Chapter VIII: Part 8

The night was warm and windless. When Beatrix rose from the table she went on deck and sat where she could listen to the orchestra. She asked the leader to play three pieces for her,--the strange mixture of which made him smile. They were Brahms' "Minnelied," "I Love a Piano," and "Lead, Kindly Light." Franklin, believing that she had had enough of him for the time being, went off to smoke a cigar with McLeod. As soon as the little band finished playing and went to dinner Beatrix walked aft to where, about thirty feet from the stern, a heavy canvas screen ran 'thwartships from one side of the yacht to the other, shutting off the deck space allotted to the crew. In this a fiddle and a mouth organ were playing one of those heavily sentimental vaudeville songs about home and mother, and several voices were harmonizing the air rather well. The owner of the falsetto with a pronounced tremulo Beatrix imagined to be a very tall, soft-looking, fat man with a beard which grew almost up to his eyes. She was right. He was the butt of the crew until he opened his mouth to sing. Presently the music changed to an Irish reel and Beatrix saw Horatio Jones with an almost smoked cigarette in his mouth come out, as though drawn by a magnet, or the reed instrument of the Pied Piper, and with droll solemnity proceed, all alone, into an orgy of toe and heel with his back to her.

Seeing her chance Beatrix slipped nearer and stood smiling. "Very nice," she said, when the dancer wound up with a resounding double smack.

Mr. Jones was disconcerted, not in being caught in his ecstatic solo, which he was quite ready to repeat, but because he had his cap on the wrong way round and was wearing his second-best monkey jacket. Being a complete lady's man he was naturally a conceited person and nothing put him out so much as to be taken unprepared. He grinned fatuously and put his cap on correctly.

"It must have taken a long time to become so proficient," she went on, giving him a dazzling smile.

"Oh, well, y'see, mam, my mother was a pro-dancer in her young days and I caught it from 'er, I expect."

"That's very interesting. Tell me about it, Mr. Jones." She began to pace the deck.

Jones fell in step, surreptitiously mopping his neck with his handkerchief. This was the moment of his life. During other cruises he had often had pleasant chats with Franklin and his friends who found him and his cockney accent rather amusing, but he had never hoped to do more than pass the time of day with this proud girl. He was on his best Sunday behavior.

"Me father went down to the sea in ships, the same as all me family," he said, with what he believed to be a certain amount of style. "At the time he met mother he was skipper of the _Princess Mary_, carryin' passengers from London to Margit, a seaside resort on the Kent coast of the old country."

"I know it," said Beatrix, who remembered without the least pleasure its ugly pier, stiff promenade, and heterogeneous mass of trippers.

"Is that so, mam? Ah, some little old place! I give you _my_ word. Well, dad catches sight of mother sunnin' herself on deck and as he use ter say, she stopped 'is watch, which is slang fer love at first glance. Bein' skipper and all like that naturally she was a bit bucked up when he spoke and asked if she was comfortable. That began it and instead of stayin' at Margit she made the return trip the next day, 'ad a fish supper along of father at the Anchor Hotel and was spliced up before the end of the week."

"Very romantic," said Beatrix, "and what then?"

"Well," said Jones, with a little laugh, "then there was me, the first of nine, and mother give up 'er terpsichorean career, so ter speak."

"But she taught you all to dance?"

"Yes, mam, and the last time I saw the old man was at a concert in aid of the orphans of seamen at Barking Creek and me and me brothers and sisters, with mother in the middle, give an exhibition of fancy dancin' and I wish you could 'ave seen the old man's face. He died shortly after that."

"I'm sorry," said Beatrix, wondering whether he meant from the effects of that evening.

"Thank you, mam, but he 'ad the satisfaction of seein' his five sons well placed at sea and his gals doin' fine business on the 'alls as 'The Four Delantys,' and very, very 'ot stuff too, I give you _my_ word."

"How splendid. You must be very proud to belong to such a family. I'll get you to tell me some more about this romantic love match while we're out."

"Any time, mam, with pleasure," and then with great style the man, who was as good a sailor as he was a dancer, saluted. Evidently he was to be dismissed. "Well, as I said before, she can 'ave _me_," he said to himself as pleased as Punch.

"Have you to be up early in the morning?"

"Yes, mam, five o'clock. We heave to for a couple of hours for me to go ashore with the mail and pick up the papers and magazines."

Beatrix nearly jumped out of her skin. He was going ashore! Here was her chance without taking this man into her confidence or bribing him to disobey possible orders. "I'll be up at five too," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "You shall take me with you. Mr. Franklin has a birthday to-morrow and you solve the problem of how I can get something for him, as a little surprise."

"Very glad, I'm sure," said Mr. Jones.

"Good night, then. Be sure you don't go without me. I won't keep you waiting."

She was far too excited to go to sleep and lay for an hour making plans and already revelling in her triumph over Franklin. She had told the stewardess to call her at half-past four. It would be easy to telephone to the town where Brownie and Mrs. Larpent would have to spend the night and after all she would have her motor tour. She would leave the baggage on the yacht. What did it matter? Life was very good,--and her little lie about Franklin's birthday was brilliant!

