[pg 213]
"They do, but what is the truth about them? Nine out of ten of them have a disgraceful cause. But the public doesn't hear of that, because the public doesn't go to sea—except as a saloon passenger. The public gets its story from the steamship company's office—always, and you know what kind of a story they put out—put out through newspapers that carry their advertising. You know what that chief clerk or that second clerk of yours would tell any inquiring outsider in case of a loss of life on one of these ships. He'd lie and lie and lie and lie and think he was serving a good cause at that, and the papers publishing the lie would think they were serving a good cause, too—especially the constructive organization papers, as they call themselves. Our big steamship officers these days—outside of the navy—don't get the kind of work that keeps men up to the mark, and not getting it they grow soft—their bodies and their souls become flabby. Engineer officers nowadays have the work cut out for them and they are doing good work, but the bridge officers are no longer men of the sea—they're clerks, agents in floating hotels. And the crew take their tone from the officers. When the commander's weak, your whole outfit is apt to weaken, especially under a strain."
They resumed their pacing, Kieran with head high in the air, inhaling deep breaths of the fresh salt air.
[pg 214]
The passenger came out of a deep meditation. "Kieran, you can do a good work for us. Is there any berth with this line you'd like to have? If there is, say so. You can have it. You can have that head clerk's job if you want it. And I think that after a while I could get you mine, for I'm only there to fill a gap."
Kieran shook his head. "It wouldn't do."
"Why not? You're the man for the job."
"No, I'm not the man. You haven't got me quite right. I can point out errors, but I'm not the man to correct them. I'm not a good executive."
"You certainly were the good executive in the bosun's case."
"N-no, no. You mustn't count him. If he was a John L. Sullivan, say, in his good days, it would prove something. Besides, I don't care for fighting—for beating people up. I do hate though to see a bully or a faker getting the best of it, and maybe having had time to knock around and study people, I can pick out a bully or a faker quicker than most people, and seeing somebody getting too much the best of it, why, sometimes I can't help butting in."
"And because of that faculty of seeing things, once you made up your mind to settle down to it, you'd make good on this job I'm offering you."
"No, you've got me wrong again. I'm not a[pg 215]reformer, and never will be, I hope. Reformers, or most that ever I met, are only men who first tried to play politics and got licked at it. I'm only an observer."
"But you like a fight?"
"M-m-m-n not me. And I never did. Any man, of course, likes the excitement once he's into it, but what man enjoys smashing another man in the face? What fights I've been into I couldn't side-step—not without crawling, I mean. No, no, I wouldn't make good on your job. I'd go along all right in your office back in New York for awhile,—for a month, two months, six months,—who knows, maybe a year, and then one day I'd look out the window, take a look down on the Battery, say at the elevated railroad or the Aquarium Building, and the Coney Island steamer dock with the barkers yelling and gesturing, and the loafers on the benches in between, and from that I'd look down the bay and see the Statue of Liberty—some morning that would be, maybe, when the sun was lighting up New York Bay as it does some mornings, or maybe it would be on a late afternoon, with the sun setting over on the Jersey shore, the dark smoke from a hundred chimneys smooching across the pink and purple of it, and, if 'twas summer, a haze like a bridal veil over it all, and between that and the Battery the life of a hundred craft—ferry-boats,[pg 216]tow-boats, lighters, windjammers, steam-yachts, ocean-liners, harbor, coastwise and foreign bound, a hundred different kinds coming and going, the Lord knows where, but to where no four walls will bound 'em for a time, be sure of that. And if ever I did look and looked long enough, be sure the earth would look like it was rolling by too slow and I'd want to get out and give it a push to speed it up. No, no. That"—he looked up at the serene blue—"for my ceiling. And that"—he pointed to the dimpling green sea—"for my office floor. And that"—he waved a hand to space—"for a window. And let all the bruising bosuns and bucko ship's officers afloat jump on me, but give me that and I'll take a chance. And—"
He stopped short and sighed. "I do get going sometimes, don't I?" He looked around the deck. In a bucket of water by the rail the bosun was bathing his battered features. "The bosun reminds me. To-day I promised him I'd finish my Flying Walrus song."
