VI
Sixth day out.Bump! And we're three days late.Suits me. I don't care if we never get in.
Smith's Log.
Whoso will, may read in the Hydrographic Office records, the fate of the steamship Sarah Calkins. Old was Sarah; weather-scarred, wave-battered, suffering from all the internal disorders to which machinery is prone; tipsy of gait, defiant of her own helm, a very hag of the high seas.
Few mourned when she went down in Latitude 43° 10' North, Longitude 20° 12' West—few indeed, except for the maritime insurance companies. They lamented and with cause, for the Sarah Calkins was loaded with large quantities of rock, crated in such a manner as to appear valuable, and to induce innocent agents to insure them as pianos, furniture, and sundrymerchandise. Such is the guile of them that go down to the sea in ships.
For the first time in her disreputable career, the Sarah Calkins obeyed orders, and went to the bottom opportunely in sight of a Danish tramp which took off her unalarmed captain and crew. Let us leave her to her deep-sea rest.
The evil that ships do lives after them, and the good is not always interred with their bones. For the better or worse of Little Miss Grouch and the Tyro, the Sarah Calkins, of whom neither of them had ever heard, left her incidental wreckage strewn over several leagues of Atlantic. One bit of it became involved with the Clan Macgregor's screw, to what effect has already been indicated. Hours later a larger mass came along, under the impulsion of half a gale, and punched a hole through the leviathan's port side as if it were but paper, just far enough above the water-line so that every alternate wave could make an easy entry.
The Tyro came up out of deep slumber with a plunge. He heard cries from without, and a strongly bawled order. Above him there was a scurry of feet. The engines stopped. Threebells struck just as if nothing had happened. He opened his door and the coldest water he had ever felt on his skin closed about his feet. The passageway was awash.
Jumping into enough clothing to escape the rigor of the law, the Tyro ran across to 129 D and knocked on the door. It opened. Little Miss Grouch stood there. Her eyes were sweet with sleep. A long, soft, fluffy white coat fell to her little bare feet. Her hair, half-loosed, clustered warmly close to the flushed warmth of her face. The Tyro stood, stricken for the moment into silence and forgetfulness by the power of her beauty.
"What is it?" she asked softly.
He found speech. "Something has happened to the ship."
"I knew you'd come," she said with quiet confidence.
"Aren't you afraid?"
"Iwasafraid."
A roll of the ship brought the chill water up about her feet. She shivered and winced. Stooping he caught her under the knees, and lifted her to his arms. Feeling the easy buoyancyof his strength beneath her, she lapsed against his shoulder, wholly trustful, wholly content. Through the passage he splashed, around the turn, and up the broad companionway. Not until he had found a chair in the near corner of the lower saloon did he set her down. Released from his arms, she realized with a swift shock the loss of all sense of security. She shot a quick glance at him, half terrified, half wistful. But the Tyro was now all for action.
"What clothes do you most need?" he asked sharply.
"Clothes? I don't know." She found it hard to adjust the tumult which had suddenly sprung up within her, to such considerations.
"Shoes and stockings. A heavy coat. Your warmest dress—where is it? What else?"
"What are you going to do?"
"Go back after your things."
"You mustn't! I won't let you. It's dangerous."
"Later it may be. Not now."
She stretched out her hands to him. "Please don't leave me."
He took the imploring little hands in his own firm grip. "Listen. There's no telling what has happened. We may have to go on deck. We may even be ordered to the boats. Warm clothing is an absolute necessity. Think now, and tell me what you need."
She gave him a quick but rather sketchy list. "And your own overcoat and sweater—or I won't let you go. Promise." Her fingers turned in his and caught at them.
"Very well, tyrant. I'll be back in three minutes."
Had he known what was awaiting him he might have promised with less confidence. For there was a dragon in the path in the person of young Mr. Diedrick Sperry, breathing, if not precisely flames, at least, fumes, for he had sat late in the smoking-room, consuming much liquor. At sight of the Tyro, his joke which he had so highly esteemed, returned to his mind.
"Haberdashin' 'round again, hey?" he shouted, blocking the passage halfway down to Stateroom 129. "Where's Cissy Wayne?"
"Safe," said the Tyro briefly.
"Safe be damned! You tell me where before you move a step farther." He stretched out a hand which would have done credit to a longshoreman.