She heard Franklin striding up and down the deck like a sentry. It made her feel even more like a prisoner than ever.

Only Franklin and the watching stars knew who was the real prisoner, sentenced for life to a love that set a hitherto untouched heart into a great blaze.

The morning was dull and leaden and windless, the sea as flat as the palm of a hand. Dressed and ready in good time and wearing a most amazing smile, Beatrix slipped out of her stateroom and over to the port side. Mr. Jones was waiting in the small launch, talking to one of the sailors. She was going to escape from her floating jail, yes, escape. How she would love to be able to see Franklin's face when she didn't turn up for breakfast.

And then her arm was seized in an iron grip. "No, you don't. Believe me, no."

It was Franklin, with an overcoat over his dinner jacket. He had obviously not been to bed.

She drew up and tried to bluff. "I'm only going to ring up Mrs. Keene and tell her----"

"Go back to your room!"

"But I must give her instructions as to what----"

"Go back to your room, I tell you."

She stamped her foot. This man was unendurable,--and his hand hurt her arm. "What is all this? Do you suppose that I'm going to take orders from you?"

"Jones, get off," he shouted, "and don't hold us up longer than you need."

"Aye, aye, sir," answered the dancing sailor, who wished he could have heard what had been said.

"As to taking orders from me, yes, from now onwards. Breakfast is at nine," and he gave her back her arm and turned away.

Beatrix put her hand over her mouth to gag a scream of anger. But she would make him pay for this, with the other debts. She would indeed. If Mr. Jones couldn't be worked upon again, there were the first officer and the Captain,--and they, unlike this cold-blooded bully, were men.

*XXIX*

It had been a queer day for Franklin.

Beginning with anger it gradually led him into a dozen other emotions,--a reluctant admiration for the cunning way in which Beatrix had been going to take advantage of Horatio Jones; amusement when she didn't appear for breakfast and he thought that she was sulking; loneliness when tea-time came and there was still no sign of her; finally fright, sheer, honest fright when he discovered at sun-down that she had not rung for the stewardess during the whole of the day.

He sent for the stewardess. "Why do you suppose Mrs. Franklin hasn't needed you?" he asked.

"I don't know, I'm sure, sir." The woman was evidently worried too. She fingered her apron nervously.

"When were you in her room last?"

"At half-past eight, sir."

"Well?"

"Well, sir, I called Mrs. Franklin at four-thirty this morning----"

"Yes, I know."

"And I went in again as usual at half-past eight to see what I could do to help in any way and Mrs. Franklin had gone back to bed, sir."

"Go on."

"Well, sir, I hung about for a few minutes and then Mrs. Franklin half woke up and said: 'I'm tired, don't come again until I ring.'"

"You're quite sure she hasn't rung?"

"Yes, sir. I've never left my cabin,--had my meals brought there, sir, in case----"

"I see. Thank you." He opened the door for the sturdy little woman who seemed to have caught his anxiety, and then killed the longest half an hour that he remembered ever to have spent. Was Beatrix in her stateroom? Had she by any chance got away? That was absurd. How could she with officers and crew about all day? Naturally she was tired, having been up so early, but why stay in bed for so many hours? Her vitality and love of movement, her constant desire to do things and take exercise, her homogeneous nature which led her to talk to all and sundry made it impossible for her either to wake or sleep for such a long time. She must be ill! Yes, that was it. She had fainted or done one of the queer things that he had heard of women doing. The stewardess must see her at once. Why? She was no use. For one thing she stood in awe of this girl who gave such definite orders and saw that they were observed. For another she was rough and untrained and probably incompetent and like all her countrywomen sensational. She might scream or something.... For Heaven's sake what was he to do?

With all his nerves jangling like a bunch of telegraph wires in a gale he went aft. The sun had gone. It was almost dark. One star had come up, the outpost of the night. There was, he saw, no light in her suite. He stood at her door, irresolute, with the hand of fright on his heart. He was homesick for the sight of her and the sound of her voice, even if it should be cold and antagonistic, or mocking and scornful. He felt oddly and strangely young and lonely and worried, afraid of some intangible thing. Suppose she had done something----

He couldn't bear the thought. He opened her door, shut it and went in and stood in the dark. It was the sitting-room. On the table in the middle there was a reading lamp. He groped about and found it and turned it up. There was a book on the floor, open face down, its leaves all bent under. It must have been flung there. A soft, black hat was lying up against the wall. It looked hurt. And everywhere there was the subtle influence of scent.

He went across to the bedroom door, hesitated, turned the handle and went in.

By the light from the sitting-room door, he could see the bed. The blankets had been flung back and under a sheet Beatrix lay, her cheek on one hand, the other soft and flaccid, palm-up, on the cover. A great fan of golden hair covered the pillow. She was lying on her side like a child with her knees drawn up and one bare shoulder gleaming.

The eternal yearning of Nature made Franklin want to cry out at the sight of her. He stood humble, inarticulate, bewitched. The room seemed to be filled with the sound of sweet, far-away voices.