"Go ahead and finish it—that first verse was pretty good."
"The second's better—or I think so. And"—he grinned at the passenger—"I composed it myself, too, to an air running in my head. And I suppose I ought to finish it. And yet"—the bosun was pouring, very quietly, his bucket of wash[pg 217]water into the scuppers—"that would be sort of rubbing it in, wouldn't it?"
"What of it? It will do them all good."
"I don't know about that. If it"—and just then three bells struck, and three bells on theRapidanmeant supper for the watch below.
Kieran left to go to supper, and the passenger noted the deference of the crew toward him. Not one who found himself in his way but hopped swiftly aside to give him gangway.
"How conducive to high judgment, how accelerating to respect is success," mused the passenger. "Two hours ago hardly one of them who did not set him down for a half-crazy, or, at least, an over-sanguine visionary—but now—they bound like stags before him, and none more propitiatingly agile than the former satellites of our deposed bosun. A Don Quixote"—murmured the passenger—"maybe, but a 20th century Don Quixote—with a wallop in each hand. If the Don Quixotes generally had his equipment, it would not be windmills alone which would suffer, and some joy then for honest men to watch the tilting."
[pg 219]
Jan Tingloff, not wishing to get too far away from the dry dock, turned up a side street near the water-front, and there, in a basement window of a narrow four-story brick building, he saw the sign "Furnished Room to Rent."
A second look showed Jan that the basement also afforded an entrance to a not too well lit pool-room and that a not overclean alley ran up one side of the building. Jan, with no prejudices against alleys or pool-rooms, entered the pool-room to inquire. "Yeh," said the man behind the cigar-case—"second floor—a week in advance—ring the front-door bell—a woman will come and show you."
A woman who preceded him like a discouraged shadow showed him the room, but it was to the man in the basement that she told Jan to pay the week's rent when he said he would take the room. "Yes; I take the rent—always," this man said; and his eyes brightened as Jan pushed the money across the cigar-case at him. And he wore finger-rings out of all keeping with the dark little place; but he had[pg 222]a pleasant smile for Jan and Jan smiled back at him; for Jan was one of those friendly natures who prefer to be pleasant, even to men whose looks they do not like.
Jan Tingloff slept in his new quarters that night. He saw nobody connected with the house as he passed out in the morning; but that evening as he entered the front-door he heard a cough. It was a woman's cough and dimly he saw a woman's form—a rather slender form. Jan's senses were the kind which see a thing large at first and then go back for details. He hurried to close the door so that the cold November wind would not endanger the poor creature further. As he closed the door she said:
"Good evening."
Jan hurried to take off his hat.
"Good evening, ma'am."
"You go off early mornings, captain?"
"Yes, ma'am." He peered into the twilight of the hall and saw a hand lighting the suspension lamp. "But I'm not a captain, ma'am. I was a seafaring man one time; but I am a ship-carpenter now in a repairing job on a big coaster in the dry dock, and I have to be over there early to get my gang started."
She was turning the wick of the lamp high and then low, and high again, and Jan was vexed to[pg 223]think he had not offered to light the lamp for her in the first place, especially as he now recognized in her the same sad-eyed woman who had showed him his room the evening before. It was twilight then, too, but she had lit no lamp in the hall or in the room, and Jan guessed why and did not blame her for it. The furnishings here, as in his room, were shabby.
Jan began to feel a pity for her. There was that in the curve of her back which caused him to address her with unwonted gentleness—and ordinarily Jan was gentle enough for anybody's taste. Yes, she was the same woman; but if he had met her anywhere else he would not have known her. She was now all tidied up. Her clothes were fresh, her shoulders had lost their droop. Her face was less pale and a glow was coming into her eyes.
2
Jan's room was on the second floor and now he ascended the stairs to go there. At the top of the stairs he glanced back; but catching her looking at him he looked quickly away. From the darkness of the second-floor hallway, however, he could peer down and she could not see him. She was still there, standing under the lamp which was now at full blaze. One arm had been raised high in regulation of the wick and now she raised the other to steady the lamp, which was swinging. Her figure was in the shadow from the waist down, but her[pg 224]bust, her neck, face and long, slim hands were in full light.
