Chapter VI: Part 6

As for Beatrix, she was not thinking, dissecting or going to the mental bother of introspection. She was enjoying a new sensation, delighting in the thrill of a dangerous and what would be to most girls an inconceivable adventure. She looked upon the whole thing as merely an episode, an act in the drama of her life, and with enough sense of excitement to spur her on played her part of Franklin's wife with one appreciative eye on herself. She believed that York would carry out his threat, knowing the man as well as she did, and she knew that as soon as the whole house of cards fell flat, as it was bound to do, her family, headed by Aunt Honoria, would punish severely. They would spoil her life at least for a year. She had gone on the cruise because the word "yacht" had filled her with the desire to smell the sea and try a new form of amusement. That was all. Franklin, either as a man or an enemy, or as one who had come to her rescue, counted for nothing. He meant no more to her than Captain McBean or Mr. Horatio Jones. He was merely the means of providing her with the antidote against boredom. She was out to enjoy a new experience at his expense. Hurrah for the open sea! Sufficient for the day, so long as the day was fine and the people in it kept her merry.

When it came to Ida Larpent and the way in which she regarded her totally unexpected presence on the _Galatea_, the mental processes of her mind were as busily at work as the mechanical appliances of the ship's engine. This was no mere joy-ride for her. It was a business trip, the chances of which had been grasped eagerly with all the cunning of a woman who had lived on her wits and brought individualism to a fine art. She was going to use every moment to her own ultimate advantage. The fact that Beatrix had placed her among her favorites was an admirable step forward. She was clever enough to know that the sunshine of the beautiful young autocrat's smile might at any moment cloud over,--that her reign as a favorite was most ephemeral. But she had already watched things closely and had come to the conclusion that the marriage which had caused so much rejoicing among the Vanderdykes, romantic as it seemed, was an empty and hollow affair. She saw very plainly that the heart of Beatrix was utterly untouched. She had yet to discover precisely how Franklin had been affected. She was no optimist, but it seemed to her that Franklin was as cool as Beatrix. He had, however, a way of hiding his feelings that would make it necessary for her to put him under her microscope. As things appeared on the surface, at any rate, everything was in her favor. She measured herself against Beatrix without egotism. The girl had all the advantage of youth and,--as her knowledge of men told her,--many of the disadvantages. She was going to set herself with the utmost calculation to stir up Franklin's passion. It seemed to her that the propinquity forced upon them all by living aboard a yacht would make that easy. She had examined herself in the mirror of her stateroom and come to the conclusion that she had never looked more beautiful or so completely feminine. Without any sense of loyalty to Beatrix, to whom she was indebted for this chance, she had made up her mind to attract Franklin with all the arts that she possessed. To become his mistress meant absolute freedom from money troubles, and that would be excellent. To become his wife,--well, why not? The laws of the country were all in her favor. Divorce was a hobby, an institution, and Beatrix was a worshipper at the altar of Something New.

When it came to Malcolm Fraser, whom Beatrix had called the fourth of the party,--he was usually the fourth of every party,--what was he but simply a man who could do no more than enjoy the glamour of the impossible--a sort of star-gazer! His love for Beatrix dominated his secret life and he knew that he could show it only in one way,--by being her friend. He had no pain in his heart. He had no right to possess a heart at all where she was concerned, but no one could prevent him from placing her in the throne of it and locking her in. And so he just revelled in her presence and was happy.

There remained little Mrs. Lester Keene, the last member of this strange ill-assorted party, and she, who took everything seriously, and whose god was convention, was undergoing very genuine suffering. To be herself a party to any arrangement so unabashed in its smashing of all the rules of life was bad enough. Her self-respect, which meant so much to her, was deeply wounded, and when she thought of the girl who seemed to her to be a sort of queen and for whose beauty and purity she had the most intense admiration and regard, her perturbation became painful, even tragical. She suspected Franklin. Like all women who have gone through life looking at the truth through a key-hole, herself hidden, she believed no good of men. They were all wolves in sheep's clothing. They were the enemies of women. She conceived Franklin to be no different from those worldly creatures of whom she had read so frequently in her favorite novels, most of which had been written in the period of her youth by women. She was, therefore, most unhappy. She was also dreading sea-sickness. Poor little lady, what a combination of mental disquiet!

*XIX*

Franklin and Fraser left the dining saloon after a brief talk and joined the ladies in the little used drawing-room. They found that the orchestra, which was as much a part of the yacht as the engines and invariably played Franklin's favorite melodies during and after dinner, had been dismissed. The Victrola was at work instead and the voluptuous strains of a more than usually saccharine Viennese waltz filled the charming room.

Franklin drew up short at the door and put his hand on Fraser's arm. "Look," he said, quietly.

With absolute lack of self-consciousness and a nymph-like grace, her lips wearing the smile of a child, Beatrix was dancing and winding her way between the chairs and little tables. With her white arms outstretched and her hands moving like the wings of a bird she seemed to bring the music to life and to give it a sense of youth and beauty that turned the room into a moon-struck wood of thin trees.

The two men watched her until the tune ran out and in the hearts of both were love and desire.

Franklin went quickly to the Victrola, wound it up and started the record again.

