Chapter 4

For the next two days he sternly avoided Bobby Boynton. His somewhat pompous letter of apology to the captain, in which he set forth at length the various unforeseen accidents that had caused him to miss the steamer, was curtly and ungraciously received, and strained relations ensued. Moreover, as he viewed the recent adventure in retrospect, he decided that he had been most negligent in observing those rules by which the conduct of an English gentleman should be regulated. In condescending to be amused he had gone too far, and it was now incumbent upon him to nip in the bud any gossip that might have risen concerning his attentions to the daughter of that odious captain.

Bobby survived the withdrawal of his favor with amazing indifference. What puzzled and annoyed him beyond measure was that the more oblivious of him she seemed, the more acutely aware of her he became. Twenty times a day he assured himself that it made no earthly difference to him whether she was playing quoits with the Scotchman or bean-bag with Andy Black, and yet not a page of his book would become intelligible until he made a round of the deck to find out what she was doing. The evenings were even worse: midnight often found him wrapped in his rug in his steamer-chair or morosely pacing the deck, waiting for some festivity in which Bobby was engaged to come to an end. The shocking lack of chaperonage and the liberty allowed young girls in the States served as themes for more than one bitter letter home.

But his cold aloofness was not destined to last. One morning when most of the passengers were concerned with the appearance of Bird Island on the horizon, he stumbled quite by accident upon Bobby curled up behind a wind-shelter on the other side of the deck, contributing some large salt tears to the brine of the ocean. Now, in that circle of society in which it had pleased Providence to place Percival it was considered the height of bad form to exhibit an emotion. His imagination could not picture one of the ladies of Hascombe Hall sitting in a public place with her hair tumbled over her face, and her shoulders shaking with sobs.

Nevertheless, the sight of this hitherto buoyant young creature in distress moved him to sit down beside her, and in the softly modulated tones upon which we have already commented coax her to tell him what was the matter.

Unlike the historic Miss Muffet who repulsed a similar attention from the spider, she welcomed his arrival. She even asked him if he had an extra handkerchief, her own having been reduced to a wet little ball. He had. He not only proffered it, but helped to wipe away the tears.

"I don't know what makes me so everlastingly silly," she said fiercely, trying to swallow the rising sobs, "but he _won't_ understand!"

"Who won't?"

"The captain. I don't care if he is my father. Sometimes I don't like him a bit."

Neither did Percival. It was strange how the common antagonism drew them together. He was about to ask for further details when the old Peppermint Lady scurried past and, seeing them, turned back to impart the burning news that Bird Island was in sight.

"Yes," said Percival, shamelessly, "we have seen it."

"He doesn't know me if he thinks I'll give in," went on Bobby where she had left off. "I am just as stubborn as he is."

"There, now, I shouldn't talk about it if it made me cry," advised Percival, patting her shoulder.

"But I've got to talk to somebody," she said almost savagely. "What did he give me to the Fords for if he didn't think they were good enough? Pa Joe's as good as he is any day in the week."

"Who is Pa Joe?" asked Percival, groping in the dark.

"He's the darlingest old man in the world, and he owns the best cattle ranch in Wyoming. Anybody'll tell you so. He's been a real father to me, and the boys are real brothers--at least three of them are. They are just as good as anybody that ever lived, I don't care what the captain says."

There was another passionate burst of tears, and Percival had just succeeded in stemming the tide when the Scotchman bore down upon them.

"I beg your pardon, but did you know we were passing Bird Island?" he asked them.

"Yes," said Percival, hastily getting up and piloting him safely past. "As a matter of fact, some one was just asking for you in the smoking-room."

"I told the captain," sobbed Bobby, beating her hands together and apparently oblivious of interruptions, "that I'd come on this trip with him, but that it wouldn't make a bit of difference, and it hasn't."

"No, of course it hasn't," agreed Percival, soothingly, not in the least comprehending the drift of her remarks, but pleasantly aware that he was being confided in and that something very limp and lovely was under his protection.

"Isn't there a--a--Mrs. Ford on the ranch?" he asked by way of prolonging the interview.