"I'd never took her for the same woman—never!" thought Jan.
Next evening Jan saw her again, this time in the narrow second-floor hallway near the stairs. She shrank against the stair-rail to let him pass. Jan drew up against the wall. She mutely indicated that he should pass.
"After you, ma'am," said Jan, and resolutely waited.
"Thank you," she said, and passed on. At the head of the flight of stairs she turned her head. Jan was still there.
"Is your room all right?" She asked the question hurriedly, awkwardly.
"All right, ma'am."
"And not too noisy for you here?—the basement noise, I mean."
"A ship-carpenter, ma'am—he soon gets used to noise."
"Of course." She glanced furtively at him. "Good-night." She hurried downstairs.
That night when Jan, who read romantic fiction to relieve his loneliness, laid down his stirring mediæval tale to go to bed, he did not follow up the intention with immediate action, as usual.
By and by he raised the window-sash, and the[pg 225]cool, damp sea-air feeling good, he leaned out to enjoy it. It was a cloudy night, with a touch of coming snow in the air; but for all that a night to enjoy, only for the racket ascending from the pool-room.
"I don't think much of those people down there," thought Jan as he lowered the sash to all but six or eight inches for fresh air and picked up the alarm clock from the rickety dresser. "I wonder if she's one of that crowd?" And he began to wind the clock. "But sure she ain't—sure not."
Jan had been holding the clock absently in his hand. Suddenly he set it down and scolded himself—"Jan Tingloff, remember you has to be up at six in the morning!"—and undressed, blew out the light and slid into bed, and tried to go to sleep. And he did after a while; but his last thought before he fell into slumber was: "Who'd ever think one day a woman could grow so young-looking the next day?"
Many an evening after that Jan met the landlady on the stairs or in the hall, and always she stopped to ask him how he was coming on with his ship; but never any more than that or a brief word as to the weather and his comfort, though there were times when Jan felt he would like to become better acquainted—times when he even had a feeling[pg 226]that if he had asked her to sit down somewhere for a talk she would be willing. Jan had learned, however, that she was married. It had been a shock to learn that. It had come about by his noticing after three or four days the plain gold ring on the wedding finger. He had kept staring at it until she could not help remarking it; and by and by, in a casual sort of way, she had told him she was married.
"And is your husband living, ma'am?" asked Jan.
"He's living—yes," she answered slowly.
That made a difference. Even though a man didn't know anybody in the city except the men he worked with and it was terribly lonesome of evenings—even so, her being married made all the difference. And she must have been a wonderfully pretty girl once—and was pretty yet, now he had a chance to look good at her. Pretty—yes; but—well, Jan didn't know what it was, except that she was all right. Jan knew he didn't know much about women, especially strange women—and he knew, too, that he never would; but he would never believe she wasn't all right—never!
Yes, it was pretty lonesome at times; and there was the girl who roomed on the top floor. Jan was thrilled by alluring glimpses of her in the half-dark recesses of the back halls, but the glimpses remained[pg 227]only glimpses after he saw her one Sunday by daylight. Only then was Jan convinced that she painted. She was a little too much and he took to dodging her. Yet it was a pity—oh, a pity! and Jan, still thinking what a pity, was going out for a lonesome walk one night, when who should meet him on the front stoop but that same top-floor girl! And no sliding by her this time. She nipped the lapel of his coat with a dexterous thumb and forefinger.
"Why, hello, cap! Where yuh goin'?"
"Nowheres."
"Then you got time, ain't you, to buy a girl a glass o'—" She stopped and winked sportively.
"Glass o' what?"
"Why, ginger ale!" She laughed at his surprise. "You thought I was goin' to say beer, or maybe somethin' stronger, didn't yuh? But I don't drink no hard stuff. No. An' I was dyin' for a drink o' somethin' when yuh pops out that door. An' I know yuh ain't any hinge."
"How do you know I ain't a hinge?"
"Oh, don't I? Leave it to me to pick a sport from a piker."
"But I'm no sport either."