"What a pity you don't dance, Malcolm," said Beatrix, panting a little.

"But I do," said Franklin, and took her in his arms. He didn't imagine himself to be a fine dancer. He had a healthy contempt of the dancing man breed,--those anaemic creatures who try so hard to look immaculate and treat all women with a tedious mixture of familiarity and condescension. He waltzed well, all the same, with a perfectly straight back, an excellent sense of time and a steady left arm. In fact he danced like a civilized man who had achieved the art of not being noticed in a crowd.

From her deep and comfortable chair under the reading lamp Ida Larpent, with a determined exposure of lace stocking, watched this little scene with quiet amusement. It seemed to her that those two danced like people who had been married for years. They said nothing. They didn't look at each other. They were as much two people as though they were at opposite ends of the earth. The almost grim expression on Franklin's face made jealousy impossible. So also did the slight air of social martyrdom that was all about Beatrix. Anyone less expert as a psychologist than Ida Larpent could have told that Beatrix merely performed a duty. It would, however, have taken a quite microscopic eye to have seen the riotous blaze in Franklin's mind.

To Mrs. Lester Keene's mid-Victorian way of thinking, this "exhibition," as she inwardly called it, watching from behind the new number of _Vogue_, was singularly bad form. If she had known the expressive word "stunt" she would have applied it with all her British horror of such a thing.

"And now," said Beatrix, when once more the popular tune arrived at its inevitable and hackneyed conclusion, "for bridge. Don't you think so?"

Franklin rang for a steward. The blood was in his head. The intoxication of the girl's fragrance was all about his brain. "Good God," he said to himself, "how am I going to go through this and come out sane?"

"Splendid," said Mrs. Larpent, putting down "The Dark Flower." "I'd love a rubber or two."

"And I," said Fraser,--"that is if you don't want to play, Mrs. Keene."

"Thank you, but I never touch cards." The little lady returned to her astonished examination of the drawings of wispy girls in freak garments. She invariably waxed almost hectic over the bi-monthly issues of her favorite journal, every word of which she read with minute care. It was to her rather like the thing at which a dog barks consistently and with a very fever of rage but wouldn't avoid on any account.

A steward appeared. "The card table," said Franklin.

"But before we play," said Beatrix, lighting a cigarette, "perhaps you'll tell us the geography of the yacht. Pelham, I won't sleep peacefully unless my curiosity is satisfied. I asked Malcolm at dinner but he's apparently as much of a landlubber as I am." She knew instinctively that this was the very best way to please Franklin and she felt that she owed him something for her unsocial manner in the dining saloon. She intended to enjoy the cruise and therefore it would be tactful, to say the least of it, to keep him in a good temper.

Franklin was obviously pleased. The _Galatea_ was his favorite toy. He picked up a photograph album, laid it open on a table and pointed to an admirable picture of the yacht lying at anchor in the Biscayne Bay.

Beatrix bent over it. Her dress left very little to the imagination.

"I bought her after the death of her first owner," he said. "He was an eccentric invalid, as you will see when I explain certain things. She was built in the Clyde about eight years ago. Her tonnage is sixteen hundred and seven, length all over three hundred and sixteen feet, beam thirty-five feet six and she carries a crew of forty, all told. You can see how beautiful her lines are. To my mind she has nothing of her class to compete against. It's true that some sailors carp at one thing in her appearance,--the way her bridge is placed. Do you see? Instead of being well forward as it usually is, you will notice that it's away aft,--only a few feet from the funnel."

"Why?" asked Beatrix, not even mildly interested.

"To prevent anyone from walking over the library. A cranky idea of the old man I told you about. In fact the _Galatea_ was designed to meet his peculiar notions."

"Why not?" said Beatrix. "He had the money."

"Quite," said Franklin drily. "Well, this, where my finger is, is the flush deck, running from the bows to the stern, broken here by a well between the forecastle head and the fore part of the bridge."

Beatrix laughed. "You're a regular sailor, aren't you?"

Franklin went on. It was good to be so near to this bewitching girl. He would have liked to absorb her attention for the whole evening. "Running aft from the bridge to within forty feet or so of the stern are all the deck houses. Do you see? Here's the library. Abaft, here, the dining saloon. Continuing aft, on the port side, here, the pantry, the enclosed space over the engine-room, and on the starboard side a passage leading to this room and the writing-room."

"And I don't believe you ever use either," said Beatrix.

"I don't. Now look. The roof and sides of this line of deck houses run out a few feet beyond the aftermost room. Do you notice that?"

"So that your malade imaginaire could have a little sheltered nook to enjoy forty winks in out of the wind?"

"Yes, that was the idea. Very jolly it is too. Here's the promenade, about nine feet broad and smooth as a billiard ball. It continues across the forepart of the library and across the afterpart of the line of deck houses, see? So that there's an oblong track round most of the yacht, covered overhead with a thick awning."

"Ah! I see myself taking exercise there morning, noon and night."

"We all do," said Malcolm.

"Well, about thirty feet from the stern, here, there's a double canvas screen running thwartships from one side to the other, shutting off a good space for the use of the crew. Under the forecastle head, on the main deck, are the officers' and petty officers' quarters, very comfortable and excellent. Under the library is my sitting-room, which runs the whole breadth of the ship. This is where we usually foregather,--I mean on the bachelor cruises."

