Eighth day out. Glorious sunshine, a tingling wind, and the ship just "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 aboisterous wind. All the little waves jumped from their slow-swingingcradles to play with it, and, as they played, became big waves, with allthe sportiveness of children and all the power of giants. The ClanMacgregor was their toy.
At first she pretended indifference, and strove to keep the even tenorof her way, regardless of them. But they were too much and too many forher. She began to cripple and jig most painfully for one of her size anddignity. She limped, she wobbled, she squattered, she splashed andsploshed, she reeled hither and thither like an intoxicated old rounderbuffeted by a crowd of practical jokers, and she lost time hand overfist, to the vast approval of Mr. Alexander Forsyth Smith. Time was nowjust 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'semotions, after the first shock of the surprise and the resentment ofthe hitherto untouched spirit, had come under control. She could nowface a Daddleskink or a regiment of Daddleskinks, unmoved, so shefelt--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, "'twasin a crowd." Little Miss Grouch had provided the crowd, and the Tyrosimply added one to it. He was fain if not wholly content to stay in thebackground and bide his chance.
Now Little Miss Grouch, ignorant of the fact that her high-pricedcounsel had betrayed her cause, marveled and was disturbed when the Tyroapproached, greeted her, and straightway dropped into the fringe ofSociety as constituted by herself for the occasion. Was he deliberately,in the face of his own belief that imprisonment would be the penalty ofany 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'sideal was rocking a bit on his pedestal.
Patience was not one of the young lady's virtues. On the other hand, thecompensating quality of directness was. "Do It Now" was her prevailingmotto. She wanted to know what her slave meant by his abrupt change ofattitude, and she wanted to know at once. But her methods, thoughprompt, were not wholly lacking in finesse. Out of her surrounding courtshe appointed Judge Enderby and Lord Guenn escorts for the morningpromenade, and picked up Dr. Alderson on the way.
Be it duly set down to the credit of the Joyous Vision's soliderqualities, that old men found her as interesting a companion, though ina different way, as did young men. By skillful management, she led theconversation to the house on the Battery, with the anticipated resultthat Judge Enderby (all innocent, wily old fox though he was, that hewas playing her game) suggested the inclusion of the other claimant inthe conference. The Tyro was summoned and came.
"The charge against you," explained the judge, "is contumaciousness inthat you still insist on coveting a property which is claimed byroyalty, under the divine right of queens."
"I'd be glad to surrender it," said the Tyro meekly, "but there seems tobe a species of family obligation about it."
"Obligation or no obligation, you know you can't have it," declared thelady.
"I rather expect to, though."
"When papa says he'll get a thing, he always gets it," she informed himwith 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 olddocument, 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 arch鎜logist.
"And that is in the picture at Guenn Oaks," contributed Lord Guenn.
"Why are you all against me?" cried Little Miss Grouch in grievedamazement.
"Not against you at all," said Judge Enderby. "It's simply a matter ofthe best claim. Besides, you, who have everything in the world, wouldyou turn this poor homeless young wanderer out of a house that he'snever been in?"
"Except by ancestral proxy," qualified Dr. Alderson.
"How mean of you!" She turned the fire of denunciatory eyes upon thearch鎜logist. "You told me with your own lips that no family namedDaddleskink 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."
"Whose claim?"
"Mr. Daddleskink's." She indicated the Tyro with a scornful gesture."Oh," she added, noting the other's obvious bewilderment, "I see youdidn't know his real name."
"I? I've known him and his name all his life."
"And it isn't Daddleskink?"
The learned arch鎜logist lapsed against the rail and gave way to wildmirth. "Wh--where on earth d-d-did you gu-gu-get such a notion?" hequavered, 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 benamed Daddleskink, and you jumped to the conclusion that it was my nameand 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?" shedemanded, with an effect of unanswerable logic.
"Because my name is Smith."
"Permit me to present," said Lord Guenn, who had been quietly butjoyously appreciative of the duel, "my ancestral friend, Mr. AlexanderForsyth Smith."
