SCANDAL (continued 5)

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.

"Right. I'll come. This engine's a bit groggy somewhere. I thought so as we ran in. Careless blighter, Jones." He washed his hands in the sea and came up, putting on his coat. "I hate messing about with machinery. I know next to nothing about it and if I can't get it right at once I have an unholy desire to smash. I've no patience with things I don't understand."

"That's why you're so impatient with me sometimes," she said to herself,—enormously surprised that she didn't say it aloud. Obviously something was happening to her. She liked the way in which he had set out the lunch and put the cushion so that the sun wouldn't fall on her face. It was competent,—and she admired that. He was taller than he had seemed to be on board and his grey eyes had a most intriguing way of going black.

Franklin hid behind an abrupt and hard-forced casualness, very conscious of having made a complete idiot of himself. He told her everything that there was to eat, knowing very well that her quick eyes had at once made an inventory, and looked after her with a rapid politeness. He immediately entered into a long, detailed account of a most uninteresting hunting trip in Central Africa and watched her like a hawk to pounce if she made any reference to bathing or beaches. Also he talked her down when she made one or two tentative efforts to lead the conversation to something human and wilfully became more technical and dry and endless.

Finally, having strained every nerve to stand it for his sake, she gave a little scream, and he stopped. But before he could ask what was the matter she said: "Nothing's bitten me and I haven't seen smugglers. I'm simply fed up with red monkies and Croo-boys and the whole of Central Africa. Tell me just one thing. How do you feel after eating four hard-boiled eggs running?"

He chuckled. "Hungry," he said, and got off his sweating horse. She was not going to hold him up to ridicule, and he was grateful.

They sat for a long time over lunch,—Franklin with his back to a rock and a well-worn pipe going; Beatrix leaning back on her hands with her hat off and the light on her hair. Suddenly Franklin sprang up. "Fog coming over," he said sharply. He stood over her and held out his hand.

She took it and he jerked her to her feet. She looked out and saw the Galatea a long way off, disappearing behind what seemed to be a solid wall of grey smoke. "Does it matter?"

"Yes. We'll leave these things. Nip into the launch quick and I'll make a dash for the yacht." He gave her arm an impatient tap and she caught up her hat and got in. Hauling out the pin he threw it aboard, jumped into the stern, started the engine and backed out, turning with a swing when he was clear. The sea was at the stand, due to go out. Already the cowlike call of fog signals had begun far off. But he had taken his line for the yacht and went for her. "With ordinary luck we shall make her," he said. "I wish you'd brought your coat."

The fog rolled over them. Minutes before it had put out the sun. "What fun!" laughed Beatrix. "It will make my hair curl."

"It'll make mine like astrakhan," he said, "if this cursed engine begins any tricks. It's missing fire now, damn the thing!"

"Don't mind me," said Beatrix airily, "if you really feel the need to swear."

"I shan't."

She looked all around. There was nothing to see except a monotony of greyness. They were pushing through a thick, damp, mysterious series of closely hung veils that dragged softly across her face, it wasn't pleasant or funny. It was,—but with Franklin at her elbow it was disloyal even to let the word take shape in her mind. If only she had brought her coat, her thickest coat. She had hardly anything on. How melancholy those sea-voices were. She hated eerie sounds. She saw Franklin bend suddenly over the engine and pry and touch and say things under his breath. Every now and then the thing had furious palpitation. Then it seemed to her to be quarrelling together and throwing its parts about. It kicked and wheezed and struggled like a held rooster,—and stopped. She began to shiver. A dozen distant cows seemed to be calling anxiously for their young. She could hardly see the peak of the launch. She wasn't frightened. Only just a little anxious, or rather uncomfortable. She loved new things but this was, undoubtedly and without argument, too new.

"Hell!" said Franklin.

"Thank you," she replied. "You've said it for me."

He peered into her face. "Shall I tell you what's happened or not? I mean do you want to face things or be coddled?"

"I thought you were beginning to know me," she said.

"Right. Now listen. This dirty little engine's playing the fool. I've done everything I know to it, even to whispering endearing terms. But in one word, it beats me."

She nodded brightly, rubbing her thinly-clad knees together and putting her hands under her arms. "I see," she said. "Well?"

"That means that we're completely at the mercy of this rotten fog, and presently we shall drift out, maybe into trade lines. Hear the bellows of the freighters? We may be out all night with nothing to eat and drink and the risk of being run down."

