CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE SERPENT

Ernie, who was never very fond of work, had on the Captain's arrival stored his trunks in the dressing-room to save himself the trouble of carting them up to the box-room in the roof.

Now it occurred to him that if a nurse was called in to attend the sick man there might be trouble about the trunks.

On the morning after Mr. Trupp's visit he determined, therefore, to move them before he was found out.

Very early he opened the dressing-room door and blundered in.

A girl with bare arms was standing before the looking-glass, dressing her dark hair; and the bed had been slept in.

"O, beg pardon, Miss," said Ernie, genuinely abashed.

The girl smiled and held up a hushing finger.

"I didn't know, Miss," continued Ernie, still caught in his own confusion.

"Why d'you call me Miss?" asked Ruth calmly.

Ernie laughed lamely.

"Did I?" he said. "I don't know." He found relief in bustle. "I was just a-goin to shift some o them trunks."

"Thank you kindly," answered Ruth. "It'd make more room like."

Ernie set to work.

"How's the Captain?" he asked.

"Middlin or'nary," Ruth replied. "He didn't sleep unaccountable well."

"You look a bit tired yourself, Ruth," said Ernie.

"I was up to him time or two in the night," the girl answered. "I shall go off this afternoon. Madame's very kind."

Ernie went out, swallowing his misery as best he could.

The fever took its normal course. The Captain needed very little attention. Ruth gave him his medicine, tidied his bed, took his temperature, and saw to his food.

He lay in a fog, amused with her, angry with himself.

"You're top-hole at this job, Ruth," he would say.

On the third night, in the small hours, he rang. The bell was on a chair at Ruth's side. She rose at once. The dressing-gown in which she wrapped herself was a flimsy affair, and showed the lines of her large young body. The light beside the Captain's bed was switched on.

"Ruth," he said, "I'm better. I've broken out in a muck-sweat. I'm dripping. Get me some fresh pyjamas and a towel."

His face was shining with perspiration, his hair dark.

She went to a drawer.

"Bring me a towel," he said. "And give me a rub down."

She obeyed and clothed him in his new pyjamas.

He lay back, dry and contented.

The dawn was breaking. She lit the spirit-lamp and crouched beside it, graceful and brooding, her nightdress spread on the floor about her like a train of snow.

"I'll chill you a drop o milk," she said in her deep voice, with the coo of comfort in it. "It comes over cold towards dawn."

He drank readily and seemed refreshed.

"That's better," he said.

Ruth watched him with kind eyes.

"Now you'll sleep, I reck'n," she said.

"Ruth," he answered, "come here."

She came.

He took her hand and kissed it.

"That's all," he said. "Thank you. Good-night."

She went back to the dressing-room and closed the door behind her. Then she went to the window.

The tide was low, the sea still dark, and on the horizon of it a bank of saffron, from which in time the sun would appear.

On the far edge of the sands, pearl-hued and desolate, the waves stirred faintly. All else was stillness and immensity. Not a soul, not a ship, not a movement.

The sweep, the nakedness, the inexorable passivity of earth and sky and sea, man-forsaken and forlorn, seemed for once to affect the girl with fear. She retired hastily to her bed and sought the shelter of sleep.