He went forward and bent over her, listening to her breathing. It was agony to be so near and so far away. After a moment she laughed softly and stirred like a waking flower and drew up her hand and moved it lazily as if trying to catch the figure of sleep that was turning to go.

He drew back quickly, panting.

"Is that you, Brownie dear? Oh-ho, I've had such a lovely rest. I've been lying all among buttercups and clover far, far away from the sea. It's good to be on land again and hear the birds sing and watch the grasses nod." She turned over and stretched and gave a long sigh and opened her eyes. Then she looked about astonished and sat up quickly, startled.

"Who's there?" Her voice was sharp and frightened.

"Me," said Franklin.

"You!" She put her hands over her breasts.

"I'm sorry. I thought you were ill." How tame it sounded!

"Ill? Why?"

"It's late and you haven't rung for the stewardess all day. I wondered if anything was the matter. So I came in. That's all. Can I do anything for you?"

"Only--go," she said.

And so he turned and went out and strode forward and stood hatless under the sky. Other stars had come. The line of horizon had become merged into the darkness. The breeze left the taste of salt on his parched lips. The eternal yearning grew in the silence and the call of Nature seemed to echo through the world. Everything that was true and clean and honest in him answered to it. All his dreams as a boy and a youth, vague, unremembered; all the sudden, surprising elations that had swept over him at the sight, perhaps, of a priceless view of open country, the misty interior of an old Cathedral, the appeal of a throbbing melody, took shape and became the lovely body of that sleeping girl. He had never understood so definitely, so conclusively, so permanently, that in Beatrix was the epitome of all his hopes.

She dined in her own room that night and had breakfast sent to her in the morning. Franklin hung about near her stateroom in the hope of seeing her. He could hear her singing as he passed and talking to the little Irish woman, but at twelve o'clock there was still no sign of her on deck. He was just going along to the Captain's room in order to talk and be talked to when the stewardess came and gave him a note. He took it and blushed like a school-boy and carried it down to his own room.

It had no conventional beginning. It plunged straight to the point. "I'm not sulking, which would be human enough, or suffering from shock, which would be reasonable under the circumstances. I'm thinking and weighing things up. I've told the stewardess that I've got neuralgia so that the people of your small kingdom may not run away with the notion that their rulers have had a wordy argument. I may inflict myself upon you for lunch if by that time I have found the way out of my mental maze. If not, you may be alone in all your glory for days,--weeks perhaps."

It ended as abruptly as it began.

Days,--weeks perhaps!

*XXX*

Having written the note, Beatrix proceeded to dress for lunch.

It was altogether a new thing to be without a maid and a companion. Never once in all her life, not even at school, had she been permitted to raise a finger for herself. Helene and Mrs. Lester Keene would have stood aghast and imagined that the end of the world was at hand if they could have seen her that morning doing her hair, putting on her shoes and choosing a frock. She did these things without assistance from the stewardess, who stood by impotent and uneasy, because she enjoyed the experience as a deviation from the regular routine of her life and found plenty to laugh at in her ridiculous inexpertness. It was a game and after her orgy of sleep she felt so electrically fit and vital as to be ready to play at anything, especially if it was new.

It was true that she had been thinking. Sitting like a tailor on her bed, with her hair in a flood about her shoulders, she had gone over the last two incidents of this queer honeymoon trip with great care. She was astonished, and even a little uneasy, to find that she was beginning to look at the whole business from a new angle. She discovered, after an honest examination, that the mere romantic side of this kidnapping expedition, as she called it, no longer interested her, nor its unconventionality, either, although she chuckled to think of the mistaken complacency of her family in aiding and abetting Franklin to commit a breach that was without a parallel in the history of American society: It was enough to make a cat laugh. What it seemed to her to lack was the element of personal danger which had made the episode in her bedroom a very real fright. There was, it seemed to her, no red blood in the business, no flare of sex. Franklin was either the most cold-blooded man imaginable or a past master of the art of hiding his feelings.

This was what she wanted to find out. Her thinking led her up to the fact that her interest and curiosity were centered on this one point. She was perfectly frank in acknowledging to herself that her vanity was piqued. All other men, except Malcolm, who, after all, was not so much a man as a poet, had made it plain that they were men. Her femininity had triumphed. But with Franklin it was different. Was it possible that the more he was with her the less he was attracted? Here was something on which to concentrate and use her wits.

It was, therefore, with the excitement of having found something to do, a new game to play at, a new chapter to begin, that she dressed for lunch. The muddle in which she left her stateroom,--skirts that she had looked at, considered and discarded, stockings and shoes all over the floor, shirts and ties all chaotic in the drawers,--was a sight to see.

Only a few minutes late, she swung into the dining-saloon, fresh and sweet, dancing-eyed and vital, ready to seize the first chance of putting Franklin to a new test.

He had none of the look of a man who had been up all night, tortured by a desire that had kept him pacing the hours away beneath a supremely indifferent moon. He had just come in from a swim. His body, having been exercised, was grateful and in fine fettle. His skin was burned a deeper brown. He was as hard as nails. He had not expected to see her, but from force of habit had waited in case she should come.