"Which are now things of the past," said Beatrix imperturbably. "Are we to be permitted to peek into this sanctum some day?"

"Of course." Franklin's heart pumped a little.

And then, rising with her peculiar feline grace, Mrs. Larpent joined the group round the table. "All these technicalities are Greek to me," she said. "I want to know how many guest rooms there are, how many bathrooms, whether the mirrors are full length, whether you bought all the rugs from the same place and if so whether you got them cheaper and, in fact, all those human details that I can understand,--poor, untechnical me!"

Franklin gave a short laugh but was obviously thrown out. His description of the _Galatea_ was in the only language that he knew. He was unable to translate it into woman's talk.

Beatrix was quick to notice his quandary. Nearly everything that he had said was altogether beyond her too and gave her no more intimate a picture of the yacht than she would have obtained from a quick glance at a blue-print, but, after all, she intended to explore in the morning, so what did it matter? Her pricking conscience had alone brought the matter up. "Never mind about the furniture," she said. "Go on from where your finger is, Pelham. I'm following you with keen intelligence and boundless interest."

Franklin gave her a grateful smile. "Well, the windows, here, abaft of my room on the port side are the cabins of the major-domo, the Captain, the head steward, the chief engineer, the purser, an officers' mess room, the ship's galley, a steward's mess room and other cabins. Over here on the starboard side are the guest rooms and suites,--twenty all told. The lower-deck is given up to stores, coal bunkers, the engine room, the stoke-hold, a stack of electric accumulators which keep the electric lights going when the engines aren't working, and the gymnasium. The engines are designed not for speed but for smooth running. We can whack up to twelve knots an hour but our average is eight. Finally we carry an ample supply of boats as well as two steam launches, one burning coal, the other oil." He bowed and laughed and said "I thank you" in imitation of the professional guide, closed the album and put it away, having thoroughly enjoyed himself.

"And this very beautiful and complete toy," thought Ida Larpent, looking after the owner of it with calculating envy and admiration, "costs as much to run per annum as would make an admirable capital for a little lonely woman. My dear, you will be throwing away the opportunity of a life-time if you don't make yourself very precious to this indecently wealthy young man."

Then they sat down to bridge.

*XX*

The third day out, the semblance of peace and contentment reigning on board, the _Galatea_ ran into bad weather. The barometer had fallen sharply during the night and the day broke behind a dull grey curtain to windward which blotted out the horizon and brought heavy rain as it came over. Capricious shifts of wind in puffy spells made the awnings rattle and the sea agitated. The Captain stuck to his course until the squall caught him, and then, in deference to the ladies, ran with the sea astern. Before four o'clock in the afternoon, however, the wind fell away and the sky cleared and the sun came out again to the immense relief of Mrs. Lester Keene, who had given way to seasickness and to thoughts of disaster and death.

The weather, like nearly everything else, had not affected Beatrix. With Mrs. Larpent and Malcolm Fraser as spectators, she spent most of the morning in the gymnasium exercising her limbs and her lungs,--the former on the bars and rings and the electrically-worked horse, the latter by frequent bursts of merry laughter and constant talking. The newness of her surroundings had not yet worn off. The sense of being the heroine of a most daring adventure was still upon her. Then too, she found her new friend, whose peculiar beauty had attracted her, entertaining and, better still, interesting, and her old one as eager to fetch and carry and as willing to pay her deference as ever. So far as Franklin was concerned he remained the man who had said an unforgivable thing and who was, by accident, her host. He counted only as such.

But that night, having laid a restraining hand upon herself, Nature, who does not appear to be happy unless she can exert her power in some way, churned up a storm on the yacht. She brought about two incidents which, both quite unnecessary, did much to make this so-called honeymoon cruise lose its outward peacefulness. It is her invariable way.

The first happened before dinner, the second after, and both were led up to by the clash of temperament. The return of the sun had something to do with the first. Its warmth and brightness sent Beatrix's spirits, already high, up to set-fair. Tea was served on deck. To Franklin's inward rage Fraser immediately became the object of Beatrix's whole attention. She called him "Mally," talked almost tenderly about the old days, drew him out on the subject of books and life and then, utterly ignoring the others, paced up and down with her arm through his, listening with the rapt wonder of a little girl while he recited his recent verses to her.

It was when he had run his not very retentive memory down that she began to talk about herself. "Mally," she said suddenly, "do you remember a dream I told you about one spring morning when we were sitting on a log at the edge of those dear old woods? You had been ill, I think, and your mother had sent for you from school to feed you up."

"I remember," said Malcolm. "You were eight or so, and I had just struck fifteen and was consumed with the idea that I was a man. I had just introduced myself to a razor. Oh, a great moment in the male career!"

"Don't talk so much, Mally dear. This is my innings. I told you that I had dreamed that father had lost all his money, every cent of it, and was broken and helpless and that mother,--how queerly right it was,--had gone to bed permanently from the shock, and then I blossomed into a Joan of Arc because the night before that funny little French governess, Mademoiselle Hannebigue, had been reading to me about her, and I went out into the world,--it was New York, of course,--to build up a new fortune for my unfortunate parents."