Fight was the last thing that the Tyro wished. More important business was pressing. But as Sperry was blocking the way to the conclusion of that business, it was manifest that he must be disposed of. Here was no time for diplomacy. The Tyro struck at his bigger opponent, the blow falling short. With a shout, the other rushed him, and went right on over his swiftly dropped shoulder, until he felt himself clutched at the knees in an iron grip, and heaved clear of the flooded floor.
The stateroom door opposite swung unlatched. With a mighty effort, the wrestler whirled his opponent clean through it, heard his frame crash into the berth at the back, and slammed the door to after him, only to be apprised, by a lamentable yell in a deep contralto voice, that he had made an unfortunate choice of safe-deposits.
In two leaps he was in room 129 D, whence, peering forth, he beheld his late adversaryemerge and speed down the narrow hall in full and limping flight, pursued by Mrs. Charlton Denyse clad in inconsiderable pink, and shrieking vengeance as she splashed. Relieved, through this unexpected alliance, of further interference, the messenger collected a weird assortment of his liege's clothing and an article or two of his own and returned to her. There was no mistaking the gladness of her relief.
"You've done very well," she approved. "Though I don't know that I actually need this lace collar, and I suppose Icouldbrave the perils of the deep without that turquoise necklace."
"I took what I could get," explained he. "It's my rule of life."
"Did you obey my orders? Yes, I see you did. Put on your overcoat at once. It's cold. And you're awfully wet," she added, with charming dismay, looking at his feet.
"They'll dry out. There's quite a little water below."
Little Miss Grouch studied him for a moment of half-smiling consideration. "I want to ask you something," she said presently.
"Ask, O Queen, and it shall be answered you."
"Would you have come after me just the same if—if I'd been really a Miss Grouch, and red-nosed, and puffy-faced, and a frump, and homely?"
He took the question under advisement, with a gravity suitable to its import. "Not just the same," he decided, "not as—as anxiously."
"But you'd have come?"
"Oh, yes, I'd have come."
"I thought so." Her voice was strange. There was a pause. "Do you know you're a most exasperating person? It wouldn't make any difference to you who a woman was, if she needed help, whether she was in the steerage—"
He leaped to his feet. "The baby!" he cried, "and his mother. I'd forgotten."
On the word he was gone. Little Miss Grouch looked after him, and there was a light in her eyes which no human being had ever surprised there—and which would have vastly surprised herself had she appreciated the purport of it.
In five minutes he was back, having calmlyviolated one of the most rigid of ship's rules, in bringing steerage passengers up to the first cabin.
"Here's the Unparalleled Urchin," he announced, "right as a trivet. Here, let's make a little camp." He pulled around a settee, established the frightened but quiet mother and the big-eyed child on it, drew up a chair for himself next to the girl and said, "Now we can wait comfortably for whatever comes."
News it was that came, in the course of half an hour. An official, the genuineness of whose relief was patent, announced that the leak was above water-line, that it was being patched, that the ship was on her way and that there was absolutely no danger, his statement being backed up by the resumed throb of the engines and the sound of many hammers on the port side. Stateroom holders in D and E, however, he added, would best arrange to remain in the saloon until morning.
So the Tyro conveyed his adoptive charges back to the steerage, and returned to his other and more precious charge. There he found Judge Enderby in attendance.
"Isn't there something more I can get from your room?" the Tyro asked of Little Miss Grouch, after he had greeted the judge.
She shook her head with a smile.
"So the dumb has found a tongue, eh?" remarked the lawyer.
"Emergency use only," explained the Tyro.
"Well, my legal advice," pursued the jurist with a reassuring grimace at the girl, "is that you can make hay while the moon shines, for I don't think any officer is going to concern himself with your little affair just at present. But my personal advice," he added significantly, "in the interests of your own peace of mind, is that you go and sit on the rudder the rest of the voyage. Safety first!"
"I think he's an awfully queer old man," pouted Little Miss Grouch, as the judge sauntered away.
"Don't abuse my counsel," said the Tyro.
"He isn't your counsel. He's my counsel. I paid him five whole dollars to be."
"Hoots, lassie! I paid him ten."
"You want my house," said Little Miss Grouch, aggrieved, "and you want my lawyer.Is there anything else of mine you'd like to lay claim to?"
It may have been accident—the unprincipled opportunist of a godling who rules these matters will league himself with any chance—that the Tyro's eyes fell upon her hand, which lay, pink and warmly half-curled in her lap, and remained there. It certainly was not accident that the hand was hastily moved.
"Do you suppose Baby Karl and his mother are safe?" she inquired, in a voice of extreme detachment.
"Just as safe as we are. By the way, you heard what Judge Enderby suggested to me about 'safety first'?"