"Good morning," she said, cheerily.

"Good morning." He was cheery, too.

"You've waited for me, I see."

"Of course. I hoped you'd come."

"You say that as if you meant it."

"I do mean it."

"So bored that you can even put up with me?"

"I'm never bored at sea."

Her laugh rang out. "I gave you a perfect chance to say something nice," she said.

"I'm not much of a hand at saying nice things."

"I notice that."

Franklin let the challenge go. He had never felt it more necessary to keep a gag in his mouth. The things that were on the tip of his tongue to say were too primeval to put into words.

"Have you missed me?"

"We've all missed you."

"I asked if _you'd_ missed me?"

"Yes."

"All right, my friend," she thought, "wait a bit."

She gave a nod and a smile to the stewards and ate with such excellent appetite that their efforts were well rewarded. The sun was cheerful, the saloon was cheerful, the stewards quick and willing, and Franklin,--yes, Franklin was certainly a very good-looking person. Bother the yacht, and her people and what had happened to Brownie, and the loss of a maid! Life was full of fun.

"The other day you said something about a fishing trip."

"Yes, I know."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, I'd arranged with McLeod to go off on the big launch for three days but----"

"But what?"

"It's not much fun going alone."

Here was her first chance. "Take _me_," she cried, leaning forward. "I'd love to go. I've never fished, but you could teach me."

Franklin looked at her sharply to see if she were joking. But her expression was that of a child eager for adventure. "But the launch has no cabin," he said, "and we sleep under a hood hauled over her."

This was wonderful,--a test, indeed. She pressed the point eagerly. "Why not? I don't mind roughing it. I don't mind anything if it has compensations. Come out and talk it over."

Franklin followed her. She was leaning against the rail with the breeze in her hair and the sunlight on her shoulders. What if he fell in with her impetuous wish? Jones and one of the crew would sleep, as usual, up in the peak and he and she must lie almost side by side under the awning in the stern.

"Please don't make difficulties," she said. "Let me have my own way just for once."

He could have yelled with laughter. Confound it, the girl was having her own way all the time, except in unessential things.

"There are various degrees of roughing it," he said, cursing his conscience.

"Yes, but if I don't mind,--if I want to?"

"Have a look at the launch, and then think."

"I'm tired of thinking. Arrange it,--please arrange it." She didn't want in the least to go, and she knew better than he did how absurd the idea was. But here was a chance to force him out of inarticulation, to see his self-composure crumble and break.

"Three days out. Hardly room to swing a cat. Two men with us----"

Beatrix gave an impatient sigh. "I wish to heaven I wasn't a girl," she said, and waited expectantly.

It was no good. Franklin's hot words were choked back. He didn't know the Eden game that she was playing and would be hanged before he would give himself away to be laughed at.

And so the moment passed.

She walked up and down with him for an hour, laughing and talking. He was amazed to find that she was more friendly and charming than ever before and that her sleep seemed to have removed from her mind all trace of resentment. "Let's talk young stuff," she said. "What we believe in, what we think we might do to solve all the problems of the world and all that, shall we? It's awfully good to get on a high horse every now and then and sweep away institutions with a phrase, knock down old laws with a well-aimed verb, and topple big men out of their places with the tip of a toe."

And they did so in the old-new way of youth, saying things earnestly, with the air of prophets, that had been labelled unpractical before they were born; letting their tongues run away with them as far as they could before they limped and halted; listening to each other with their eyes while getting the next outburst ready in their brains. And after awhile, as usual, they steered into personalities, likes and dislikes and mutual friends.

"And what do you think of Ida Larpent?" Beatrix asked suddenly.

"Very attractive, but----"

"But better as somebody else's dinner partner?"

"Oh, no," said Franklin. "She made the average dinner bearable. She's in a class of her own,--beautiful, well-travelled, tremendously all there, and awfully good fun to take about."

"Take about?" Her eyebrows went up. "Did you take her about? But perhaps that's rather an indiscreet question?"

"Not a bit. When I was in town some months ago, bored stiff,--all my pals being away,--she was a real good sort and we did the rounds,--everything except the Opera--which seemed to be having an orgy of Wagner, and I can't stand that over-exuberant German. I did a cycle of him once in London and it seemed to me that if he'd had the sense and honesty to scrap sixty per cent of his stuff there would have been enough over for two very decent operas. What do you think?"

She said something to keep the ball going but nothing of what she thought. So he could own to having been so attracted by Ida Larpent as to take her about night after night, but when it came to her, Beatrix, he could remain perfectly normal.

And again she thought: "All right, my friend, wait a bit." If she couldn't compete with Ida Larpent--good Lord!

But no, even under the rankle of this new thing, and even though she went to dinner that night in a mood as daring and devil-may-care as her dress and stood looking out at the star-bespattered sky for a long time with her arm through his, he remained brotherly. In fact, and in not seeing it her observation was uncharacteristically out of form,--her new delightful treatment of him made him very happy and contented. She was so charming and natural and breezy. She never once laughed at him or held him up to ridicule. He could almost persuade himself that they were really on a honeymoon, except when a whiff of scent bewildered his senses or the gleam of her whiteness made his heart tumble.