Her attempt at pluck was heroic. "There aren't any nice, soft, cozy Jaeger dressing gowns in the locker, by any chance?"

"The Vanderdykes are all right," said Franklin, with queer enthusiasm. He pulled off his flannel coat. "Put this on."

"No, no."

"Put this on."

"I won't put it on."

He wasted no further words. He took first one soft damp arm and then the other, drew the sleeves over them, bent down and buttoned the coat up.

"Oh, that's lovely," she said; "as warm as a radiator. But what about you?"

"That's all right. Listen again. When McLeod finds that we don't get back he'll probably send off the big launch to hunt us up. The only way I can give them a line is to keep shouting. Very likely, giving me credit for being less a confounded fool than I am, he'll imagine two things,—either that I got off before the fog lowered and am able to fake the engine if anything happens to it, or that, seeing the fog coming over, I decided to stay on the island, in which case it would be possible for him to feel his way to land and pick us off. As it is, there's no compass aboard and I've no means of telling which way we're drifting, and if the fog lasts all night,—puzzle, find the yacht. There you have the worst and the best of it. Listen!"

"What is it?"

He put his hands up to his mouth and raised a tremendous shout. "Ahoy,—Galatea, ahoy, ahoy!"

There was no answer. The sound seemed to fall dead, as though up against a wall.

"Um," he said, and stood amidships with his legs wide apart and with the utmost precision, with regular pauses, turning his head to right and left, sent out long, steady calls. Some power-boat, feeling her way in from fishing, might come within hail and give them a tow, or the big launch might be poking about for them and pick up his voice. Good God, to think that he had lived to be a man without being able to master a damn fool engine! That was one of the worst points of being able to buy service. It plucked initiative out of the brain like the bones out of fish. "Galatea, ... Galatea.... Ahoy."

How extraordinary it was, she thought, sitting all together, as close as she could get to herself. They were like two children lost in the woods,—two people, both of whom had been able to buy the earth, played a trick upon and shown that the earth was no more theirs than any other man's,—two people cut off, brought all the way down the great ladder with a run, to the desire for charity,—two people, young and wilful and proud and vain, who had come together by a lie, been kept together by a condition of nature against which they, for all their money, and youth and supreme confidence, were utterly impotent,—two people mutually aware of being man and woman drifting together in a new life to death, perhaps....

"Galatea, Galatea, ahoy."

She gave a little cry of wonder and fright.

In an instant he was bending over her. "What can I do?"

"Nothing else," she said, smiling up at him.

"You're shivering."

"Oh, no. I'm only—cool. That's all."

He flung open the locker. There was nothing in it but his bathing suit. He had left a big, thick towel on the rocks to dry. He seemed to have left everything on the rocks,—including his wits. There was nothing to put round her.

"Galatea,—Galatea, ahoy."

He was an hour making up his mind what to do. During that time, listening hard for any near signal or answering call, he shouted and kept up a jerky conversation, talking to Beatrix as though she were a child, trying to make her laugh with futile jokes that he would have sworn he couldn't have remembered. Like a Trojan she played up and duly laughed with chattering teeth and many times whipped in quickly with an "Ahoy" herself to help him out.

Suddenly she began to whimper. She couldn't help it. She was so cold and so frightened and to her it seemed as though this were the end of everything.

And that decided him. He picked her up and sat down, put her in his lap, wound his arms round her and put his cheek against her cheek. This girl-child must have all his warmth. He was responsible for this inefficient business. The fool engine had beat him.... She was no longer in his blood. She was a beautiful human thing who must be kept from crying, kept warm, kept alive. The sex in him was utterly dormant. The desire to preserve had conquered it. He was a worried, anxious man with a delicate lovely thing on his hands and it was his fault, curse him, that she was whimpering and chilled and horribly uncomfortable and up against death perhaps. At any moment they might be run down,—at a loose end, out there among the veils. And he held all her softness tight to him and presently began to rub her,—shoulders and arms and legs, to make her blood circulate, to stop her from whimpering, saying the sort of things that men always say to children who have hurt themselves, silly, little, queer things, over and over again.

It was wonderful.... He was so strong and fine, and she cuddled up to his big chest and put her arms about him and gave herself up, wholly, without a qualm. With the same regularity he threw up his head and shouted and she heard the rumble of his voice, and for a long time he held her and rubbed, never letting her blood stop, only cutting into his murmur of comfort by shouting:

"Galatea,—Galatea, ahoy."