"What became of Miss Hannebigue, by the way?"

"That doesn't matter. Don't drag red herrings across our path. I became a great artist in about a minute and painted a picture that caused such a sensation that I sold it to a gorgeous person with a golden beard and blue eyes for oh, millions and millions of dollars. And just before some vandal woke me up,--not Hannebigue because she was in mortal terror of me,--I was carrying it all up to father in a big brown bag. Do you remember?"

"Yes, I remember. Why?"

Beatrix said nothing for a moment, and as Malcolm looked at her beautiful face and long fine lashes and the little wistful smile on her lips he saw the fallen log again, and the young birches just broken into leaf; the little big-eyed girl who had ordered him about and the pair of new brown shoes that he had put on that day and which hurt him very much.

"Mally, I never read about Joan of Arc now," she said. "I'm ashamed. Never again, as long as I live, shall I ever have a chance to do big things, and sometimes,--not very often,--but just for a minute when I hear a wonderful piece of music or see the sun go down as it did last night,--I wish that father had really lost all his money and I was an artist or something working for him. Oh, Mally, old thing, I'm not really much good these days and I might have been,--I really might have been. You're a poet. You get closer to the angels than ordinary mortals. What can I do? How shall I become something? Is there no way for me to justify having once been able to carry that funny old bulging bag up to father?"

It was Malcolm's turn to say nothing for a moment. From where they stood he could see Franklin's clean-cut profile as he sat with his chin on his fist looking out to sea. And the man who was his friend and whose story he knew, seemed to look awfully alone and hurt. And then he spoke, eagerly, with a great and God-sent unselfishness. "Dear girl," he said, "my dear little girl, open your heart to Pel. That's the way."

The next instant the warm young arm was pulled sharply away from his own and a scoffing laugh was carried off like a bird. "Not in this world," she cried. "Not in this world!"

And then, with a little devil on her shoulder, the same little devil that had made her do all her foolish, impulsive, inconsistent things, she went over to where Franklin was sitting and stood with one foot on the deck chair vacated by Ida Larpent, who had found it difficult to get any attention. The girl's brain was suddenly filled with an impish desire to flick her host's apparent imperturbability with the whip of sarcasm.

"Well," she said, putting a note of bonhomie into her voice that Franklin had never heard before, and liked. "Thinking,--for a change?"

He got up and stood with his back to one of the iron supports. "Why for a change?" Good Heavens, what a picture she made, standing there!

"I've always been under the impression that sportsmen never think."

Franklin laughed. What did he care what she said so that she spoke to him, and he saw the flash of her teeth, the gleam of her dimples, the play of her astounding eyes? "You mean, being a sportsman, I don't need and have not been given, the necessary machinery for thinking?"

"I wouldn't for a moment go so far as that," she said, with a curiously expressive gesture which completely contradicted her remark. "You spend most of your time on the _Galatea_, don't you?"

"Yes, as much as I can."

"I don't wonder. I'm beginning to understand that there must be something very satisfying in being the Czar of this little Kingdom,--it's really the only way to feel the full power of wealth, unless you work and control great interests and feed your vanity like that Democracies worship the monied man, I know, but there is really a touch of the old feudal system in life on a yacht like this. Officers and men, forty of them, are your slaves. It's "Yes, sir; No, sir; Come aboard, sir; I'll make it so, sir," all day long, and, unlike a mere world, the very yacht can be ordered to change her course, put in or put out, at your imperial command. Yes, I begin to feel the fascination of the life you've chosen."

She said all this thoughtfully, disguising the rank impertinence of it under a sort of naive admiration.

It puzzled Franklin. He was too simple and direct to get her point of view and not willing to believe that he was being gratuitously "cheeked." "You've got me wrong," he said. "I live on the sea because I like it and because I hate cities and society and newspapers and their gross publicity. That's all."

She knew that he was speaking the truth. She knew also that her elaborate sarcasm had missed fire. She tried again. The little devil was still on her shoulder. "Oh, I see," she said, acting astonishment. "You're like the little boy who builds a hut in the back yard and forces himself to believe that he's hundreds of thousands of miles away from home. You come to sea to dodge the responsibilities of real life. You float lazily about on the water like a sportsman and leave the earth to be run by mere men. Well, I daresay there's something in it. Hullo, there goes the first bugle. I must go and dress."

She nodded and slipped away chortling, perfectly certain that she had let Franklin see how very little she thought of him, and on the way down to her suite she flung the little devil away and paid her companion a visit with all the sympathy and tenderness of a young Madonna.

She was right. Franklin felt the cut of her whip on his conscience. Many times recently, during lonely hours, he had cursed himself as a waster of time and opportunity and wondered how much longer he was going to be content to be numbered amongst the drones. All the same he bitterly resented being flicked by this girl, herself the queen of drones, who, of all the women alive, had good reason to thank her stars for his sportsmanship. And he went below angry, dissatisfied and indignant. By jove, he would get one back for this.