"You could if yuh wanted ter. An' yuh ain't any hinge, even if they do say you're a square-head. Come on an' let's go in back an' have a couple o' bottles o' ginger ale in Hen's place."
[pg 228]
And Jan followed her into the private room beyond the pool-room—the room to which, as he had gathered before this, the street girls of that section steered drunken sailors. The ginger ale was brought in by the proprietor himself. Jan threw down a ten-dollar bill. Jan had a good many bills with him that evening—his month's wages; and seeing it was the fashion round there to show your money when you paid for anything, why, he'd show them—even if he was a square-head—that he could carry a wad too.
"Say, cap, but yuh must be drawin' down good coin?"
"Oh, a boss ship-carpenter gets pretty good wages." And with one splendid sweep Jan emptied his glass.
"I should say yes. An' there's tinhorners round here that if they had half your wad Hen'd have to ring in the fire alarm to put 'em out—they'd feel themselves such warm rags. But what d'yuh say to another ginger ale?"
"Sure," said Jan, and called aloud for them. And again Hen brought in the ginger ale in two long glasses, but also with two empty bottles to show Jan by the labels that it was the real imported and no phony stuff; and Jan said, "I know! I know!" as he paid and waved Hen away.
A door led from this back room into the lower back hall of the house, and in the shadow of the[pg 229]back hall Jan thought for an instant that he saw the landlady's figure; but he wasn't sure. Two minutes—or it may have been five minutes—later, a boy whom Jan had noticed round the house came into the room by way of that same door and said to the girl:
"Mrs. Goles wants to see you a minute."
"Tell her I got no minute to spare—not now."
The boy went out and quickly came back.
"Mrs. Goles says for you to come out and see her or she'll have the policeman in off the beat. He's at the corner now."
The girl went out.
"Who's Mrs. Goles?" asked Jan of the boy.
"Why, she's the landlady."
"Oh!" said Jan. So that was her husband, the handsome proprietor with the evil eyes. "Poor woman!" muttered Jan, and absent-mindedly drank his ginger ale.
The boy was still there. "Where is Mrs. Goles now?" asked Jan.
The boy jerked his head. "Out there on the back stairs."
Jan stood up. "Here!" He handed the boy a quarter. "A wonder a boy like you hangs out round here!"
"I run Mrs. Goles's errands. I been runnin' 'em since I was a kid. My mother used to work for her mother. She was a lady."
[pg 230]
Jan was heading for the side door, the door which led into the alley.
"Will I tell her you're comin' back, mister?"
"Tell who?"
"Why, that girl you was with."
"Tell her nothing. Nor"—Jan nodded his head toward the pool-room—"him. Better go home. This is no place for a good boy like you."
Jan went out by the alley; and from there, after peeking to see that nobody was looking out of the pool-room windows, he stepped quickly up the front steps of the house.
Cautiously he unlocked the door. He could hear voices, but not distinctly. Quietly he tiptoed toward the head of the back stairs. It was Mrs. Goles who was talking.
"Didn't I warn you again and again never to bother him?" Jan heard.
"An' why not?"
"Why? He's a lodger—that's why."
"Is that why? Say, but ain't you takin' an awful sudden interest in yer lodgers though! Are yuh sure you don't want him for yerself? Are yuh sure he ain't something more than a lodger?"
"You—you—"
"Me—me! Yes, me. D'yuh think I ain't been onto yuh? D'yuh think I ain't seen any o' that billy-dooin'—you an' him upstairs in the entryway—huh? An' d'yuh think Hen ain't wise too?[pg 231]D'yuh think he gave me the top-floor room for nothin'—huh? Oh, yes; we're a couple o' come-ons—Hen an' me—oh, yes! Run along now, Salomey—he's there, waitin' for me. D'yuh hear—waitin' for me! They all fall when yuh play 'em right. All of 'em. Thought yuh had'm to yerself—huh? Well, guess different next time; for he's out there waitin' for me—the soft-headed Dutchman! Beat it! Beat it when yer gettin' the worst of it. An' talk any more about a policeman—an' see what Hen says to it!"