"Not now. Dear Aunt Kitty died four years ago. That was when they sent me in to Cheyenne to school. But I'm finished now, and I'm going to stay on the ranch and take care of Pa Joe and the boys."

"Can't say it sounds exciting. How many children are there?"

"Children! Why, they are all as tall as you are, except Piffles. There's Ted, and Dick, and Piffles, and--Hal. I guess you saw Hal that day at the station."

For the first time since he had known her, her black lashes drooped consciously over her blue eyes. They were very long and thick lashes, and as they swept her flushed cheek, Percival not only forgot what she was saying, but went so far as to forget himself.

"I saw only one thing that day at the station," he said, with such an ardent look that it made Bobby smile through her tears. As a rule he disliked dimples, especially the stationary kind. But the one that now occupied, his attention was a very shy and elusive affair that kept the beholder watching very closely for fear he should miss it.

"Come," he said, taking advantage of the momentary sunshine, "you are a bit of a sportsman, you know. You mustn't come off by yourself and cry like this. Makes you feel so beastly seedy afterward, doesn't it?"

"Yes. But you don't understand. I want to do something that the captain's perfectly determined I sha'n't do. He didn't bring me on this trip just to give me a good time. Not on your life! He brought me to make me forget."

"Oh, that's the game, is it? Scuttling you off to sea to make you forget. Deuced interesting! I don't mind telling you I'm in something of the same sort of a hole myself."

"Really?" Her interest was roused instantly.

A mysterious change was taking place in their acquaintance. Bobby's tears had in some unaccountable manner taken all the starch out of Percival's manner.

"You mean," she went on, "that they are sending you off to keep you from marrying some one they don't like?"

"Not exactly. I shouldn't put up with that for a moment, you know."

"Of course you wouldn't, because you are a man. But suppose you were a girl, and your father was perfectly unreasonable. What would you do then?"

"I'd drop the matter for a bit," advised Percival, at a venture. "Let him think you didn't care a tuppeny. Pretend to be awfully keen about something else, and, likely as not, he'll come round. Not a bad idea that, by Jove! I've tried it."

"Do you think it would work?" asked Bobby, scanning his finely chiseled profile as eagerly as if she were consulting the Delphic oracle.

"No harm in trying. Keep him on tenter-hooks, at any rate."

"Ship ahoy!" came in joyous tones from Andy Black as he rounded the corner of the saloon, clinging to his cap. "Been looking for you all over. Say, did you all know we were passing Bird Island?"

"If we don't," said Percival, with his most deliberate stare, "it is not because we have failed to be informed of the uninteresting fact every five minutes for the last half-hour."

"Consider me the third stanza," said Andy; "please omit me!"

Bobby laughed as he disappeared, and pushed back her tumbled hair.

"I love to hear you say 'hawf,'" she said; then she added impetuously, "You aren't a bit like anybody I ever saw before."

"I dare say," said Percival, returning her smile.

"Not only your talk, but your walk, and the way you wear your clothes."

"I suppose my tailor does rather understand my figure," said Percival; "but what puzzles you about my speech?"

"I don't know. It's different. And then I never can tell what you are thinking about."

"Do you wish to know what I'm thinking about just now?"

"Yes."

"I am wondering why you wear high-heeled, gold-beaded slippers in the morning."

Bobby thrust forth two dainty feet and contemplated them in surprise.

"What's wrong with them?" she asked.

"Rather dressy for the morning, aren't they?" he gently suggested.

"I don't know," she said good-humoredly. "I've got a trunkful of clothes down in my state-room, but I never know which ones to put on. You see, we never dike up like this on the ranch. When the captain brought me to San Francisco, he handed me over to a woman at the hotel and told her to rig me out for the trip."

"Did--did she buy your steamer-coat?" asked Percival.

Bobby's laugh rang out contagiously.

"Isn't it a tulip? I knew it was wrong the minute I came on board and saw Elise Weston's. Honest, now, have I got anything else as bad as that?"