The boat was drifting. The water gave it no more than a gentle rock. She shut her eyes and smiled. She had retained the mind of a woman with the body of a child. It was brilliantly clear to her that out there, then, in that drifting boat, all among those closely hung veils of damp web, the spirit of this man was alight, and that in his hands, that had been so hot and eager to touch, there was now the supreme tenderness that is without passion. It was wonderful. It was not happening. This was not earth. He, such a man, who had kissed her foot and put his cheek against her breast, and she, who had exulted in her power to stir and draw on. It must be Heaven. Their clashes and outbursts were over. They had died together and met again in spirit. She had never dreamed of anything like this.

"Galatea,—Galatea, ahoy," yelled Franklin. It was the pit-pit of an engine that came to his tired brain.

"Ahoy to you."

It was not Heaven. It was earth and they were alive and that was Jones's voice. She cuddled closer and her heart began to thump. She didn't want to be taken away.

"At last," said Franklin. "Steady, Jones," he called out. "We're drifting. Slide up alongside and take us on. We're cold.... Well played, little girl," and he kissed her on the mouth.

That night he insisted upon her having dinner in bed. Ah, how good that steaming, hot bath had been.

Afterwards, strained and very, very tired, she fell asleep at once, and went back to the little beach with its vague patterns of sea-weed on yellow sand, and they swam again and dried in the sun, and talked and laughed, and he lay at her feet, brown and clean-cut, with burning eyes,—but when he picked her up this time and carried her to the cave she held him tight and found his lips and lay with him on the warm sand....

It must have been midnight when she woke suddenly and put her hand out to touch his face.

It was not true. She was alone,—and she loved him so!

XXXIV

It was exactly half-past nine the following morning when Jones rapped at the door of the Captain's stateroom. The dancing sailor registered the note of irritation in the shout of "Come" with a comic grievance and went in to find McLeod struggling to remove a recalcitrant beard with a very disagreeable razor. There was, God knows, every reason for a touch of temper mixed with that sort of amazement that a man feels when an old and true friend goes back on him. Shaving at the best of times is a penance, at the worst a catastrophe. The Captain was a clean-shaven man in the middle forties and although, as one of the Esau tribe, he had used a razor since he was eighteen; he had failed to understand the peculiar psychology of steel and to appreciate the fact that the blade of a razor is just as temperamental and just as much affected by the vagaries of liver as the average human being. He made no allowances.

"What is it, Jones?"

"Sorry ter disturb you, sir, but there's a launch comin' up on the port side with Mr. Fraser aboard. Thought you'd like ter know, sir."

"Have you told Mr. Franklin?"

"No, sir. Considered it my duty ter report it ter you, sir."

"Well, nip round to Mr. Franklin and tell him, will you? I don't see what M.F. wants to trail us for unless it's something important."

And so Jones nipped, little knowing that Malcolm's unexpected visit was to bring about a new crisis in the lives of Franklin and Beatrix.

Only just dressed, Franklin followed Jones out in time to see Malcolm come aboard. "Why, hello, my dear fellow," he called out with immense cordiality, "you're just in time for breakfast." It seemed an age since he had seen his friend.

The sky was clear again, the sun warm and gracious, the sea just lively enough to make the yacht dance. The fog which had come from nowhere for no reason had gone back in the same mood. Franklin had slept in one solid, dreamless piece. All was well with the world.

There was a whimsical smile on Malcolm's cherubic face. "I wasn't quite sure that I should be welcome," he said, dying to know how things were going. "The word breakfast never sounded so well to me. I'm ravenous. Where's Beatrix?"

"Not up yet. Come to the dining saloon." He took Malcolm's arm and led him off, delighted to see him.

"Just a second," said Malcolm. "I think you'd better tell McLeod to turn the yacht about at once. It'll save time."

Franklin drew up. "Turn the yacht about? Why?"

"I have a good reason for breaking in on your triumphant isolation," said Malcolm, "little as you appear to suspect it, and if you——"

He stopped speaking. Beatrix was coming towards them. His heart turned at the sight of her. Never in his life had he seen her looking so radiant and lovely and like a rose with all its sweetest leaves still folded, and in her expression there was something so new in its sunny peacefulness that he caught his breath with surprise.

"Malcolm," she cried out, and put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him like a sister. He had expected to see a caged bird beating her wings and to be rushed at as one who brought a reprieve. His curiosity nearly forced him into personalities.

"How nice of you to look us up," she said, taking his other arm. "You're just in time for breakfast."