Jan could hear Mrs. Goles ascending the stairs behind him. He hurried up, intending to get to his room and hide away before she knew, but it was the last key of the bunch which fitted the lock, and before he had the door opened she was up with him.
She turned the hall light up to see him better.
"Weren't you downstairs in the back room a minute ago?" she asked at last.
"I was; but—" Jan reached up a heavy hand and rubbed his forehead. "I was—I know I was; but—" somehow he was feeling bewildered.
She drew nearer to him.
"Come nearer the light. Stand where the light will be on your face. Let me see your eyes. There—you can't keep them open. Did you drink that second glass of ginger ale—after it was brought in[pg 232]all opened up? Never mind trying to speak—just bow your head. You did? Oh, you poor innocent boy! Here—go into your room. And wait there. I'll be right back. Light the lamp if you can while you're waiting."
Jan managed to light the lamp.
She was soon back with a bowl of something hot which she held to Jan's lips—a nasty-tasting stuff. While he stopped once to get his breath she stepped to the door, took the key from the outside and set it on the inside. She stepped to Jan's side again. "Finish it!" she ordered. "Every drop. There—but sh-h!—hear'em?"
"Hear what, ma'am?"
"The footsteps—coming upstairs. Creeping up. Hear 'em?" She stepped to the light and blew it out. She stepped to the door and turned the key.
"Oh-h!" Jan had fallen backward on the bed and now was rolling from side to side. His stomach was griping him like a burning hand.
"Hold in for a minute if you can!" she whispered
Nausea uncontrollable, as it seemed to Jan, was taking hold of him when a knock came on the door. "Sh-h!" she warned, and Jan controlled himself. He wanted more than ever to vomit, but there came another knock on the door—and another. And then the knob was turned.
[pg 233]
A silence then; and then a voice—a man's voice: "I told you you were crazy. He felt dizzy and went out into the street for some fresh air. You shouldn't 've left him once he got the stuff into him. Take a look round the block. He's probably laying in the gutter somewhere with that load into him."
The voice stopped, footsteps followed, the stairs creaked. And Jan's tortured stomach was allowed its relief. And while he retched in the dark Mrs. Goles held his head and, soaking a towel in the water jar, bathed his forehead and face and neck, and kept wetting the towel and bathing his head with the cold water until at last, with a grateful sigh, Jan stood up and said:
"I think it's all gone now."
"That's good. So I'll be leaving you. And you—" They had been talking in whispers, but at this point her voice broke into a cough. When she spoke again her voice was husky and pitched in a higher key. "But you—listen! You must leave this house!"
"Why must I leave?"
"It's no place for you."
"And is it for you, ma'am?" he asked her.
"For me? No—nor for any woman. But I'm talking about you. To-morrow—don't say a word to him downstairs—but to-morrow, when your week's up, take your grip and walk out."
[pg 234]
"The day after to-morrow," amended Jan. "Tomorrow's Saturday and I has to be at the dry dock. But what will become of you?"
"There'll nothing become of me—no more than before."
"He will beat you?"
"Beat me! If he don't any more than beat me!" Jan fancied she was smiling at him in the dark. "But I'd better go. Good-night."
"Good-night," said Jan. "And I'll see you to-morrow to say good-by."
"Yes," she said. "I'll be about. Good-night."
"Good-night," said Jan again, and found himself standing at the door after it had opened and closed behind her.
"I wonder," thought Jan, "if he will beat her!" And he stooped to lock the door. His hand was on the key, but he did not turn it. Who was that? Jan had keen hearing. He jammed his ear against the crack. It was the sound of breathing, heavy breathing, of breathing and tramping, and now—Jan had been listening for perhaps a minute—of suppressed voices.
Jan stepped back to the washstand and poured out a glass of water. He took it at a gulp. He had another. It was cold and bracing to his fevered stomach. He stepped to the door, cautiously turned[pg 235]the knob and slowly drew the door to him. He peeped out.
Under the hall light he saw them—she jammed back against the stair-rail and he with his hands at her throat. His back was to Jan.
"Where is it? Come—give up!" he was saying. Jan could not hear what she said; but the man took a fresh grip and shook her. "Don't tell me anything like that! You gave in at last and got the money off him. Give it up!"