"No, oh, no; I was a beastly cad to mention it. You are most awfully charming in anything you choose to wear. But as a matter of fact, I do like you best in white, with your hair low, as it is now."

"Hair low, shoes high, all in white. Anything else you'd like?" All trace of tears had vanished, and her eyes were dancing audaciously.

"Yes," said Percival, leaning forward, "there is."

At this critical juncture a well-built figure in a uniform started down the stairway above them, paused a moment unobserved, then quietly retraced his steps to the bridge.

"See here, I must be going," said Bobby, rising abruptly. "I promised to practise for the tableaux at ten, and it's half-past now. Say, you were a brick to brace me up! I'm going to take your advice, too; you see if I don't. May I count on your help!"

"At your service," said Percival, rising, and clasping the hand she held out.

The captain's Chinese boy glided up unobserved and stood at attention.

"Captain say missy please come top-side right away. Wantchee see Bird Island."

Percival, still holding her hand, smilingly shook his head.

"Damn Bird Island!" he murmured softly.

VII

THE DAY THAT NEVER WAS

Of all the places in the world where a flirtation can germinate, blossom, and bear fruit overnight, an ocean-liner is the most propitious. Two conventional human beings who in the city streets would pass each other with utter indifference will often drop a conscious lid over a welcoming eye when passing and repassing on the deck of a steamer. When men and women are set adrift for four weeks, with thousands of miles of sparkling water separating them from the past and the present, and with nothing to do but observe one another, something usually happens.

The present voyage of the _Saluria_ was no exception; in fact, it threatened to break all former records. The love-epidemic started in the steerage, where a Dutch boy en route to Java developed a burning attachment for a young stewardess, and it extended to the bridge, where Captain Boynton frequently consigned his duties to the first officer in order to devote his energies to holding Mrs. Weston's worsted. When he was not holding the skein, he was holding the ball, and during the endless process of winding and unwinding he spun his own yarns, recalling tales of wild adventure that alternately shocked and fascinated his gentle listener.

The young people, meanwhile, were not by any means immune. Elise Weston had discovered that the Scotchman's voice blended perfectly with her own, and through endless practising of "Tales from Hoffman" they had arrived at a harmony that promised to be permanent. Andy Black and Bobby Boynton romped through the days, apparently wasting little time on sentiment, but developing a friendship that might at any time become serious.

Only the blighted being wandered the decks alone. Since that morning in the wind-shelter he had decided to take no more risks. Alarming symptoms had not been wanting to indicate the return of a malady from which he never expected to suffer again. The grand affair with the Lady Hortense had been a dignified, chronic ailment which he had learned to endure with a becoming air of pensive resignation. The present attack threatened to be of a much more disturbing character. It was acute; it responded to no treatment, mental, moral, or physical. It was like toothache or mumps or chicken-pox, an ignoble, complaint of which one is ashamed, but before which one is helpless.

It was only at table that he found it impossible to maintain toward Bobby that attitude of indifference which he had prescribed for himself. With the arrival of the new passengers at Honolulu the places had been slightly changed, and now that he found himself seated between Bobby and Andy Black, the temptation to turn his chair slightly toward the former, thus presenting an insolent and forbidding back to Andy, was more than he could resist. Moreover, it afforded him unlimited satisfaction to know that by the glance of his eye or a whispered half-phrase he could instantly center all her sparkling attention upon himself.

The captain viewed these elusive tête-à-têtes with growing disfavor. One morning when he was alone at breakfast with Mrs. Weston he unburdened his mind after his own peculiar fashion.

"A seaman has to cultivate three things, my lady, a Nelson eye, a Nelson ear, and a Nelson nose. I've got 'em all."

Mrs. Weston smiled with, flattering expectancy.

"I don't claim to know what's going on in the rest of the world," he continued significantly, "but you can back your Uncle Ik to know everything that's happening on board this wagon."

"What's happening now? Do tell me," said Mrs. Weston, leaning forward and almost upsetting the salt in her eagerness.

"An Englishman, a poisonously funny Englishman, is running out of his course. He'll hit a reef before long that will knock a hole in his hull."