The word breakfast used by them both struck the most intimate note. It is the most domestic of all words. The first stab of jealousy that Malcolm had ever felt made him, before he could master himself, break their astounding atmosphere of contentment, this elysium of peace.

"Mrs. Keene is very ill," he said, sharply. "Ida Larpent and I have done what we could for two days but she's crying continually for you. I drove along the coast as fast as I could and unless you come back with me I don't know what may happen."

Beatrix turned and looked at Franklin. He read in her eyes an appeal to put her quickly at the side of the little lady whose devotion was dog-like. He was wrong. The look she gave him was full of anguish at the thought of leaving him and the sort of half-hope that he would play the tyrant and the bully and refuse to let her go.

"Jones," he sang out.

"Sir?"

"Ask Captain McLeod to see me at once."

"Very good, sir."

"Malcolm, take Beatrix into the dining saloon. I'll join you in about five minutes."

And as Beatrix went on with Malcolm, all her appetite for breakfast gone, she said to herself with the inevitable unreasonableness of a woman in love, "He doesn't care, he doesn't care. Any pretty girl would do as well. He's glad to let me go."

Franklin met McLeod. "Mrs. Franklin must go ashore as soon as you can get her there. Mrs. Lester Keene is very ill. Mr. Fraser has a car waiting and he will drive my wife back to where we landed the party the other day,—Jones in charge. I can't be trusted with an engine now, y'know. I shall drive with them and come aboard again when you turn up, which you will do with best possible speed. Get that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Right." He waved his hand and went below to his own sanctum. His valet was busy in the bedroom. "Moffat, pack things for me for a couple of days, and tell the stewardess to do the same for Mrs. Franklin. Sharp's the word. We're leaving the yacht in half-an-hour."

Then he went to breakfast, having set things on the move in his characteristic way. Beatrix and Malcolm were talking generalities in a rather strained manner. The thoughts of both were busy. It was very obvious to Malcolm that something had happened to Beatrix. Her whole attitude, as well as her expression, had changed. She even seemed to be dressed differently in some subtle way. She was, too, he thought, less young, less confident, less on the defensive, less consistently brilliant, less all-in-the-shop-window,—more like the little girl who had tucked herself into his heart.

"What happened?" asked Franklin, doing more than justice to a liberal helping of scrambled eggs à Ludovic.

He'd never be able to eat so well if he cared, thought Beatrix.

Malcolm's eyes were clear again. He was less than the dust to the heroine of his boyhood and he had prayed that she might be won by Pel. After all, he was a poet.

"Well," he said, "that kind, good soul began by having hysterics on the quay. She was the first to realize, presumably because of a long course of novel reading, that we had been emptied away like rubbish and that the Galatea had turned seawards with Beatrix."

Franklin nodded and drank deeply of strong coffee.

Beatrix respected him for drinking strong, black stuff with breakfast, but she would have given days of her life to have had just one smile from him then.

"I knew the one-eyed place on which we had been dumped, took charge of the three women—saving Mrs. Keene from a watery grave—and drove to the one possible inn. Quite by accident I had some money on me. Helene and I did what we could to soothe Mrs. Keene but she took to bed and sprang a high temperature. The local doctor attended her and called it a nervous breakdown and that's what, being in the confidence of you both, I believe it is. Mrs. Larpent surprised me by being very kind and sympathetic, which shows how foolish it is to judge a woman by her jewelry and the way she does her hair. We have had a very worrying time. Finally I made up my mind to hire a car and drive along the coast until I came level with you. I started before daybreak and here I am. Mrs. Keene never ceases to call for Beatrix and I promised to bring her back. You will both help me to keep my promise, I know."

"Well, of course," said Franklin.

"Well, of course," echoed Beatrix. Conceive it, Beatrix,—an echo! Love plays strange tricks upon humanity.

Franklin went on eating. "We leave on the big launch in twenty minutes. We shall drive back in your car and stay at the inn until the Galatea anchors off the quay."

"Thank you," said Malcolm. "The sight of Beatrix will do Mrs. Keene more good than buckets of medicine."

Beatrix turned to Franklin. "Does 'we' include you?" she asked, with what Malcolm thought was a most curious and startling note of humbleness.

"Rather," said Franklin.

Whereupon Beatrix began to eat.

Sitting in the shade of the veranda of the inn Ida Larpent killed time with a new sense of hope.