"I did not! I'm not that kind of a woman—not yet. I may be yet if you keep on—but I'm not yet. And he's not that kind of a man."
"You're not? And he's not? And you an hour in his room with the door locked! You got money off him! Give it to me!"
"N-no—no!"
"You lie, you—" He shifted his grip to her hair and started to drag her along the hall.
Jan stepped softly out, reached his arms round Goles's shoulders, drew them tight against his own chest; and then, holding him safe with his elbows, he ran his fingers down until they felt the knuckles of the other's hands. And then he squeezed. With thumb and forefinger of each hand he squeezed. Jan could pick up a keg of copper rivets with one thumb and forefinger and toss it across the deck of a ship. And now he squeezed. Goles hung on. Jan squeezed. The knuckles began[pg 236]to crack. "G-g-g—" snarled the other and loosed his grip.
Jan relaxed the grip of his thumb and forefinger, swung the man round, walked to the head of the stairs, raised his left knee, pressed it against the small of Goles's back, shifted his right hand to behind the man's shoulders and suddenly let knee and arm shoot out together. In one magnificent curve, and without touching a step on the way, Goles fetched up on the lower hall floor.
He stood up after a while and made as if to come back upstairs. As he did so Jan made as if to go down.
Goles glared up at him.
"So it is you!"
"Yes, it's me," said Jan. "Come!"
"Come? No! But you wait there, will you? Just wait there and see what happens to you! Wait!" And even as he called that last "Wait!" he was running for the back stairs.
Jan turned to her. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the stair-rail. Her knees were drawn up, and with elbows on knees she was supporting her head in her hands.
"Where is he gone to?" asked Jan.
"I don't know—to get his revolver probably."
Jan bent over to see her face. A great listlessness was all he could read there.
"Would he shoot? Did he ever shoot anybody?"
[pg 237]
"Yes—two. But the police never found out. You'd better get out while there's time."
"And won't he shoot you?"
She raised her head to look at him. "No," she answered presently—"not just now. He will some day—that's sure. He promised me that more than once, and he means it; but I don't think he will to-night."
"Then, if ever he meant it, he will to-night," said Jan. "I don't want to get shot; and I'm going. You better come too." She shook her head. "Yes," He put an arm under her shoulder. "Come."
"No, no. I mustn't."
"But you must." Jan put his other arm under her and lifted her to her feet; but yet she lay heavy, half-resisting. "Come," said Jan. "I'll take you out of here—to my mother."
"Your mother?" she repeated, and straightened up; but almost instantly fell back. "But we can't now!" she whispered.
"Why?" whispered Jan.
"It's too late. Hear him?" Jan heard steps on the landing below; and as he listened and looked the light in the hall below went out. "You can't get out the front door in time now," she said hopelessly.
"There's more ways than front doors to get out of a house. And there's lights to put out up here[pg 238]too." He reached up and turned down the lamp-wick, then blew out the flame. "Come," he whispered, and led her into his room and locked the door.
He groped for the bed, tore off the sheets, twisted them tightly and knotted them together. "There!" he said, and, taking a turn of it under her arms, let her down from the window into the alley. Then he swept into his suit-case a few things from the dresser and snapped it, and dropped it out the window.
He was about to fasten one end of the twisted sheets about the bedpost, to let himself down; but hearing the door-knob slowly turning he did not finish the job. He dropped the sheet, lowered himself by his hands from the window-sill and let go. He landed without damage.
"Come," he said, and led the way to the street. At the first corner he turned. At the next corner he turned. At the third corner a cab was in sight. He helped her in.
"Do you know," Jan whispered to her, "a good hotel I could tell him to drive to?"
"With me looking as I am? Why, no. Tell him any hotel we can get into."
Jan addressed the cabman.
"I want"—he said it very distinctly, so that there could be no mistake—"a good hotel to take a lady to."
[pg 239]
"A lady? An' agoodhotel? Sure thing. Jump in."
Jan got in and sat opposite to her. She was restoring order to her hair.
"Did the cabby laugh?" she asked.
"No. Why should he?"