"Oh, you mean the Honorable Percival?"

"I do. And if he's like the majority of those titled Johnnies, he's so crooked he can hide behind a corkscrew."

"O Captain, that's absurd! Why, he is one of the most absolutely irreproachable and unapproachable young aristocrats I ever saw."

"That's all right. I don't tie up to the British aristocracy, nor any other foreign nobility. Besides, what headway will I make by steering that girl of mine off one shoal to land her on another?"

"Was the Wyoming affair quite out of the question?"

"Oh, Hal Ford is a good-enough chap, but he's a perfect kid. They are both too young to know what they want. Besides, I am not going to have her drop anchor on a ranch for the rest of her days. I'll send her up to 'Frisco to school first. That's what the row was about before she left home. The little minx defied me, so I picked her up and brought her with me out to Hong-Kong."

"Poor child! She probably sees now that you were quite right."

"Maybe she does and maybe she doesn't. She's a wily little scamp all right. I discovered that the second day out. I'd forbidden her to write any letters to the ranch, so she was keeping a log-book which she was going to mail at every port."

"And were you hard-hearted enough to confiscate it?"

"I was. At least I ordered her to give it to me on the spot, and she said she'd chuck it overboard first."

"And did she!"

"She did," said the captain, with a grim chuckle.

"You don't understand that girl," said Mrs. Weston. "I'm quite sure she'd be amenable if she were handled right. However, she doesn't seem to be breaking her heart. Between Andy and the Honorable she's finding consolation."

"Most women do," said the captain, with one of those flashes of bitterness that sent all the good humor scurrying out of his face.

"Of course, she's just playing with Andy," Mrs. Weston hurried on, fearful of the memories she had stirred; "but Mr. Hascombe is different. He is so good-looking and so polished, almost any girl would have her head turned a bit by his attentions."

"You don't mean to say that you think Bobby--"

"I can't quite make out. She doesn't seem to see much of him on deck, but at the table she hasn't eyes or ears for any one else. You watch her."

"Trust my Nelson eye!" said the captain.

When Antipodal Day arrived, every one felt called upon to celebrate it. The guileless tried to see the imaginary line of the meridian which the sophisticated pointed out to them on the water; the cream-peppermint lady went so far as to say she felt the jar as the steamer passed over it. Conjectures, witty, mathematical, or inane, were made as to the identity of to-day, if yesterday was Friday and to-morrow going to be Saturday.

During the morning Percival wandered disconsolately from one part of the ship to another. Despite the fact that he was quite determined to keep away from Bobby, he chafed under her seeming indifference. After that intimate hour together in the wind-shelter it was strange that she could be so oblivious of his presence. It was distasteful to him to have to signal the train of her attention. To be sure, a very little signal served,--a word, a look, a thoughtful gesture,--but he preferred a homage that required no prompting. Moreover, she was guilty of "smiling on all she looked upon," and her acceptance of Andy Black into the ever-widening circle of her admirers offended him deeply.

The day dragged interminably. By five o'clock in the afternoon a tango-tea was in progress, and it seemed to Percival that everybody on board was dancing except the missionaries and himself. Even they were taking part as spectators, having secured their places half an hour before the appointed time in order not to miss a moment of the shocking exhibition.

Percival went to the upper deck and sought the most secluded corner he could find, but even there he was haunted by the soul-disturbing music. Dancing was one of his accomplishments, and he had trod stately measures through half a dozen London seasons, the admiration and the despair of more than one aspiring mama. He looked with great disapproval upon these new and boisterous American dances, he wondered if they were as difficult as they looked. Seeing nobody about, he rose and tentatively tried a few steps behind the shelter of a life-boat. He found it interesting, and was getting quite pleased over his cleverness in catching the syncopated time, when he spied an impertinent sailor grinning at him from the rigging. Instantly his legs became rigid, and he affected an interest in the horizon intended to convince the sailor that he had been the victim of an optical illusion. Of course it was quite beneath his dignity to take part in these rollicking dances, especially in such a public place as on shipboard. He realized that fully; yet he thought of Bobby and sighed. There were actually times in his life when he almost wished he had been born in the middle class.

