partee." She paused and looked doubtfully at her father. "The only difficulty is that, now we know he is not hopelessly impossible in one way, we have to face the fact that he is all the more impossible in others."
"Yes," said her aunt, laughing, "as an interesting social freak we might have used him; but as an ordinary, well-behaved steamship captain—" Mrs. Van Vleck shrugged her shoulders expressively and raised her eyebrows.
"Well," said the girl, "he'll be eminently eligible for the Captain's table of theTampico. Somehow I wish he had done something unusual to-night. I had developed all sorts of strange fancies concerning him."
Now, as a matter of fact, she did not wish that at all.