"Why?" Jan saw that she was staring at him. Suddenly her stare was transformed to a soft smile. "Oh-h—sometimes these cabbies think they're funny."
Presently the cab stopped. Jan looked out. It was a hotel, with a wide door and a narrow one. The narrow door was marked "Ladies' Entrance," and through the transom a red light shone.
"Wait," said Jan.
He went through the wide door to the desk. "I want a room for a lady," he said to the clerk.
"Lady? Sure. Four dollars."
Jan paid the four dollars and registered. The clerk touched a bell. A boy bobbed up.
"I will bring her in by the ladies' entrance," said Jan; but in passing out to the street he caught a glimpse of a room across the hall—a room with tables, and men and women at the tables, and drinks on the tables. He halted for a longer look and went out to the cab finally with a troubled look.
"There's a room for you, but"—he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair—"I don't think you ought to stay here." He had put his[pg 240]head inside the cab and was speaking low, so that the cabman should not hear. "I don't think it's a nice place for a lady."
"But"—she almost smiled—"I'm afraid we'll have to put up with it. Look!" She spread wide her rumpled skirt. Her eyes rolled down to indicate her torn bodice. With her fingertips she touched the bruises on her face and the marks on her neck. "And I haven't even a hat on," she concluded with an undoubted smile.
Jan gave in. He paid the cabman, and led her through the ladies' entrance to where the bell-boy was waiting. The boy led the way upstairs, opened a door and turned on the light.
"You wait out in the hall," Jan said to the bell-boy. "The lady may want hot water and things to clean up. You know? The lady"—Jan tapped the boy on the shoulder—"fell out of a buggy and lost her hat." He handed the boy a dollar bill. "You understand now?"
The boy tucked the bill away. "I'm wise! I'm wise!" He winked at Jan and left the room.
Jan turned to her. "I'll have a few things sent up in the morning."
She was standing straight and motionless in the middle of the room.
"You're good," she said, but without looking at him.
"And—oh, my mother! I most forgot her. She[pg 241]lives in Port Rock. To-morrow night I'll put you aboard the boat for Port Rock. And I won't be able to see you till then."
"Not till to-morrow night?"
"I has to be at the dry dock early in the morning or they can't start work. Good-night." He was holding his hat very stiffly in one hand. The other hand he extended to her.
"Good-night," the woman said, and took his hand and clung to it. Suddenly she lifted it to her lips and sobbed.
A woman crying and kissing his hand, and all done so suddenly he couldn't stop it—Jan was shocked at himself. "Sh-h!" said Jan. "Sh-h! You mustn't."
"I will. You're the first man ever came to the house who didn't look at me as if I was a streetwalker. And he tried his best to make me one. And I fought him—and fought him; but not a soul to help me. And a woman can't hold out forever. I'd 'a' killed myself, but I was afraid to die that way. I was beginning to weaken when you came. And if you had been the wrong kind of a man—"
"Sh-h! Don't say things like that."
"But it's so. And you helped me to get over it. Before I was married I used to dream of a man like you. But what chance had I in the dance-halls along the water-front and my people dead? And he was a dance-hall hero, the kind girls used to[pg 242]write notes to. I was never as bad as that—believe me I wasn't,—but I married him just the same—at seventeen, and what does a girl know of life at seventeen? And him! Almost on my wedding-day he began to abuse me."
"No, no!"
"It's true. And when you told me you'd take me to your mother—that was the first message I'd got in five years from a man except what was meant for my harm. But a good mother—I'll tell her so she'll understand."
"She'll understand without you telling her. She's brought up a dozen of us and has grand-children—lots of 'em. Sunday morning you'll be in my mother's house in Port Rock."
She stooped to kiss his hand again.
"Here! Here—you mustn't!"
"I will—I will! And there! And there! And now good-night."
"Good-night," mumbled Jan. He hurried out of the room and all but fell over the bell-boy in the hall. "What you hanging round for?" Jan almost hissed. "Go below."
The bell-boy hurried downstairs and "Say, but that's a new kind of an elopement for this shack!" he exploded to the clerk, and repeated what he had heard.