And so it went on for several apparently uneventful days,--days full of sun and health and simple confidences, of wide, gorgeous views of sea and sky, of all the exquisite coloring of sunrise and sunset, and of the sweet singing of far-away voices. It was to bed that she took her growing pique; in the quiet of her own room that she asked herself, like the spoiled child that she was, what was the matter with this man. Under normal conditions, if they had been, perhaps, members of a house-party, she would have liked him extremely. He had greatly improved on acquaintance. He was something more than a sportsman. He had imagination, idealism, extraordinary simplicity and even a touch,--odd as she found it in his type,--of spirituality. It came out in his deep appreciation of Nature and love of melody. Why didn't he find her attractive,--even as attractive as Ida Larpent?

Only the nights were permitted by Franklin to see the strength of his desire, the torture of his passion; and these he killed and wore away by pacing interminably up and down, throwing himself on his bed finally tired out mentally and physically.

Very soon the game lost its novelty. Getting nothing to appease her vanity Beatrix gave it up. Once more the monotony of the sea bored her, the sensation of being tied by the leg got on her nerves. Franklin said a rather impatient thing one morning in reply to a sarcastic remark of hers and before she could stop herself and remember to stick to her pose of complete indifference she put her hand imploringly on his arm and burst into an intense and genuine appeal. "Well, let's end it," she begged. "Nothing can come of all this, nothing at all. You're only dodging the issue, really you are. Don't let's play the fool any longer. The more you try to force me to agree to your plan the harder I shall fight. Don't you know me yet? I'm built like that. I can't help it. Oh, do be sane about it and come down to facts. We shall both grow old and grey on this prison ship because I'll never give in, never. It isn't that I don't think you're right. You are. I'll concede that. We ought to marry and settle the whole trouble. It's the easiest way. But I've said I won't, and I won't. I tell you I won't. I know I'm a fool. I know I'm pig-headed. I know I deserve to be made to pay. But you can't alter me now. It's too late. So let me off and I'll take my punishment and the whole thing will blow over. People's memories are short and every day, every hour other scandals come up, are talked about and forgotten. Pelham, will you please be good and let me go?"

All this came with a rush. Her voice was soft and winning, her eyes full of tears, her hand warm and sweet upon his arm. But every word that she said, every look that she gave him, every touch of appeal that came into her voice made her more and more valuable as the prize of his life, and the sight of her tears, especially the sight of her tears, steeled him to stick to his job to the very end. All her spoiling, all the falsity of her training, all the grotesque power of the wealth with which she had always been surrounded, had not completely changed her from the little girl whom Malcolm had painted in his never-to-be-forgotten picture, and of whom he had himself seen glimpses.

"No," he said. "I'm as pig-headed as you are. I don't care if we do grow old and grey on this yacht. You've got to marry me."

Beatrix drew back. She was cold and angry and bitterly annoyed with herself for having asked once more for mercy. "All right," she said. "Then the fight goes on, and I give you warning that I shall use any weapons, fair or unfair, that I can find."

Before she could turn away and hide the marks of her tears, Captain McLeod came up. She smiled and gave him a cheery word. It was admirably and characteristically well done.

"McLeod," said Franklin quietly. "Tell Jones to get the big launch fixed up right away. He's to come with me on the fishing trip."

Beatrix left them to talk over the arrangements. What did she care where he went? He could go to the devil if he liked. She whistled as she moved away but her eyes were black with rage. This man who had the temerity, the impudence not only to stand up to her but to set himself to bend her to his will should see now of what sort of stuff she was made. Up to that very moment, in the face of everything that he had done, she had not cared to believe that this struggle of wills, this clash of temperaments, was worth taking with real seriousness. She had dodged it, laid it aside, treated it as half a joke, believed that if she really exerted herself it could be brought to a quick and definite end. She had not taken the trouble to rouse herself fully and set her wits at work to get away from the yacht. The pleasure of playing with fire was too great. She really had wished to see how far Franklin would go. But now, having humbled herself again and been turned down, she went round another mental corner. Her interest and curiosity in the affair had come suddenly to an end. What did it matter in what way her family would presently revenge themselves? _This_,--this business,--was insufferable. To be dictated to, coerced, compelled, driven,--good Heavens, it was not to be endured. From that moment she would set herself to outwit him, humiliate him and laugh in his face. The work that she had begun with Mr. Jones in a half-hearted way would now, of course, count for nothing. He was going with Franklin. But there remained Captain McLeod and the first officer, and she would have three days. Revolutions had been brought about in less time than that, and she had smiled other men, including Franklin, into her service.

She went to the glass in her stateroom and rubbed away the marks of her tears with impatience and scorn. Then she stood back so that she could see the full length of her figure and took stock, measured herself up, made a cool and keen examination. Finally, having turned this way and that, she nodded at her reflection with approval. "Fair or unfair,--we'll see," she said. "There are the Captain and the first officer."