His chance came after dinner. He left Malcolm in the drawing-room waiting for the bridge table to be set, heard the Victrola on deck and went out to find Beatrix all alone, dancing like the spirit of spring. Ida Larpent, seeing something in his eyes that drew her out of her chair, followed him and hid. He went up to Beatrix. "Dance with me," he said and took her rather roughly in his arms. He felt the urge of holding her as he had never felt it before. His very anger fired his passion. He would show this unbroken thoroughbred that he was a man as well as a sportsman. And so he held her tight, mad with the gleam of her shoulders and the scent of her hair, danced her breathless and, as the music stopped, imprisoned her in his arms and kissed her lips again and again.

Ida Larpent nearly screamed. The pain of her jealousy was unbearable.

Beatrix fought herself free and stood panting against the rail. And as she stood there with heaving breasts and her hand on her mouth, that unforgivable sentence which had burned itself on her vanity seemed to stand out in letters of fire on the deck house. "If you and I were the only two living people on a desert island and there was not the faintest hope of our ever being taken back to the world, I would build you a hut at the farthest end of it and treat you as a man." This assault, this attack, was all the more nauseating because of its apparent cold-bloodedness, because it was made by the man who had dared to say those words to her. For a moment, with the blood in her head, she was overcome with a desire to cry out for servants and order them to kill that man. All that was imperious in her nature craved for instant punishment. Then, looking at the blaze in Franklin's eyes and mistaking it for the beast in him, she mastered herself and turned cold.

"Just now," she said, "I called you a Czar. I was wrong. You're a polished gun-man."

Franklin laughed. He was still drunk with the taste of her lips. "Can't a man kiss his wife on their honeymoon if he feels like it?"

Beatrix put out both hands to keep him away. She was as white as moonlight and her eyes shone like stars.

Ida Larpent almost left her place to catch every word.

"Wife! Thank God you will never be able to call me that."

Franklin went nearer,--within an inch of those two sentinel hands. "I didn't begin calling you that. You chose the word, not I." The way she had of putting him in the wrong always, of making him a brute who had tricked her into this impossible position was mighty difficult to bear.

Holding her breath, amazed and delighted at her sudden and unexpected insight into this marriage business which had always puzzled her, Ida Larpent watched these two young people as a cat watches mice,--the girl standing out against the dark background of sky in all the pride of youth, her bare shoulders outlined by the moonlight; the man, tall, wiry and amazingly vital, bending slightly forward, with his hands clenched; the silence hardly broken by the regular pulse of the engines, the humming of the breeze and the soft swish of the sea.

"This is the end," said Beatrix.

"The end,--how?"

"You will put me ashore."

"Where?"

"I don't care. Anywhere."

"Why?"

"Because, I tell you, this is the end."

"You're wrong. This is the beginning."

"I don't intend to argue. I state as a fact that you will put me ashore to-morrow. Whatever happens I am not going to live this lie any longer. Now let me pass."

Franklin went closer. The two hands were against his chest. "You amuse me," he said. "It isn't for you to give orders here. I'm Czar of this Kingdom, remember. You chose to come aboard and you'll stay aboard as long as it suits me."

"You're an optimist," she said, scoffingly.

"Very likely. I'm also human and I'm on my honeymoon." He caught her by the wrists and before he could control himself, kissed her again, threw her hands away and stood back. He was afraid of what he might do next.

Beatrix suppressed a cry, and drew the back of her hand across her mouth. "Once more I'm wrong," she said. "You're not a gun-man. You're a prize-fighter. May I be allowed to go now?"

"To the devil for all I care," said Franklin.

"Thank you. I prefer the bridge table." And he watched her go, walking like a young Diana.

Ida Larpent, with the tumult of a new chance in her queer heart, dodged away.

Then Franklin turned his face to the stars. He was angry, sore,--and ashamed. But as he stood there, face to face with Nature, he said to himself, "One day I'll make that girl ache for my kisses as badly as I ache for hers to-night,--so help me God!"

*XXI*

Ida Larpent was responsible for the second incident.

With an amount of self-control that under the circumstances seemed to Franklin to be almost inconceivable, Beatrix played bridge until after midnight. She went into the drawing-room with a high head and a radiant smile and began by saying "Mally dear, you will be my partner, and we will play together until sunrise, if you like." And as every hand was dealt for the remainder of the sitting she babbled and laughed and said little witty things that set the poet chuckling and won admiration from the woman of the world. And all the while she smoked, telling Mrs. Lester Keene, when that uncompanionable-companion ventured to remonstrate, that she was no longer a debutante and if she wanted to set up a smoker's heart, well, she could. Every now and then, too, perhaps to prove the fact to Franklin that at any rate there was one man aboard who could be trusted, she leant across the table and touched Malcolm's hand. It made him very happy. He was proud to be treated like a brother.

At eleven o'clock Mrs. Keene sighed, began to arrange the magazines on the table at her elbow and said "Dear me, how very late it is," several times, and finally got up and wandered aimlessly about the room. She hadn't the courage to say frankly and honestly "Now, dear Beatrix, it's time you went to bed. You've played enough and smoked enough and you need all the sleep you can get," but in the inevitable manner of all weak people she endeavored to get her point by a series of the kind of nerve-wracking, unspoken hints which are generally rewarded by a few sharp and even unkind words. Not so from Beatrix. Noticing the worthy woman's restlessness and recognizing her intention she cried out, "Brownie, you really ought to have a nurse. Eleven o'clock and still up,--and you haven't got over that bad attack! Run along to bed, dear, and if I'm not too late I'll peep in for a word or two."