The clerk took a look at the register and read: "'Mrs. H.G. Goles, City.' Now I didn't notice[pg 243]that before. 'Mrs. Goles' he registered, and not himself. Goles? I wonder if that's Hen's woman? Well, if it is he'll get his good and plenty before Hen's done with him."
"Yes, and the police'll get Hen. And, say, that Swede ain't such a gink when yuh get a second look at him."
"I don't know. I didn't get a second look at him; but the way he pulled out that wad—I charged him four bucks for a dollar-'n'-a-half room. And—"
"S-st!" warned the boy.
It was Jan re-entering the office.
"What's wrong?" demanded the clerk.
"Paper and envelope, please," said Jan.
"Oh!" The clerk looked relieved and passed them over. Jan took out a carpenter's thick-leaded pencil and wrote on the sheet of paper: "You must buy some things for the trip on the boat." He looked at the clerk and then at the boy, and went out into the hall, folded one ten-dollar bill and two twenty-dollar bills inside the sheet, sealed and addressed the envelope, and brought it in to the boy.
"You take this up to the lady. Give it to her and hurry away before she can open it. And if you are back in two minutes—"
The boy was back in less time. Jan gave him half a dollar and passed out into the street.
[pg 244]
The Port Rock boat was duetoleave her dock. The first mate made his way to the upper deck. He found his captain in the pilot-house, studying the barometer.
"Freight all aboard, sir."
"All right," nodded the captain; "but did you hear about the storm flags being up?"
"So I heard, sir."
"M-m! Close that door. It's cold." The mate closed the door; but almost immediately the captain raised a window and gazed down the harbor. "It looks bad to me," he said after a while.
"It is a bad-looking night," assented the mate.
"A wicked night!" barked the captain; and gathering one end of his moustache between his teeth, began to chew on it.
The mate pursed his lips. "What will I do, sir?"
The captain stopped chewing his moustache. "It all comes down to dollars and cents. Use our judgment and stay tied up to the dock here and it's go hunt another berth. Do you want to hunt another job?"
"Not me. I got a family to look after."
"N' me. We'll put out."
"All right, sir." The mate descended to the[pg 245]wharf. "In with that freight runway and plank!" he called out to the waiting longshoremen. "And you"—a colored steward was at his elbow—"tell 'em all aboard on the dock and all ashore on the boat that's goin' ashore."
The steward voiced the mate's instructions; the last passenger came aboard and the last friend went ashore. The gangplank was hauled in, the lines cast off and the Port Rock steamer slid out from her slip.
She was well down the harbor before Jan took a piece of paper from his pocket. "Number two hundred and seventy-six," he read. "That's it—two hundred and seventy-six." And seeking out the number he knocked on the door. It opened slightly and Jan saw peeking out at him the lips, chin and half an eye each side of the nose of a pretty and well-dressed girl. Jan looked up at the number over the door again to see if he had made a mistake. Then the door opened more widely—and it was she, smiling out at him; but so rosy and terribly pretty that Jan felt afraid and drew back.
"I thought maybe you would like to get out for some fresh air soon," he stammered.
"I was just trying on the new hat I bought with the money you sent up last night—and a shirtwaist and a lovely long coat. How did you get through the night?"
[pg 246]
"Fine! I went over to the dry dock and turned into a bunk on the schooner."
She made a mouth at the mirror. "That was no place to sleep. You should have taken a comfortable room at the hotel."
Jan was silent.
"Yes, you should. I'll be right out."
She came out, but with her face veiled, and clung close to him as they walked the deck. Jan sniffed the air.
"Snow, I think," he said.
"Meaning a storm? I was never in a storm. Are they terrible?"
"A storm is nothing," said Jan, "when you get used to them. But will we go in to supper?"
They went in. The boat was now outside the harbor and pitching slightly.
She did not eat much and at length laid down her knife and fork."
"Sea-sick?" asked Jan.
"No. I must be too frightened to be sea-sick."
"Frightened of what?"
"Of him." She leaned across the table. "I'm sure I saw him. Yes—spying through the window of my room just before I left it just now."
Jan tranquilly went on eating. "He can't hurt you aboard a boat."
"I don't mind that, so he won't hurt you."