And then, smiling again and happy in having come at last to a conclusion, she changed into gym kit and in five minutes was perched up on the wooden horse, riding hell for leather.

*XXXI*

There, half an hour later, Franklin found her.

The horse was motionless. She was sitting side saddle with one slim leg crossed over the other, her arms folded over her young breasts. She was in deep thought but there was a little smile of excitement round her mouth which, if Franklin had known it as well as Brownie did, would have put him instantly on his guard. Things happened when Beatrix smiled like that.

The port-holes were open and several round patches of sunlight made pools upon the floor. One had fastened upon the blue silk bathrobe which Beatrix had thrown off. The sea was as smooth as the waters of a lake and but for the busy song of the engines the yacht might have been lying against a quay.

Franklin pulled up at the door. He had come up quietly and unnoticed. He held his breath and stood looking, with a curious mixture of homage and ire, at this mere kid, as she seemed to him to be, this girl-child perched up on that toy horse like a fairy on a toadstool, lost in a day-dream. He asked himself, in amazement, what magic there was all about her that had swung him out of his course, put a new beat into his heart, that could turn him hot and cold, churn him into a desire that was at times almost beyond human endurance,--which had put a reason and a meaning into life that startled and surprised, laid enchantment upon him, made him wretched and angry and eager, feel like a king and a clown in quick succession.

For the first time since he had met her he had caught her unawares, quiet. It was extraordinary. This was not the young hedgehog, with all her defenses pointed, the immature woman of complete sophistication, ready at any moment to smile and answer back, to hide behind a manner, to dart out with a flash of wit, to mock, to wheedle, to inspire, to anger. This was Eve in exile, the original woman come upon suddenly alone in a glade, away from any glistening pool in which she could watch the reflection of her face and gleaming body, from any Adam upon whom to try her wiles. This was Beatrix, herself, at last.

Franklin moved to go. He felt like Peeping Tom at the top window of that house in Coventry from which he gloated upon the beauty of Godiva "clothed on in Chastity." It was unfair, almost indecent, it seemed to him, to take advantage of this lovely chameleon in her original color. And as he moved she heard him and changed.

"Hello, Strong Man," she cried out, slipping from the horse. "What's the latest?" Her expression was impudent, her friendliness an audacity.

Franklin leaned against the door. He had never supposed that a time would ever come when he would be obliged to play-act. "I've cut the fishing trip for to-day," he said, as though he were talking to a young sister. "Jones has damaged his hand and as he's the only man I care to take, the thing's off."

"Oh, poor Mr. Jones!"

"You implied just now that you were bored stiff with the yacht."

"Fed up, I meant to say, which is several degrees worse."

"What about coming out on the small launch and having lunch on one of the islands westward?"

Beatrix picked up her bath-robe and swung it round her shoulders. "It sounds too good to be true," she said, without enthusiasm. "Thank you."

Franklin blocked the door. She was in his blood. "Good God," he cried, all out of control, "why don't you smash that damned shell and be yourself all the time?"

She raised her eyebrows and swung a tassel round and round. "You don't like my shell, then?"

"I loathe it!"

"Well, nobody asked you to do anything else, you know."

Her iciness and savoir faire, the fearless way in which she stood up to him, the utter indifference to his opinion one way or the other on any mortal subject crushed his passion as effectively as a snuffer on the flame of a candle. He stood aside to let her pass.

But she had seen the sudden blaze in his eyes. It was not to be missed. She mistook it for the sort of passion that she had unconsciously roused in Sutherland York and used her wits to quell. There had been none of this, to her way of thinking, in the kisses that Franklin had snatched. They were merely to show her that he was owner. She had never conceived it possible that this inarticulate man could love her. He made it too obvious that she fell far short of his ideal. But she had now at last caught the desired glimpse of that side of his character that she had been working to find. He was not then so supremely self-composed as he made himself out to be. He had shown her, in a flash,--and she got this with a great throb of feminine triumph,--that however well he had believed in the truth of his scornful statement as to the huts on the desert island when he had made it, he would lie if he repeated it now.

And with this balm to the wound in her vanity, which had never healed, she passed him. He lived as a man again for the first time since the bedroom incident,--and she liked him for it. She got this too, as she went off to her suite, and it came on top of her determination to fight "fair or unfair," as something of a shock. To begin to like him when she ought to detest him most!--"Good Lord," she said to herself as she dressed to go out in the launch, with greater pains than usual, "what a mass of contradictions you are, my child. What are you _really_, I wonder?--and how will all this end?"

Franklin went slowly across to the port-side, disheartened and depressed. "What the devil's the use of me? Every time I open my mouth it makes everything more hopeless. I'm as bad as a bull in a china shop. I'd better let her go and chuck the whole blessed thing and, after all, is there any gold to dig out or has it all turned to brass? I'll be hanged if I know."

*XXXII*

There was a certain amount of bustle going on. The yacht had found an anchorage. The small launch had been let down. A steward handed over a lunch basket to Jones, who was "willing" hard to be taken along. Men moved at the double in the execution of their duties. The first officer stood by with a watchful eye. He had made a small bet with Jones that he would be left behind.