XXXV

It was nearly four o'clock that afternoon when the dust-covered car arrived at Malcolm's one-eyed place some miles from Charleston, South Carolina. It was a long, tedious, hot drive through country which Beatrix called untidily picturesque. The telegraph posts along the roads leaned at rakish angles. Everywhere there were cotton fields with irregular lines of plants from which the blossoms had fallen, dilapidated shacks with piccaninnies playing about them and uncorseted colored women squatting on the stoops. Strange washing hung out to dry with great frequency and every now and then there was a fine Colonial house with a garden alight with flowers.

The inn, or hotel, as it insisted on being called, was the only building in the settlement which seemed to have received a coat of white paint for many moons and it was obviously the centre of attraction. Three rather carelessly treated Fords were parked near its main entrance and two drummers were rocking on the unwashed stoop with soft damp cigars tucked into the corners of their mouths. Little families of chickens ran after their conscientious mothers around the building and several turkeys stalked aimlessly here and there like actors out for a walk. Numerous outhouses leaned against each other for support,—one or two of them showing an ingenuity in repair that was almost Irish. On the walls of several were pasted glaring bills of motion picture plays then being shown in Charleston, and one was entirely given up to the glorification in large letters of a certain small pill. There was, indeed, a curious intimacy, a sort of who-cares-a-whoop air about the whole place. You could tease the turkeys, scatter the chickens, grin at the Fords and spit with the drummers. It was Carolina and hot and the cotton was coming on. What the deuce, anyway!

From the beginning of the journey to the end of it Franklin hardly opened his mouth. Watched surreptitiously by Beatrix, he sat silent and peculiarly distrait, like a man who was either working out an engrossing problem or bored to extinction. After several dogged attempts to get him to talk, Malcolm gave him up and for some miles devoted himself entirely to Beatrix. To her he told everything funny that he had ever heard or invented without winning a smile. She too was as far away and as unresponsive as Franklin. And so, giving them both up, Malcolm joined the sphinxes and let his imagination run loose. When this unsociable party halted for lunch at a wayside inn the conspiracy of silence was broken, but only as it would have been by three people who were total strangers thrown together briefly. The few necessary commonplaces were said. Franklin and Beatrix went on thinking and Malcolm continued to imagine what they were thinking about. The driver of the hired car, a middle-aged man who had married an argumentative woman in his youth, gave a great deal of slow consideration to the matter. His sense of beauty pulled his sympathy towards Beatrix, but his sense of brotherhood impelled him to stand by Franklin in what he decided must be a matrimonial bust-up, and so he remained neutral as far as they were concerned and concentrated pity upon Malcolm, to whom, luckily, sleep eventually came.

Franklin was suffering from inevitable reaction. He had returned to earth from a dream. He had come back to a very practical world from the land of make-believe. He had fallen from the unnatural height of a sublime, passionless love to the natural level of a man whose passion pounded on the walls of his heart and ran like electricity through his veins. Out of the brief mist which had shut out the truth of things he stared to find that Beatrix was as far away from him as ever. He was in the pit of depression, especially as he had a feeling that any chance he might have had to win Beatrix was gone now that she had left the yacht. It seemed to him that she had escaped.

As for Beatrix, who had felt the beat of Franklin's heart against her breast and would smilingly have gone beyond the outpost of eternity in his arms, reaction came with a shock that left her with no other desire than to cry. Suddenly to have found herself and the meaning of life; suddenly, out there in the fog, to have seen the sense and sanity of things and burgeoned into a woman under the warmth of love and dreamed all night of its fulfilment and then to waken to this,—a man who neither looked at her nor spoke, who hustled her from the yacht and would probably leave her with her friends and go his way. If he had loved her as well as been stirred by the attraction of her sex he must have told her so that morning. This was the end of all her arguments. Having her at his mercy he let her go, she told herself bitterly. Probably he had escorted her to shore to renew his flirtation with Ida Larpent. Ah! That was it. Malcolm had said that she had remained at the hotel. She wouldn't be a bit surprised if the Larpent woman had bribed Malcolm to come to the yacht with his tale of woe ... and when, as the car drew up, Ida Larpent sauntered out wearing one of her most enigmatical smiles and a very becoming frock the hitherto unknown demon of jealousy seized Beatrix in his burning grasp and for the first time in her life she became the little sister of all womankind, a girl whose wealth had turned to ashes and whose autocracy fell about her like dead leaves.

"How's Brownie?" She ignored Mrs. Larpent's hand and cheek, and passed into the house without waiting for an answer. The screen door went back with a clang.

"Good Lord," said Franklin, summing up the whole place in one rapid glance, "what a filthy hole!"