"Why didn't you tell me your real name?" Little Miss Grouch's offendedregard was fixed upon the Tyro.
"Well, you remember, you made fun of the honorable cognomen of Smithwhen 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 nosewas now quite far in the air.
"So I thought I'd furnish a really interesting name for you to amuseyourself with. I'm sorry you don't care for it."
Little Miss Grouch's limpid and lofty consideration passed from theanxious physiognomy of the speaker to the mirthful countenances of theother 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 resentmentexpressed 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 anold 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 grewbefore."
"But--"
"--me no buts. Half an hour I give you. If you haven't found the younglady in that time I discard you."
Opportunity for successful concealment on shipboard is all butlimitless. Hence the impartial recorder must infer that the efforts ofLittle Miss Grouch to elude pursuit were in no way excessive. A quarterof an hour sufficed for the searcher to locate his object in a sunnynook on the boat-deck. He approached and stood at attention. For severalmoments she ignored his presence. In point of fact she pretended not tosee him. He shifted his position. She turned her head in the reversedirection 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 glancewavered: at least, it twinkled. Her little jaw was set, it is true. Atthe corner of her mouth, however, dimpled a suspicious and deliciousquiver. Perhaps the faintest hint of it crept into her voice to mollifythe 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 tothis 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," shecried, struck with a sudden reminiscence, "what has become of yourdumbness?"
"Cured."
"A miracle. Listen then. And stop looking at that crack in the deck asif 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 somewhatless painful to the accustomed eye than usual to-day, and if I should sofar forget my principles as to mention that fact--"
"You haven't a principle to your name! You're untruthful--"
"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 cabinby 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, youmean, and couldn't be treated like a child?" he fenced.
"Yes."
"Well, when you spoke of the house on the Battery being deeded over toyou, I knew that you must have reached your majority! The rest wassimple 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 r鬺e?"
"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 Smithinstead of a Daddleskink. Why, oh, why must these lovely illusions everperish!"
"You killed cock-robin," she accused.
"Not at all. It was Dr. Alderson with his misplaced application of thetruth."
"Anyway, I don't find you nearly so entertaining, now that you're plainMr. Smith."
"Nor I you as Miss Cecily Wayne, equally plain if not plainer."
"In that case," she suggested with a mock-mournful glance from beneaththe slanted brows, "this acquaintance might as well die a painlessdeath."
"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 neglecthim a moment longer."
The Tyro leaped to his feet and they ran, hand in hand like twochildren, down to their point of observation of the less favoredpassengers. They spent a lively half-hour with the small Teuton, at theend of which Little Miss Grouch issued imperative commands to the Tyroto the effect that he was to wait at the pier when they got in, and seeto 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 thecommission 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 elaborateOriental 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 whichimplied that she did not wish and never again would wish to speak toMiss 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, mistakingthe introducer's hesitation for a hyphen, "if that is what he callshimself now."
"It isn't," said the Tyro. "You know, Mrs. Denyse, I've always held thatthe permutation of names according to the taste of the inheritor, is oneof the most interesting phases of social ingenuity."
Mrs. Charlton Denyse, relict of the late Charley Dennis, turned a deepTyrian purple. "If you would be good enough--" she began, when the girlbroke 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 colorrising. "You must excuse me." And she walked on.
"Then the gentlemanly spider on the hot griddle loses," murmured theTyro.
"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 I might marry him once. But now," sheadded pensively and unguardedly, "I know I never could."
The Tyro's heart came into his throat--except that portion of it whichlooked out of his eyes.
"Why?"
A flame rose in Little Miss Grouch's cheeks, and subsided, leaving hershaking.
"Why?" He had halted her beside the rail, and was trying to look intoher face, which was averted toward the sea, and quivering with panic ofthe peril suddenly become imminent again.
Lord Guenn, approaching along the deck, furnished Little Miss Grouch aninspiration, 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 openyour eyes."
"One--two--three," said the Tyro slowly. "Why?"
"Hanged if I know, my dear fellow," replied Lord Guenn, upon whose trimelegance the Tyro's discomfited vision rested.
Little Miss Grouch had vanished.