It was midday and very warm. There was not enough wind to tease a curl. When Beatrix appeared, in the fewest possible clothes, she was followed by the stewardess carrying a sort of mackintosh bag in which were a bathing dress, a tin of powder, a brush and comb, and so forth.

"Back about five," said Franklin.

The first officer saluted. "Very good, sir. Keep an eye on the weather. It looks like a change to me."

"All right."

Franklin got into the launch and handed Beatrix aboard. "You're taking a coat, aren't you?"

"No," said Beatrix. "Why? It's lovely and warm."

"I'd like you to."

She smiled up at him and shook her head. She held the cards now.

Franklin caught the eye of the precocious Jones and jerked his thumb towards the yacht. The first officer grinned to see him nip aboard. A dollar had its uses but it was well worth ten to see Jones squashed.

Away went the launch, the happy pair in the stern, the white silk shirt and red tie of the girl standing out against the water, the midday sun beating down from a cloudless sky on the trim and glossy boat. Franklin turned his head over his shoulder, and waved his left hand at the Captain. The pit-pit of the motor awoke echoes.

"Owe you a bloomin' dollar," said Jones, with a touch of temper.

The first officer let his laugh go.

The Captain left the bridge, went along to his quarters, took off his coat, lit a cigar and sat down to write to his wife. It was not his day for writing, but on his brain there was a very charming picture of a girl in a white silk shirt and a red tie.

Beatrix crossed her legs and drew in a long breath. "The prisoner goes for an airing," she said.

The chameleon had changed color again. Franklin caught her sunny mood with eagerness. "Glad to get off?"

"Oh, goodness, yes! I feel like the man who after living at the Plaza for a year sneaked into Child's for his meals. Anything for a change. Which island are you making for?"

Franklin pointed. "That one. It has a natural landing-place, enough shade----"

"A good place to bathe from?"

"But you're not going to bathe, are you?"

"Oh, yes, I am! There are my things. Have you got yours?"

"Yes, they're in the locker."

"I shall simply adore to swim. If you'd been any sort of a husband you'd have seen to it before." She shot this out without thinking. Her spirits were too high to bother about anything that he might say. She had forgotten for the time being that he was a man.

"Being your sort of husband," he blurted out, "I keep all suggestions to myself."

She gave one quick look at him. Yes, she held the cards now, all of them. There would be no more monotony from day to day. This man was coming through, like a negative in course of development. She would be able to play with him as a cat plays with a mouse, make him pay over and over again for having hurt her so deeply, and as soon as it suited her bring him to the point of being willing and anxious to let her go, getting nothing from her.

She sat back and smiled. How infinitely satisfactory it was to resume her place in the world and in her own esteem! It wasn't her fault if everybody had spoiled her. It was theirs. The point was, was she worth spoiling? And for Franklin to say yes,--Franklin who had fought so hard to wear a mask and had played the tyrant with such success,--that was good hearing!

"What time do you propose having lunch?" she asked, after a long and happy silence.

"Any time you like."

"Do you mean that?"

He looked astonished. "Yes, of course."

"I ask because it will take time for me to get used to your showing me any consideration," she said, with the imp back on her shoulder. "Your iron hand has almost cowed me. You have nearly broken my spirit. I am a humble creature now, grateful for crumbs of kindness."

Franklin threw back his head and laughed until the tears came into his eyes.

"What's the matter?" she asked, gravely.

He turned and looked her full in the face. "The devil was somewhere about when you were born," he said. "I wish to Heaven we were back in the good old days when men could beat their women without fear of police and suffrage and all the silly stuff that protects you against your proper treatment."

Before she could answer he stopped the engine and ran the launch alongside a low ridge of rock, sprang out, helped her up, jammed a pin into a cleft and fastened the painter to it.

She stood up in front of him, proud and glorious in her youth and beauty. "Well, here we are on your desert island," she said. "Beat me. Why don't you?"

For a moment he said nothing. He ran his eyes over her,--golden hair, flower-like face, eyes in which there was a lurking laugh, lovely slim body. "I almost think you're not worth it," he said.

Almost!--how foolish of him to say that. One day soon he should withdraw not only the almost but the whole remark, on his knees,--and be left there, like a fool.

"May I have that little bag, please?" she asked, sweetly.

He hiked it out and gave it to her.

"You know the island, don't you?"

"Every inch of it."

"Where do you propose that I shall undress?"

"Come along and I'll show you." He started off, clambering over the brown rocks.

She followed to a place about a hundred yards away,--a sort of cave on a tiny spread of beach. "Oh, how perfectly delightful," she cried. "Built for bathing, isn't it?"

"Don't go in before I come back. There's a strong undertow here. Sing out when you're ready," and away he went.

Beatrix chose a dry spot on the sand and without a second's hesitation sat down and started to untie her shoes. She longed to get into the sea, to enjoy the exhilaration of exercise, to feel the warm sun on her wet limbs and be a child of Nature. Franklin might talk as glibly as he liked about the good old days but he was a sportsman. She had no fear.