Her face took on an expression of the severest innocence. "No. Something stupid, I dare say."
"He advised me to go and sit on the rudder for the rest of the voyage."
"Wouldn't it be awfully wet—and lonely?"
"Unspeakably. Particularly the latter."
"Then I wouldn't do it," she counseled.
"I won't," he promised. "But, Miss Grouch, the dry land may be just as lonely as the wet ocean."
"Haven't you any friends in Europe?"
"No. Unless you count Lord Guenn one."
"You never met him until I introduced you, did you?"
"No. But he's asked me to come and visit him at Guenn Oaks."
"Has he! Why?"
The Tyro laughed. "There's something very unflattering about your surprise. Not for mybeaux yeuxalone. It seems he's sort of inherited me from a careless ancestor."
"Icame to him by marriage."
"So he tells me. Also that you're going to Guenn Oaks."
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Why 'well'? I didn't say anything."
"You didn't. I'm waiting to hear you."
"What?"
"Tell me whether I'm to go or not."
"What have I to do with it?"
"Everything."
"Your servitude ends the moment we touch land."
"It will never end," said the Tyro in a low voice.
Little Miss Grouch peeked up at him from under the fascinating, slanted brows, and immediately regretted her indiscretion. What she saw in his face stirred within her a sweet and tremulous panic, the like of which she had not before experienced.
"Please don't look at me like that," she said petulantly. "What will people think?"
"People are, for once, minding their own businesses, bless 'em."
"Well, anyway, you make me n-n-nervous."
"Am I to come to Guenn Oaks?"
"I'll tell you to-morrow," she fenced.
"To-morrow I shan't be speaking to you."
"Why not?—oh, I forgot. Still, you might write," she dimpled.
"Would you answer?"
"I'll consider it."
"How long would consideration require?"
"Was there ever such a human question-mark! Please, kind sir, I'm awfully tired and sleepy. Won't you let me off now?"
"Forgive me," said the Tyro with such profoundcontrition that the Wondrous Vision's heart smote her, for she had said, in her quest of means of defense, the thing which most distinctly was not true.
Never had she felt less sleepy. Within her was a terrifying and quivering tumult. She closed her eyes upon the outer world, which seemed now all comprised in one personality. Within the closed lids she had shut the imprint of the tired, lean, alert, dependable face. Within the doors of her heart, which she was now striving to close, was the memory of his protective manliness, of his unobtrusive helpfulness, of the tonic of his frank and healthy humor—and above all of the strength and comfort of his arms as he had caught her up out of the flood. As she mused, the slumber-god crept in behind those blue-veined shutters of thought, and melted her memories into dreams.
While consciousness was still feebly efficient, but control had passed from the surrendering mind, she stretched out a groping hand. The Tyro's closed over it very gently. At the corner of her delicate mouth the merest ghost of asmile flickered and passed. Little Miss Grouch went deep into the land of dreams, with her knight keeping watch and ward over her.
Came then the destroying ogre, in the form of the captain, and passed on; came then the wicked fairy, in the person of Mrs. Charlton Denyse, and passed on, not without some gnashing of metaphorical teeth (her own, I regret to state, she had left in her berth); came also the god from the machine, in the shape of Judge Willis Enderby, with his friend Dr. Alderson, and paused near the group.
"Love," observed the jurist softly, "is nine tenths opportunity and the rest importunity. I hope our young protégé doesn't forget that odd tenth. It's important."
"It seems to me," observed his companion suspiciously, "that you boast considerable wisdom about the tender passion."
The ablest honest lawyer in New York sighed. "I am old who once was young, butego in Arcadia fuiand I have not forgotten." Then the two old friends passed on.
HER KNIGHT KEEPING WATCH OVER HERHER KNIGHT KEEPING WATCH OVER HER
VII
Seventh day out.This sea-life is too darned changeable for me.You never know what next.It's bad for the nerves—
Smith's Log.
Thus the Tyro, in much perturbation of spirit, at the end of a lonely day. "Varium et mutabile semper," was written, however, not of the sea but of woman. And it was of woman and woman's incomprehensibility that the keeper of the private log was petulantly thinking when he made that entry.
For, far from harrying him about the decks, Little Miss Grouch had now withdrawn entirely from his ken. He had written her once, he had written her twice; he had surreptitiously thrust a third note beneath her door. No answer came to any of his communications. Being comparatively innocent of the way of a maid with a man, the Tyro was discouraged. Heconsidered that he was not being fairly used. And he gloomed and moped and was an object of private mirth to Judge Enderby.