Malcolm, not unsympathetic, smiled a little to see the reluctant way in which the poor little rotund soul obeyed the command of her princess.

It was a quarter past twelve when Beatrix drew away from the table as a rubber ended. "Thank you," she said, "that sees me through. Good night, Ida, sleep well. Good night, Mally dear. For a poet you play a wonderfully sound game." And then, with an exquisite touch of shyness that took Mrs. Larpent's breath away, staggered Malcolm and nearly made Franklin jump out of his skin, she looked up at him and added, "I won't say good night to you," and went out singing a little song beneath her breath.

It was so well done, with an art so true, an inflection so full of meaning, that for an instant Mrs. Larpent asked herself if the angry and definite words which she had recently overheard had ever been said.

They left Malcolm dazed. _Was_ she, after all, married to his old friend? They were the words of a wife.

The first shock over, Franklin understood. She had let him see that he was a creature to whom she did not bid good night disguised in the soft voice and inviting manner that was intended to keep Mrs. Larpent ignorant of the true state of affairs.

"I'll go over the score in the morning," he said, "and we can settle then. Malcolm, I'm going to write a few letters to-night, so----"

"All right, old man. I'll turn in right away." He wondered if he did not look a little like the woman at whom he had smiled earlier in the evening.

"So will I," said Mrs. Larpent. "This is all very delightful. I sleep better in this gently-rocking cradle than I've ever done before. Well, good night." She divided a smile between the two men and glided away, as graceful and as silky as a panther.

Franklin let out his foot and kicked a box of matches, that had fallen on the floor, into the chest of a sleepy-eyed young steward, who was already packing up the bridge table. "I'm sorry," he said. If he had had his way at that moment, he would have kicked the earth into the limbo of forgotten things and tumbled after it over the edge.

Malcolm followed him out. He could see what was going on in the mind of the man he knew so well,--the man into whose life no woman had come to torture and disturb till then. "Old man," he said, "if I can be of any----"

Franklin wheeled 'round and put his hand on Malcolm's shoulder. "No, no, my dear chap. You can't help, not even you. Damned fools always pay for their mistakes. So long."

He had been in his room for ten minutes,--walking, walking, with his hands clenched and the fever of love boiling his blood, all alive to the fact that the girl who called herself his wife was, figuratively speaking, in reach of his hungry hand, when someone knocked softly on the door.

"Who is it?"

"I," said Ida Larpent. She shut the door softly behind her. "I want to speak to you."

It was not the first time that she had been in Franklin's own particular room, but heretofore she had seen it with daylight streaming through the portholes. It seemed to be warmer and more intimate and far more suited for her purpose at that quiet hour, lit only by one shaded reading lamp.

There was a curious confidence in her manner which puzzled even Franklin, unversed in the ways and moods of women as he was. She took it for granted that she was welcome, and deliberately looked about for the most comfortable chair in the manner of one who had the right to his room at any time.

"Where would you advise me to sit?" she asked. "I don't mean to criticise or carp when I say that this Holy of Holies of yours is more like the smoking room in a man's club than anything else. It fits your character like a glove, Pelham. But,--I need soft things and cushions, you know. Do what you can for me."

Franklin cleared a sofa of lines of fishing tackle and a double-barrelled gun and collected his only two cushions. "How will this do?" he said, showing no signs of his irritation and impatience at the sight of her.

She placed herself full stretch, worked the cushions into place with her white shoulders and heaved a little sigh of content.

She was too pleased with her lace stockings to hide them.

"May I smoke?"

"I beg your pardon," said Franklin. Good Lord, was she there for the night!

For some few moments she sat in silence looking interestedly about her, with a quiet air of proprietorship. She inhaled two or three mouthfuls of smoke and let it trickle out of her slightly Oriental nostrils. In her dark hair, that was drawn tightly across her forehead, the strange stone glittered. She made an attractive, if somewhat erotic, picture sitting there, so slight and so feminine in her white satin dress cut with impish ability to the very limit of decency. Then she turned amused eyes on Franklin, who was standing watching her, trying to discover what was behind this obviously well-planned visit.

"All men are liars, saith the prophet, and you, my dear Pelham, very palpably hold a diploma in class A." She laughed quietly, rather pleased with her way of breaking the ice.

"Think so?" What on earth did the woman mean?

"You undemonstrative, self-contained men lie far more unsuccessfully than the Latins. One looks for a certain amount of duplicity from them. Their wine and climate and the quickness of their wits makes truthfulness almost impolite. Much the same point of view is held of the Irish, who have an inherent disbelief in the mere truth. The strong streak of Anglo-Saxon in you which gives you a horror of pulling down the fourth wall behind which you hide your sentimentality puts one off. What one takes for honest inarticulation and shyness is really a well-thought-out pose, isn't it? You manage admirably to give the impression of rather aloof integrity, an unexpressed contempt for dodgers. It is historical, all the same, how artfully you can live a double life and achieve a statue in the market-place."