He hadn't long to wait. He got into his bathing things and had only taken two puffs of a cigarette before he heard her call. Once more he climbed over and down the rocks,--stopped for a moment and drew in his breath at the sight of her,--and then went on.

She waved her hand. She was standing ankle-deep in the sea with a red rubber cap drawn tightly over her hair, without stockings and in a suit that looked like a boy's. "Delicious," she called out.

It was the very word he had already discovered.

And in they tumbled, laughing and splashing, like children. "Let's dry in the sun," she said coming out breathlessly, her face and arms glistening, the wet suit as tight as a black skin. She sat down and peeled off the rubber cap and shook her hair free. "This is the best thing I've done for months."

He stood a few yards away and threw pebbles into the sea. He felt awfully young and fit. It was almost as good as dreaming to be out there, like that, with _her_. He chucked as hard as he could, with all his force, competing against each good shot. "How about that?" he cried out, with a laugh.

Beatrix looked at him. She had merely accepted him before. He was like the bronze figure of "The Runner" come to life, with his small head and broad, deep chest, hard muscular arms, clean, hipless lines, tremendous strength. The sight of him gave her a sudden, unexplainable sense of shyness. She tried to shake it off. It was disconcerting and foolish.

He flung himself down and began to babble to her, pouring sand through his fingers. His dark, thick hair was still wet. His skin was tanned almost black. The whites of his eyes were as white as his teeth. His moustache, red as a rule, was burned to the color of straw. An odd thought flashed through her mind. He must like her to have spared her, to have respected her. How easy to have broken her if he'd cared!

"Isn't it wonderful here?" she said, resenting a feeling of self-consciousness.

"Pretty good, isn't it? Malcolm and a whole crowd of us bathed here last year. Very queer. I remember he told me about you that morning,--how well you swim, or something, and by Jove, you do swim well,--as well as you do everything else." He was not paying compliments. There was not the faintest suggestion of flirtation in his eyes. He made the statement of an accepted fact, and went on boyishly. "Do you wonder that I keep away from towns? Just look at it here. No umbrellas stuck about. No crowd of giggling women and cocktail hunters. No strings of stinking cars lined up to carry off soft people. Here's simplicity and truth. Will you ever get to like it, youngster?"

He was disappointing her. She wouldn't for the world have had him less charming than he was, or say the things that some men had said to her after bathing,--personal, fulsome things, caddish things. But,--she _must_ look nice, she felt nice, and surely there might have been just a little admiration in his eyes. Anyone would think that they had been boy and girl together. He accepted it as a matter of course.

"Yes," she said, before she could stop herself, "with you."

He laughed softly and gratefully, leaned forward and kissed her foot, then sprang up and bent over her, put one arm round her shoulders and one under her knees, quietly gathered her up shoulder-high. "Come on," he said, "it's time to dress and eat," and he carried her to where her clothes were lying, with his cheek against her breast.

When he put her down and saw her face, something went crack. Good God! They were not, then, in that dream of his, married, hand in hand, with a baby boy growing in the sun!

He bolted like a mountain goat.

*XXXIII*

The sight of him after he had put her down, scared, with his hands out as though they had been burned, and the complete acknowledgment of the ineptitude of apology that he gave by bolting, made Beatrix laugh. It caught her sense of comedy and left a picture on her mind to which she would always be able to turn to dispel depression. All the same her heart was thumping and her cheeks were hot. She exulted in the fact, now proved beyond argument, that she drew him, that he was all alive to her attraction. She thrilled again as she thought of how he had kissed her foot and the way in which he had carried her across the beach.

She found herself trying to find the right word to describe his strength and cleanness and physical beauty, the odd boyishness of him, the passion that was without animalism,--and failed. She got as far as to wish that she had run her fingers through his hair as she felt a strong desire to do,--and then began to dress quickly, drawing back, with an odd touch of puritanism, from that kind of thought.

"I would like to come here every fine day," she said, looking about, pretending that it was the view that appealed to her, and the color and the gentle break of the sea. "And I'm as hungry as a hunter now," and she knew that she was hurrying to see him again.

When she was dressed and had packed the bathing things into the bag she stood still for a little while under the shadow of the rocks, with dry seaweed all round her in a vague pattern. Privately and in a sort of way in secret from herself, she tapped at her heart and went in, afraid to take more than one quick look around. It was all untidy and chaotic. Someone had stamped about in that hitherto perfectly neat and undisturbed place. It was unrecognizable.... She ran away from it. What did it mean? Why did she begin to feel that she was not the old Beatrix, not quite so high-chinned and self-composed, not quite with the same grip on the reins, softer, simpler, with a queer new feeling of homesickness for a home that she didn't know?

"Now, now, my good girl," she said, "string up, pull yourself together. No sloppiness, please." But she went eagerly back over the uneven rocks and something was making her heart more untidy than ever.

She found the food laid out on a flat place and Franklin in the launch doing something to the engine. She whistled and he looked up. "I'm awfully hungry," she said.