Two perfectly sound reasons accounted for the Joyous Vision's remaining temporarily invisible. The first was that she needed sleep, and Stateroom 129 D, which she had once so despitefully characterized, seemed a very haven of restfulness when, after breakfast, it was reported habitably dried out; the other was a queer and exasperating reluctance to meet the Tyro—yes, even to see him. As the lifting of the embargo on speech was not known to him, she knew herself to be insured against direct address. But the mere thought of meeting him face to face, of having those clear, quiet gray eyes look into hers again, gave her the most mysterious and disquieting sensations.
"I do wish," said Little Miss Grouch to herself, "that his name weren't so perfectlyawful."
Some thought-demon with a special mission for the persecution of maidens, put it into her head to inquire why she should so vehemently wish this thing. And the trail of that thought plunged her, face-first, into her pillow.
Thereafter she decided that if she went on deck at all that day, it would be with such a surrounding of bodyguard as should keep wandering Daddleskinks quite beyond her range of association. As for his notes, she would answer them when she thought fit. Meantime—as the writer thereof might have been enheartened to know—she put them away in the most private and personal compartment of her trunk, giving each a tender little pat to settle it comfortably into its place.
Doubtless the sun shone that day (the official records said, "Clear with light winds and a calm sea"); doubtless the crippled ship limped happily enough on her way; doubtless there was good food and drink, music and merriment, and the solace of enlivening company aboard. But the snap-shot of the Tyro surreptitiously taken by Judge Enderby—he having borrowed Alderson's traveling-camera for the purpose—showed a face which might suitably have been used as a marginal illustration for that cheerless hymn, "This world is all a fleeting show."
Life had lost all its flavor for the Tyro. He politely accepted Dr. Alderson's invitation to walk, but lagged with so springless a step that the archæologist began to be concerned for his health. At Lord Guenn's later suggestion that squash was the thing for incipient seediness, he tried that, but played a game far too listless for the Englishman's prowess.
In vain did he seek consolation in the society of Karl, the Pride of the Steerage. That intelligent infant wept and would not be comforted because the pretty lady had not come also, and the Tyro was well fain to join him in his lamentations. Only the threatening advance of Diedrick Sperry, with a prominent and satisfactory decoration in dusky blue protruding from his forehead, roused him to a temporary zest in life. Mr. Sperry came, breathing threats and future slaughter, but met a disconcertingly cold and undisturbable gleam of the gray eye.
"If you interfere with me again," said the Tyro, "I'll throw you overboard."
And it was said in such evident good faith that his opponent deemed it best to forget thatmatter, vaguely suspecting that he had encountered a "professional."
A more fearsome opponent bore down upon the depressed scion of all the Smiths, late that afternoon. Mrs. Charlton Denyse maneuvered him into a curve of the rail, and there held him with her glittering eye.
"I beg your pardon." This, pitched on a flat and haughty level of vocality, was her method of opening the conversation.
The Tyro sought refuge in the example of classic lore. "You haven't offended me," he said, patterning his response upon the White Queen. "Perhaps you're going to," he added apprehensively.
"I am going to talk to you for your own good," was the chill retort.
"Oh, Lord! That's worse."
"Do you see that ship?" The Denyse hand pointed, rigid as a bar, to the south, where the Tyro discerned a thin smudge of smoke.
"I see something."
"That is the Nantasket."
"At this distance I can't deny it," murmured the Tyro.
"Which left New York two days behind us, and is now overhauling us, owing to our accident."
He received this news with a bow.
"On board her is Henry Clay Wayne," she continued weightily.
"Congratulations on your remarkable keenness of vision!" exclaimed the Tyro.
"Don't be an imbecile," said the lady, "I didn't see him. I learned by wireless."
"Rather a specialty of yours, wireless, isn't it?" he queried.
She shot an edged look at him, but his expression was innocence itself. "He will reach England before us."
"Then you don't think he'll board us and make us all walk the plank?" asked the Tyro in an apparent agony of relief.
"Don't get flip—" cried the exasperated lady—"pant," she added barely in time—"with me. Mr. Wayne will be in England waiting for you."
"Anyway, he can't eat me," the Tyro comforted himself. "Shall I hide in the stoke-hole? Shall I disguise myself as a rat and go ashore in the cargo? What do you advise?"
"I advise you to keep away from Miss Wayne."
"Yes. You did that before. At present I'm doing so."
"Then continue."