Malcolm pointed to the chickens. "But look at these," he laughed, refreshed.

"Welcome," said Ida Larpent, not so much clasping Franklin's hand as embracing it. She had the knack. "It's good to see you again. Life has its compensations."

"Thanks."

"Quite a good sort, after all," thought Franklin. "Ripping hat. Always makes me feel like a man who goes behind the scenes after the last act."

A white-haired, chatty negro led Beatrix up two flights of carpetless stairs, along a narrow echoing passage to a door almost at the end of it.

"Don't knock," said Beatrix, and paid him with a smile.

The room was bare and large and barn-like. Its three large windows were screened. Its stained floor was rubbed and almost colorless. There was a cheap writing desk of yellow wood, a glass-topped dressing table to match, a stand with a water bottle on it and a shiver-inspiring white cuspidor beneath, several strips of thin-worn string matting and a lamp hanging from the centre of a none too clean ceiling.

Mrs. Lester Keene was lying on a bed with brass knobs which sagged perceptibly in the middle. Beatrix tip-toed to it and went down on her knees and put her arms round the little lady's shoulders. "Brownie dear, I've come," she said.

There was a great maternal cry, and a passion of tears.

"That's right. Weep, Brownie, my dear little Brownie, it will do you good. You were frightened for me, weren't you? The others wondered what was the matter with you, but you and I know, don't we? There are no secrets between us and now you'll get well, won't you? I'm so sorry!"

And the little woman clung weakly and fondly and stroked the face of the beautiful girl who meant so much to her and for whom she liked to think that she was responsible. "Oh, my dear, my dear," she cried, "you don't know what agonies I've been through, or how dreadful it was to see the yacht going away and you alone and unprotected with that man."

"Was it possible that I called him 'that man' then?" thought Beatrix.

"I've been nearly distraught to think of all the indignities that you have had to suffer. I could not close my eyes for fear of seeing unspeakable pictures, though at night I thought I could hear you calling to me to come and help you and you so young and proud and fine and helpless. Oh—oh! and are you all right? Will you swear that you're all right?"

"Yes, Brownie dear, I'm all right. Can't you see that I'm all right?" But there were tears on her cheeks and a pain at her heart because she was so much all wrong. Couldn't he have said just one word all day, just one, to show her that she meant more to him than a mere woman,—after all that they had been through between life and death? Couldn't he have given her one look to show that he was something besides merely a man and that he had held her so perfectly in his arms and kept her warm to love and comfort and hold always, always?

"Then why are you crying?" demanded Mrs. Keene, sharply.

"You make me cry, Brownie, to see you like this."

"I make you cry? You!" The voice was incredulous, skeptical, amazed. The elderly companion whose dog-like devotion and affection had not blinded her to the faults of this gold-child, this artificial flower born and reared in a house of egregious wealth, helped herself up in the bed and peered into the girl's face. "There is something wrong! I hardly know you. Tell me, tell me!" Her voice was thin and shrill from anxiety and fear.

The girl's eyes fell a little and a sob shook her shoulders.

"Oh, my God! What has that man done to you?"

Beatrix put a finger on her lips but the old note of command had gone. "Hush, Brownie, hush," she said gently. "Don't cry out like that, dear. You'll make yourself ill again."

The little woman's face grew whiter. "Oh, my darling!" she blurted out, conscience-stricken, "if only I had been able to look after you, if only I had been strong enough to refuse to leave you! You don't know what you mean to me. I know I've been useless and weak. I know I've never really been able to direct or guide you but I've done my best, darling, and it will kill me to think that you, you, who have seemed to me like a princess in a fairy tale, so pure and fine, have been hurt by this man. Oh, my dear, what has that man done to you?"

"Listen, Brownie. That man has made me come all the way down to earth. That man has taken everything from me,—pride and scorn and shallowness, the desire to experiment, the impatience of possession, and put there instead something that makes me want to go and sit down at the side of women with children and hold their hands. That man has brought me up to truth and reason. He has made me human and humble and jealous and eager for his touch. He has made me love him and need him and want to serve him. Look at me, Brownie, look at me and see it for yourself!"

She held up her lovely, tear-stained face, the face that Malcolm had described, the picture of which was locked up in his heart. And Mrs. Keene, speechless, looked and saw and wondered.

And suddenly the golden head was crushed against the childless bosom. "Brownie, Brownie, he doesn't love me, he doesn't love me, and I wish I were dead."

Could this be Beatrix,—this?