Then he drew himself up sharply. If there was one thing incumbent upon the second son of the late Lord Westenhanger, it was that he maintain his position. Though grievously disappointed in his failure to capture the incomparable Lady Hortense, he must don his armor and ride forth again to find another lady, differing in kind, perhaps, but not in degree. In his scheme of things wild young daughters of American sea-captains had no place whatever.

Yet even as he made this assertion he found himself moving toward the companionway and down to the deck below.

"Will you sit out the next dance with me?" he heard himself murmuring to Bobby over her partner's shoulder.

"You bet I will," said Bobby with a smile that made him forget the awfulness of her language.

Ten minutes later they were leaning over the rail on the deserted boat-deck, the wind full in their faces, watching the prow of the steamer gently rise and fall as she sailed straight into the golden heart of the sun. Up from the horizon spread wave after wave; of perilous color, emerald melting into azure, crimson dying into rose. There was just enough breeze to put a tiny feather on the windward slope of the waves, and every white crest caught the glory.

"This is better than all the tangoing in the world," cried Bobby. "Have you been up here all afternoon?"

"I have. You see, all those people below get rather on one's nerves."

"Do _I?_" she challenged him instantly.

"Not on one's nerves exactly," he said, thrillingly aware that her arm was touching his on the railing and that the dangerous pink light was playing over her face; "but I must say you do get on one's--one's mind!"

She laughed gaily.

"Well, that's next to having nothing on your mind. Say, you wouldn't think I had the blues, would you?"

"Can't say I should."

"Well, I have. I've been so homesick all day that I could go round the corner and cry if you--if you hadn't said I mustn't."

"What are you homesick for?"

"Oh, for the old ranch and the ponies and my dogs and--and lots of things. See the way the wind flecks the water over there? Well, that's just the way it does the grasslands back home."

"But it's such a parched, barren sort of a place, Wyoming."

"It is _not_. You ought to see it in the early spring, when everything is vivid green, and the cactus is in bloom--the red-flowered kind that looks so pretty against the sides of the gray buttes. Why, you can gallop for miles with your horse's hoofs sinking into beds of prairie roses!"

"But it's virtually green in England all the year round. I'd like to show you a well-run English estate. Rather a pretty sight. Hascombe Hall's a fairly decent example. Some hundreds of acres, don't you know."

"Some hundreds!" repeated Bobby, scornfully. "Our ranch covers two hundred thousand acres, and it takes Pa Joe four days' hard riding to get over it!"

"Oh, I say, most extraordinary! But if I were you, I wouldn't think about home affairs," said Percival, to whom her background in Wyoming was of no consequence. He liked to think of her as having begun to live when she met him, and as gracefully ceasing to exist when they parted.

"All right," said Bobby, resignedly. "I've kept bottled up this long; I suppose I can manage the rest of the time. What's that book you've been reading?"

"Shelley."

"Is it a love-story?"

Percival winced.

"It is poetry," he said. "I shouldn't mind reading you a bit, if you like."

She did like. She evidently liked tremendously. She listened as an inquisitive bird might listen to a strange wood note, with her head on one side and her bright eyes intent upon his face.

When Percival's perfectly modulated voice ceased, she sighed:

"I didn't understand a word of it," she said, "but I could listen to you read forever. It makes me think of the wind in the trees, and all the lovely things that ever happened to me."

"But don't you like the poem?"

"I like the way your mouth looks when you read it. Your chin's nice, too, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Percival, with an unsuccessful effort at indifference; "it's the Hascombe chin. Been in the family for generations."

"Think of having a chin as old as that! Perhaps that's what makes you so solemn."

"Am I solemn?"

"Awfully. Elise Weston says she believes you have been crossed in love."

The hollow chambers of Percival's heart reverberated with alarming echoes. He shot a suspicious glance at Bobby, but her innocent gaze reassured him.

"I am afraid your friend Miss Weston is romantic," he said stiffly. "Am I keeping you too long from the dance?"