This wordiness bored Franklin. He hated phrase-making. Also it was late and he wanted to go to bed to sleep and be healthy. "The prophet said another good thing," he replied. "Cut the cackle and come to the 'osses. Did you ever hear that?"

She laughed again. "You know that I have a horse or two then?"

"Would you be here if you hadn't?"

"Why shouldn't I have come for the pleasure of being with you, alone?"

"It's very kind of you to put it like that."

Mrs. Larpent flecked away the ash of her cigarette. "Sarcasm doesn't suit you," she said sharply. "If you mean to imply that I am here for money, you are wrong."

"I didn't mean to imply that," said Franklin. "On my honor."

"Thank you," she said, and was silent again. The conscientious beat of the engines made a sort of tune. Then she got up and faced him, dropping artificiality. "Why did you tell me you were married?"

"Ah!" thought Franklin, "it _is_ that, then." He said nothing. He was no match for women.

"Couldn't you have been honest with _me_, of all people? You know my feelings for you. _I_ was above board. Whatever the reason for hatching this extraordinary story I wouldn't have given you away. I would have helped you."

"I can't discuss this with you," said Franklin, "you were at the Vanderdykes. You saw the papers. Beatrix is on the yacht. There it is. I can't see any reason why you should say that she and I are not married."

"Can't you? Haven't I seen you together for the last three days? Wouldn't my eyes be the first to notice any sign of love or affection between you, or even toleration? I came on the yacht expecting to be made to suffer the jealous agony of the damned and I find,--it's easy enough,--that this honeymoon is a farce. You are a bachelor entertaining two duly chaperoned women."

What could Franklin do but lie? "Beatrix is my wife," he said, "and the way in which we treat each other is our affair."

"Oh, no, believe me," said Mrs. Larpent quickly. "That's where you're wrong. I am in this. You were on the verge of loving _me_ before Beatrix cropped up. You may decline to accept this as a fact but I tell you that you were, and I know. You stand there looking at me in amazement because I am not afraid or ashamed to tell the truth. Women are more or less a mystery to you and you've got a rooted idea that we must go through life hiding our souls behind light laughter and lace veils. And so we do until the inevitable hour when we come out into the open to fight for love. This is my hour, Pelham, and I stand in front of you as common and as human as a peasant woman or a squaw."

Her voice shook with emotion and she seemed to Franklin to be taller and more beautiful and more dignified than he had ever seen her. All the same he wished to Heaven that both these women had never come into his life, that he were still a free agent, a mere sportsman, as Beatrix called him so scornfully, the captain of his fate.

"I don't like your talking like this," he said, with a curiously boyish bluntness and awkwardness. "It isn't fair to yourself--or me."

"I'm not thinking altogether about you to-night, my dear. I said that this is my hour, my fight, the moment when I let you see me as I am. Now listen. I overheard your quarrel with Beatrix on deck this afternoon. I deliberately eavesdropped. I don't want to know why you and she are playing this queer game. It doesn't interest me. From the way you kissed her, without loving her in the very least, I saw that what you want is what I want. You are free. I am free. We neither of us owe allegiance to a living creature. I love you. You are the first man who has made me understand the pain and ache of love. I make no bargain. I ask for no bond. I just want you. Take me."

She held out her white arms, with her head thrown back and her lips slightly parted and her eyes half closed. There was something utterly simple and in a way fine about her. It wasn't so much an appeal that she made as an offer of fellowship. Nature spoke in her voice and stood alluring in her presence.

Perhaps because of the subtle sense of isolation that the open sea gives, or of the wonderful silence of the night, or of the overwhelming strength of her desire, Ida Larpent was nearer sincerity in what she said than she had ever been. It wasn't only because she saw a chance to catch Franklin on the rebound that she had gone into his room. She had argued in cold blood that by becoming his mistress she would strengthen her position, put a claim upon his sense of honor and win her way to independence. But under the stress of genuine emotion these sordid calculations lifted like hawks and left her a woman in love, a very woman.

Franklin proved that he was very much of a man. To him love and its rewards were only good if they were won by fighting. They were the spoils of the chase. This inversion of the old right way was distressing, chilling and rather indecent. What to say and how to say it left him wordless. He would rather have found himself facing a lion with two empty barrels. Then he told the truth. "You're very kind," he said. "But I love Beatrix and I'm going to be true to that."

Ida Larpent dropped her arms. Just for an instant the supreme mortification of being turned down put a red mist in front of her eyes. She could have fallen upon Franklin and struck him again and again. Then the sense of self-preservation came to her rescue. Her cunning returned and with it the vista of a doubtful and tricky future. She hid her disappointment and humiliation and impatience behind a perfect piece of acting and told herself that, after all, Franklin was difficult and different because he was a sportsman. She held out her hand and said, in a very sweet voice, "I love you. You know where to find me when you need a friend," and went away quickly before she might be moved to spoil the effect of her lack of drama. She believed that in this way she would win a warm place in Franklin's esteem,--the first step to the goal that she intended to gain by hook or crook,--and she was right.