XXXVI

Finding that Franklin had left the bedroom that had been allotted to him after washing and changing his clothes,—the others had been flung about the barrack-like room,—Malcolm went downstairs and out to the veranda. Ida Larpent was sitting in front of a tea-table like Patience on a monument, dodging mosquitoes.

"Where's Pelham?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"I was going to ask you."

"And Beatrix?"

"In with Mrs. Keene, I think."

Mrs. Larpent heaved a little sigh. "Poor old thing! She'll get well now, and we, I take it, can go our ways in peace. I don't ever want to go through this experience again."

Malcolm laughed. "Well, I've rather enjoyed it," he said, "apart, of course, from the fact that Mrs. Keene has suffered."

"Enjoyed it?" There was a note of anger in Mrs. Larpent's clear voice. "Such food, such beds, such cockroaches, such service, such an appalling place?"

"I've been studying the beautiful unselfishness of the mother hen," said Malcolm. "It's a revelation to me."

Mrs. Larpent shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "I've known one or two other poets in my time," she said, "but I've never been able to make out whether their childishness was a pose or mere stupidity. It requires no study to know that the mother hen is not unselfish. Like other mothers she is the creature of overwhelming circumstances, the slave of nature. However, what's the news? What is to happen next? Is the Galatea to deliver us back to New York or do we find our own way back?"

"Don't ask me," said Malcolm, who wouldn't have said anything else if he had known it. Mrs. Larpent was one of the few women of his acquaintance whom he really disliked. He found her hard and without an ounce of idealism or imagination. She believed in nothing that didn't carry a certificate of proof, in no one who was not duly entered in "Who's Who," looked upon faith as a sort of patent medicine, hope as a form of mental weakness and charity as a sharp way of getting rid of people who either made street noises or had pathetic stories to tell. He and she had not got on at all well.

To the great relief of both Franklin came up. "We're waiting tea for you," said Mrs. Larpent.

"I'm so sorry. I've been along to the post-office. I thought I'd better wire this address to the Vanderdykes as we shall be here till the Galatea lies off. They had our next place of call for letters." He sat down rather heavily. "Yes, tea's a good idea."

There was nothing of happiness about this man, Mrs. Larpent told herself in a spirit of self-congratulation. He had obviously gained nothing by carrying off Beatrix except a little line between his eyebrows. Serve him right. She was glad to see it. She could have made him happy if the party had continued on the yacht.

Tea came but no Beatrix. Mrs. Larpent poured out, and as she did so her spirits rose. Things looked good. She had never been able to find a reason for their sham honeymoon, puzzle as she might. It remained an inscrutable mystery, and all her cunning endeavors to trick Mrs. Keene and Malcolm into confession had failed. She argued that they knew,—Malcolm because he brought Beatrix to the yacht and Mrs. Keene because of her extraordinary nervous breakdown. In any case that business failed to be of interest now. The point was how much, if at all, was Franklin in love with or physically attracted by Beatrix. If he was in love with her and had been turned down,—his whole appearance and attitude proved that,—her opportunity to catch him on the rebound was most excellent. In her large experience men committed matrimony or undertook obligations immediately after being refused. If he had been physically attracted merely, and had met with no success,—which was patent,—the same argument applied. How glad she was that she had seen the wisdom of staying in that abominable shack, ostensibly to look after the woman who got so completely on her nerves. Her room was next to Franklin's, too. Could luck have been kinder?

"Have you sent any tea up to Beatrix?" asked Franklin, suddenly.

"No," said Mrs. Larpent. "She'll order it herself if she wants any, don't you think so?"

Franklin got up. "Excuse me," he said, and stalked into the hotel, asked the comatose clerk the number of Mrs. Keene's room, waved away a gymnastic colored boy who volunteered to show him and went upstairs two at a time. Sooner or later he would be obliged, he had come to the conclusion, either to put as many thousand miles between himself and Beatrix as the map of the earth allowed or treat her as a sister. All the day's thinking had proved this to him, who knew so little about women.

He knocked on the door, waited and knocked again.

It was opened by Beatrix, who was still in her dust-covered clothes and hat. He saw at once that she had been crying and resented it as much as though he had seen her arm in a splint.

"Have you had tea?" he asked bluntly, because he wanted to kiss her beyond description and hadn't the right.

"No," said Beatrix.

"Shall I send some up?"

"Will you? I'd love it. I'm so tired."

"Yes, of course you are. Why didn't you ring and make this rotten hotel run about?"