"I shall, until we reach solid earth."
"There my responsibility will cease. Mr. Wayne will know how to protect his daughter from upstart fortune-hunters."
The Tyro regarded her with an unruffled brow. "Never hunted a fortune in my life. A modest competence is the extent of my ambition, and I've attained that, thanking you for your kind interest."
"In the necktie and suspender business, I suppose," she snapped, enraged at her failure to pierce the foe's armor. "It's a crying scandal that you should thrust yourself on your betters."
This annoyed the Tyro. Not that he allowed Mrs. Denyse to perceive it. With a bland, reminiscent smile he remarked:—
"Speaking of scandals, I observed a young man, rather informally clad, entering Stateroom 144 D at a late hour last night, in some haste."
"Oh!" gasped Mrs. Denyse, and there was murder in her tones.
"He looked to me like young Sperry."
Mrs. Denyse glowed ocular fire.
"And, according to the list, Stateroom 144 D is occupied by Mrs. Charlton Denyse."
Mrs. Denyse growled an ominous, subterranean growl.
"Now, my dear madam, in view of this fact, which I perceive you do not deny" (here the lady gave evidence of having a frenzied protest stuck in her throat like a bone), "I would suggest that you cease chaperoning me and attend to the proprieties in your own case. Hi, Dr. Alderson!" he called to that unsuspecting savant who was passing, "will you look after Mrs. Denyse for a bit? I fear she's ill." And he made his escape.
What Mrs. Denyse said to Dr. Alderson when she regained the power of coherent speech, is beside the purposes of this chronicle. Suffice it to state that he left in some alarm, believing the unfortunate woman to have lost her mind.
The Tyro sought out his deck-chair and relapsedinto immitigable boredom. He was not the only person aboard to be dissatisfied with the way affairs were developing. As an amateur Cupid, Judge Enderby had been fancying himself quite decidedly. Noting, however, that there had been absolutely no communication between his two young clients that day, he began to distrust his diplomacy, and he set about the old, familiar problem of administering impetus to inertia. Sad though I am to say it of so eminent a member of the bar, his method perilously approached betrayal of a client's confidence.
It was after his evening set-to at bridge, when, coming on deck for a good-night sniff of air, he encountered the Tyro who was lugubriously contemplating the moon.
"Hah!" he greeted. "How's the dumb palsy?"
"Worse," was the morose reply.
"Haven't seen your pretty little acquaintance about to-day. Have you?"
"No."
"Don't swear at me, young man," reproved the lawyer, mildly.
"I didn't swear at you, sir," said the startled Tyro.
"Not in words, but in tone. Not that I blame you for being put out. At your age, to miss the sun from out of the heavens—and Miss Wayne is certainly a fascinating and dangerous young person. Considering that she is barely twenty-one, it is quite remarkable."
"Remarkable?" repeated the Tyro vaguely.
"Considering that she is barely twenty-one, I said."
The Tyro rubbed his head. Was loneliness befuddling his brain? "I'm afraid I'm stupid," he apologized.
"I'm afraid your fears are well based."
"But—what'sremarkable?"
"It's remarkable that you should be deaf as well as dumb," retorted the other, testily. "To resume: considering that she is barely twenty-one—not nearly, butbarelytwenty-one, you'll note—"
"You needn't go any further," cried the youth, suddenly enlightened. "Twenty-one is legal age on the high seas?"
"It is."
"Then she's her own mistress and the captain has no more authority over her than over me?"
"So much, I have reason to believe, an eminent legal authority pointed out to the captain yesterday."
"Why didn't that same eminent authority point it out to me before?"
"Before? I object to the implication. I haven't pointed it out to you now. Your own natural, if somewhat sluggish intelligence inferred it from a random remark about a friend's age."
"Does she know it?"
"She does."
"Since when?"
"Since some forty-eight hours."
"Then, why on earth didn't she tell me? She knew I didn't dare speak to her. But she never said a word."
"Give me," began the judge, "five" (here the Tyro reached for his pocket, but the other repudiated the gesture with a wave of the hand) "million dollars, and I wouldn't undertake to guess why any female between the ages of oneand one hundred years, does or does not do any given thing. I'm no soothsayer."
"Then I may speak to her to-morrow, without fear of making trouble?"
"You may certainly speak to her—if you can find her. As for trouble, I wouldn't care to answer for you," chuckled the judge. "Good-night to you."
The Tyro sat up late, asking questions of the moon, who, being also of feminine gender, obstinately declined to betray the secrets of the sex.