*XXII*

Beatrix slept too late the following morning to take her usual exercise in the gymnasium. She was called at eight-thirty by Helene, who dared not give her less than half an hour in which to get ready for breakfast at the luxurious hour of nine. It was a delicious morning, with the sea in a very gracious mood, the sky blue and cloudless and a gentle breeze which brought the taste of salt to the lips.

Waking after a dreamless night, Beatrix found the sun pouring through the portholes of her state-room, caught the infection of health and high spirits, sprang out of bed, gave the sturdy Breton a cheery word, went into the bathroom and alternately sang and whistled one of Jerome Kern's catchy little tunes,--while the French girl gave thanks. The world was worth living in when her mercurial-mistress found it so--otherwise death held many charms.

It was an easy matter to dress Beatrix for the morning,--a white silk shirt with a turned down collar, a grey-blue jersey cloth skirt with stockings to match, white shoes with brown strips and a man's tie of blue and white. In these she stood in front of a glass and turned about in careful examination before throwing a little smile of congratulation at herself and her handmaiden. "I don't give a single whoop what the fool fashions may ordain, Helene," she said, "the too short skirt is for Coney Island only and makes women look either comic or pathetic, according to their weight. See that I never have anything shorter than this, won't you?"

Murmuring a suitable reply and blessing her patron saint for the good day, Helene opened the door and Beatrix passed out, touching the girl's cheek with the tips of kindly fingers. "We go ashore to-day," she said, "I will let you know when to pack."

Ah, there was, then, a fly in the amber! Helene gave one of those exquisitely eloquent gestures, that are peculiar to the Latin race, and sat down suddenly, her eyebrows almost lost behind her straight cut fringe. "What a life!" she said, addressing the whole suite. "Joost as we settle and tink to breathe,--up and away. Joost as Mistare Jones breaks his Engleesh ice,--we go. I leave a republic and come to a democracy and I fall into the entourage of a monarch!"

From which it will be seen that Horatio Jones had been playing the sailor again.

And then Beatrix went into the stateroom of Mrs. Lester Keene. "Why, Brownie dear, what's the matter? Have you had a bad night?"

The little lady was sitting up in bed in an early Victorian white linen night dress with a discreet touch of lace about the high neck. Her mousey hair was still done for the night and contained several long brown kid curlers about her forehead. Her face was pale and a little petulant as of one who has a grievance. She might have been one of Cruikshank's drawings come to life.

"I heard every hour strike until five," she said, "and my neuralgia very nearly made me scream."

"Oh, you poor dear old thing. I am sorry! Why didn't you come and call me? I don't know what I could have done but at any rate I could have listened to your tale of woe and it always does one good to keep someone else awake when one can't sleep, doesn't it?"

She bent over the devoted companion and put her head gently against her breast as if it were the head of a child.

"Oh dear, oh dear," whimpered Mrs. Keene, "I shall never be able to get up in time for breakfast and I do so hate being unpunctual."

"Don't worry, dear little Brownie. I tell you what. You and I will have breakfast here. Shall we? I want to talk to you about a most important thing and afterwards you shall have a little sleep and then Helene shall dress you. What do you say?"

"Dear Beatrix, you're very kind. I should like nothing better, but----"

"Don't but. No sooner said than done," and Beatrix rang for a stewardess. "Now, here are your dressing gown and slippers. Jump,--that is, struggle out of bed and I'll have you all ready by the time breakfast comes."

Mrs. Keene's attack of neuralgia had been very painful. She had really heard several hours slip by, but, for the pleasure and ego-warming of having Beatrix wait upon her and say kind things she would most willingly have undergone twice the pain and almost total sleeplessness. Beatrix knew this. Without conceit or the smallest suggestion of inflated vanity, she was aware of the fact that she was making her little old friend and flatterer quite happy. Her training among sycophants had made her an expert in playing upon the feelings of those about her. The unbelievable and unhealthy wealth which had placed a golden halo round her head had cultivated in her the gift, peculiar to Royalty, of dealing out easily given favors, little acts of kindness which bound her subjects more closely. This dangerous knowledge acquired as a child made her as dexterous in striking answering notes as though she were a professional pianist. Her instrument was temperament and she was a past-mistress in reading character.

The stewardess took the order, hurried to carry it out, and presently found "Mrs. Franklin" arranging her companion among many cushions on a sofa near the table. A message had been sent to the major-domo that the two ladies would be absent from the dining-saloon.

"Well," said Beatrix, pouring out tea, "well, Brownie, and how do you like the sea?"

Mrs. Keene had removed her curlers and so had regained her sense of propriety. Curlers somehow stood to her as very intimate things. She felt in them as most nice women do when they are caught by men with their hair down. "My dear, I shall never be anything but scared to death away from land. This is a very beautiful yacht, of course, with every modern convenience and invention, but I dread to think what might happen to her in a storm. I am sure that I shall not be well again until I put my foot on solid earth."

Beatrix gave a rather excited laugh. "Then you will be well again this afternoon," she said.

Mrs. Keene turned eagerly. "You don't mean that we are going to land, that this dreadful cruise is coming to an end _this afternoon_?"

"Oh, yes, I do."

"But, Mr. Franklin? Has he----?"