VIII
Eighth day out.Glorious sunshine, a tingling wind, and the shipjust "inchin' along like a poor inch-worm."Everything's wrong with the ship;—Everything's right with the world.Perfectly satisfied with the Macgregor hospitality.She may take all the time she wants,so far as I'm concerned—
Smith's Log.
Out of the blue void of a fleckless sky, came whooping at dawn a boisterous wind. All the little waves jumped from their slow-swinging cradles to play with it, and, as they played, became big waves, with all the sportiveness of children and all the power of giants. The Clan Macgregor was their toy.
At first she pretended indifference, and strove to keep the even tenor of her way, regardless of them. But they were too much and too many for her. She began to cripple and jig most painfully for one of her size and dignity.She limped, she wobbled, she squattered, she splashed and sploshed, she reeled hither and thither like an intoxicated old rounder buffeted by a crowd of practical jokers, and she lost time hand over fist, to the vast approval of Mr. Alexander Forsyth Smith. Time was now just so much capital to his hopes.
The tonic seduction of the gale was too much for Little Miss Grouch. This was no day for a proven sailor to be keeping between decks. Moreover, the maiden panic was now somewhat allayed. The girl's emotions, after the first shock of the surprise and the resentment of the hitherto untouched spirit, had come under control. She could now face a Daddleskink or a regiment of Daddleskinks, unmoved, so she felt—with proper support. Hence, like the Tyro, she was on deck early.
So they met. As in the mild and innocent poem of Victorian days, "'twas in a crowd." Little Miss Grouch had provided the crowd, and the Tyro simply added one to it. He was fain if not wholly content to stay in the background and bide his chance.
Now Little Miss Grouch, ignorant of thefact that her high-priced counsel had betrayed her cause, marveled and was disturbed when the Tyro approached, greeted her, and straightway dropped into the fringe of Society as constituted by herself for the occasion. Was he deliberately, in the face of his own belief that imprisonment would be the penalty of any communication between her and himself, willing to risk her liberty? If so, he was not the man she had taken him for. Little Miss Grouch's ideal was rocking a bit on his pedestal.
Patience was not one of the young lady's virtues. On the other hand, the compensating quality of directness was. "Do It Now" was her prevailing motto. She wanted to know what her slave meant by his abrupt change of attitude, and she wanted to know at once. But her methods, though prompt, were not wholly lacking in finesse. Out of her surrounding court she appointed Judge Enderby and Lord Guenn escorts for the morning promenade, and picked up Dr. Alderson on the way.
Be it duly set down to the credit of the Joyous Vision's solider qualities, that old menfound her as interesting a companion, though in a different way, as did young men. By skillful management, she led the conversation to the house on the Battery, with the anticipated result that Judge Enderby (all innocent, wily old fox though he was, that he was playing her game) suggested the inclusion of the other claimant in the conference. The Tyro was summoned and came.
"The charge against you," explained the judge, "is contumaciousness in that you still insist on coveting a property which is claimed by royalty, under the divine right of queens."
"I'd be glad to surrender it," said the Tyro meekly, "but there seems to be a species of family obligation about it."
"Obligation or no obligation, you know you can't have it," declared the lady.
"I rather expect to, though."
"When papa says he'll get a thing, he always gets it," she informed him with lofty confidence, "and he has promised me that house."
"Then I'm afraid that this is the time his promise goes unfulfilled," said Judge Enderby.
She turned to him with incredulously raised brows.
"Alderson knows the old records; he's seen the option—it's a queer old document, by the way, but sound legally—and can swear to it."
"The only loose joint is the exact plan of the original property," observed the archæologist.
"And that is in the picture at Guenn Oaks," contributed Lord Guenn.
"Why are you all against me?" cried Little Miss Grouch in grieved amazement.
"Not against you at all," said Judge Enderby. "It's simply a matter of the best claim. Besides, you, who have everything in the world, would you turn this poor homeless young wanderer out of a house that he's never been in?"
"Except by ancestral proxy," qualified Dr. Alderson.
"Howmeanof you!" She turned the fire of denunciatory eyes upon the archæologist. "You told me with your own lips that no family named Daddleskink was ever connected in the remotest degree with the house. You said the idea was as absurd as the name."
"So it is."
"Yet you turn around and declare that Mr. Daddleskink's claim is good."
"Whoseclaim?"
"Mr. Daddleskink's." She indicated the Tyro with a scornful gesture. "Oh," she added, noting the other's obvious bewilderment, "I see you didn't know his real name."
"I? I've known him and his name all his life."
"And it isn't Daddleskink?"
The learned archæologist lapsed against the rail and gave way to wild mirth. "Wh—where on earth d-d-did you gu-gu-get such a notion?" he quavered, when he could speak.
"He told me, himself."
"I? Never!" The Tyro's face was as that of a babe for innocence.
"You—didn't—tell—me—your—name—was—Daddleskink?"
"Certainly not. I simply asked if you didn't think it a misfortune to be named Daddleskink, and you jumped to the conclusion that it was my name and my misfortune."
"Perhaps you didn't tell me, either, that your friends called you 'Smith,'" she said ominously.
"So they do."
"Why should they call you 'Smith' if your name isn't Daddleskink?" she demanded, with an effect of unanswerable logic.
"Because my nameisSmith."
"Permit me to present," said Lord Guenn, who had been quietly but joyously appreciative of the duel, "my ancestral friend, Mr. Alexander Forsyth Smith."
"Why didn't you tell me your real name?" Little Miss Grouch's offended regard was fixed upon the Tyro.
"Well, you remember, you made fun of the honorable cognomen of Smith when we first met."
"That is no excuse."
"And you were mysterious as an owl about your own identity."
"I could see no occasion for revealing it." The delicately modeled nose was now quite far in the air.
"So I thought I'd furnish a really interesting name for you to amuse yourself with. I'm sorry you don't care for it."
Little Miss Grouch's limpid and lofty considerationpassed from the anxious physiognomy of the speaker to the mirthful countenances of the other three.
"I'm not sure that I shall ever speak to any of you again," she stated, and, turning her back, marched away from them with lively resentment expressed in every supple line of her figure.
"Young man," said Judge Enderby to his client, as the male quartette, thus cavalierly dismissed, passed on, "will you take the advice of an old man?"
"Have I paid for it?" inquired the Tyro.
"You have not. Gratis advice, this. The most valuable kind."
"Shoot, sir."
"Don't let two blades of grass grow under your feet where one grew before."
"But—"
"—me no buts. Half an hour I give you. If you haven't found the young lady in that time I discard you."
Opportunity for successful concealment on shipboard is all but limitless. Hence the impartial recorder must infer that the efforts ofLittle Miss Grouch to elude pursuit were in no way excessive. A quarter of an hour sufficed for the searcher to locate his object in a sunny nook on the boat-deck. He approached and stood at attention. For several moments she ignored his presence. In point of fact she pretended not to see him. He shifted his position. She turned her head in the reverse direction and pensively studied the sea.
The Tyro sighed.
Little Miss Grouch frowned.
The Tyro coughed gently.
Little Miss Grouch scowled.
The Tyro lapsed to the deck and curled his legs under him.
Little Miss Grouch turned upon him a baleful eye. But her glance wavered: at least, it twinkled. Her little jaw was set, it is true. At the corner of her mouth, however, dimpled a suspicious and delicious quiver. Perhaps the faintest hint of it crept into her voice to mollify the rigor of the tone in which she announced:
"I came here to be alone."
"We are," said the Tyro. "At last!" he added with placid satisfaction.
"Well, really!" For the moment it was all that came to her, as offset to this superb impudence. "Go away, at once," she commanded presently.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"I'm lame," he said plaintively. "Pity the poor cripple."
"A little while ago you were deaf; then dumb. And now—By the way," she cried, struck with a sudden reminiscence, "what has become of your dumbness?"
"Cured."
"A miracle. Listen then. And stop looking at that crack in the deck as if you'd lost your last remaining idea down it."
"To look up is dangerous."
"Where's the danger?"
"Dangerous to my principles," he explained. "You see, you are somewhat less painful to the accustomed eye than usual to-day, and if I should so far forget my principles as to mention that fact—"
"You haven't a principle to your name! You're untruthful—"
THE TYRO CURLED HIS LEGS UNDER HIMTHE TYRO CURLED HIS LEGS UNDER HIM
"Ah, come, Little Miss Grouch!"
"Deceitful—"
"As to that Smith matter—"
"And most selfishly inconsiderate of me."
"Of you!" cried the Tyro, roused to protest.
"Certainly. Or you wouldn't be exposing me to imprisonment in my cabin by talking to me."
"Nothing doing," said he comfortably. "That little joke is played out."
"How did you know?"
Loyalty forbade the Tyro to betray his ally. "That you were of age, you mean, and couldn't be treated like a child?" he fenced.
"Yes."
"Well, when you spoke of the house on the Battery being deeded over to you, I knew that you must have reached your majority! The rest was simple to figure out."
"Oh, dear!" she mourned. "It was such fun chasing you around the ship!"
"Yes? Well, I've emulated the startled fawn all I'm going to this trip."
"What's your present rôle?"
"Meditation upon the wonder of existence."
"Do you find it good?"
"Existence? That depends. Am I to come to Guenn Oaks?"
"I'm sure you'd be awfully in the way there," she said petulantly. "You've been a perfect nuisance for the last two days."
"My picturesqueness has gone glimmering, now that I'm only a Smith instead of a Daddleskink. Why, oh, why must these lovely illusions ever perish!"
"Youkilled cock-robin," she accused.
"Not at all. It was Dr. Alderson with his misplaced application of the truth."
"Anyway, I don't find you nearly so entertaining, now that you're plain Mr. Smith."
"Nor I you as Miss Cecily Wayne, equally plain if not plainer."
"In that case," she suggested with a mock-mournful glance from beneath the slanted brows, "this acquaintance might as well die a painless death."
"But for one little matter that you've forgotten."
"And that?"
"The Magnificent Manling of the Steerage."
"So I had forgotten! Let's go make our call on him. We must not neglect him a moment longer."
The Tyro leaped to his feet and they ran, hand in hand like two children, down to their point of observation of the less favored passengers. They spent a lively half-hour with the small Teuton, at the end of which Little Miss Grouch issued imperative commands to the Tyro to the effect that he was to wait at the pier when they got in, and see to it that mother and child were safely forwarded to the transfer.
"Yessum," said the Tyro meekly. "Anything further?"
"I'll let you know," she returned, royally. "You may wire me when the commission is executed. Perhaps, if you carry it through very nicely, I'll let you come to Guenn Oaks."
"Salaam, O Empress," returned the Tyro, executing a most elaborate Oriental bow, the concluding spiral of which almost involved him in Mrs. Charlton Denyse's suddenly impending periphery.
Mrs. Denyse retired three haughty paces.
"I wish to speak to Miss Wayne," she announced with a manner which implied that she did not wish and never again would wish to speak to Miss Wayne's companion.
"With me?" asked Little Miss Grouch, bland surprise in her voice.
"Yes. I have a message."
Little Miss Grouch waited.
"A private message," continued the lady.
"Is it very private? You know Mr. Daddleskink-Smith, I believe?"
"I've seen Mr. Daddleskink-Smith," frigidly replied the lady, mistaking the introducer's hesitation for a hyphen, "if that is what he calls himself now."
"It isn't," said the Tyro. "You know, Mrs. Denyse, I've always held that the permutation of names according to the taste of the inheritor, is one of the most interesting phases of social ingenuity."
Mrs. Charlton Denyse, relict of the late Charley Dennis, turned a deep Tyrian purple. "If you would be good enough—" she began, when the girl broke in:—
"Is your message immediate, Mrs. Denyse?"
"It is from my cousin, Mr. Van Dam."
"To me?" cried the girl.
"No. To me. By wireless. But it concerns you."
"In that case I don't think I'm interested," said the girl, her color rising. "You must excuse me." And she walked on.
"Then the gentlemanly spider on the hot griddle loses," murmured the Tyro.
"I don't know whom you mean," said the girl, obstinately.
"I mean that your foot-destroying 'Never-never-never' holds good."
"Yes," she replied. "I did think Imightmarry him once. But now," she added pensively and unguardedly, "I know I never could."
The Tyro's heart came into his throat—except that portion of it which looked out of his eyes.
"Why?"
A flame rose in Little Miss Grouch's cheeks, and subsided, leaving her shaking.
"Why?" He had halted her beside the rail, and was trying to look into her face, whichwas averted toward the sea, and quivering with panic of the peril suddenly become imminent again.
Lord Guenn, approaching along the deck, furnished Little Miss Grouch an inspiration, the final flash of hope of the hard-pressed.
"Shut your eyes," she bade her terrifying slave.
"What for?"
"Obey!"
"They're shut."
"Tight?"
"Under sealed orders."
Little Miss Grouch made a swift signal to the approaching Englishman, and executed a silent maneuver.
"Count three," she directed breathlessly, "before you ask again or open your eyes."
"One—two—three," said the Tyro slowly. "Why?"
"Hanged if I know, my dear fellow," replied Lord Guenn, upon whose trim elegance the Tyro's discomfited vision rested.
Little Miss Grouch had vanished.