"I forgot. It's awfully nice of you to have bothered about me."

Franklin swallowed a rush of words, nodded, made small work of the echoing stairs and stood in front of the unoffending clerk with eyes black with unexplainable anger. "Why the devil haven't you sent tea up to Mrs. Franklin? Don't argue. Get it done at once or I'll pull this barn down board by board. For two, with hot buttered toast. Quick!"

Two colored boys who had overheard these words and caught the clerk's eyes went off like demented athletes. Left standing, the clerk pulled himself together. He felt as though a cart load of bricks had fallen on his head. What was the matter with this man? Anyone would think he'd bought the darned earth!

Ida Larpent and Malcolm did most of the talking while Franklin drank three cups of tea and ate all the toast. Malcolm knew that before long he would be marched off somewhere to listen to his old pal's troubles and so he waited with his characteristic patience and all his sympathy on the boil, determined not to permit his curiosity to lead his imagination into any further maze. It seemed to him to be disloyal. Ida Larpent concentrated her strategic knowledge upon a plan of action to be carried into effect during the night. She must act quickly because Franklin, like Beatrix, went off at sudden tangents. He might take it into his head to leave the place at a moment's notice and she might not see him again for months.

"How are you going to kill time until the so-called dinner?" she asked, looking at Franklin. "Can I suggest anything?"

"No, thanks," he replied. "Malcolm and I are going to explore the quay, if there is such a thing."

She laughed softly. He could do what he liked with all the hours till midnight. The others at the beginning of a new day would be hers, if she knew anything of men and life. She opened a book.

Franklin got up, pushed the table away, dragged up a chair for Mrs. Larpent's feet, made a mental note of the fact that she was a good sort and took Malcolm's arm.

"Come on, old son," he said. "Let's get out of this."

Turkey and chickens made way for these tall creatures, the two drummers at the other end of the veranda concentrated a united gaze on Mrs. Larpent's ankles, a Ford went off with a harsh rattle carrying two men in their shirt sleeves, and a ragamuffinly kitten gave a marvelous imitation of a bucking horse and bolted up a tree.

As they faced the Atlantic Franklin squared his shoulders and drew in a long, grateful breath. The line went out of his forehead and his mouth relaxed. Here at any rate was an element that he understood in all its moods, rough and smooth.

"Malcolm, will you come to Europe with me?"

"Any time," said Malcolm.

"Right. To-morrow night, then. I wish to God I had an aeroplane. We'd get away sooner."

He looked round impatiently. The so-called quay might have been made away back before the Great Wind and carelessly patched together after it. It ran out into a small bay for the use of perhaps a dozen cat-boats, a couple of nice yawls, a very spruce shoal-draught sloop just in, a well put together lark and a number of dirty little power boats belonging to the negro fishermen. Several bankrupt-looking sheds added to the general neglected appearance of the whole scene, which was heightened by three carcasses of dead dories with all their ribs sticking out lying up on the beach and all among dry seaweed and rubbish.

"What's the particular hurry?" asked Malcolm.

Franklin turned upon him. "I'm sick of myself, sick of life, sick of the whole blessed show," he said. "I want to get right away. I want to put all the sea there is between myself and Beatrix. If anybody had told me before I went to the Vanderdykes that a bit of a girl was going to turn me into a first-class fool I'd have called him a sentimental crank."

"I know," said Malcolm. "It all depends on the girl, though. All wise men, all men who fathom the fact in time that life means nothing if it's selfish, fall over each other to be made first-class fools of by the right girl. Besides, who says you've been turned into a first-class fool? You love Beatrix without success. So do I. That doesn't make us fools, either of us. I hold that we have to thank our stars to have met her. The fool part of it would be in not having loved her. That's my view of it. And look here, Pel, old man, don't be quite so ready to call people sentimental cranks who talk about love. What are we here for? What's the use of living without it? Clubs are built for men who have missed the one good thing there is to win in this queer little interlude between something we can't remember and something we're not intended to know."

Franklin listened to this unexpected outburst with a sort of boyish gravity. Malcolm had the knack of saying things that were true, and this that he had just said, with uncharacteristic heat, was dead true. Franklin knew that. Moreover he had the honesty and the courage to say so.

"Quite right, old son. I was talking through my hat as usual. But the difference between you and me is this. You're a poet and when you're turned down you have the safety valve of verse. You can write about it. I'm only a common or garden sporting cove who has to grin and bear it. And when you've got a girl like Beatrix in your blood there isn't much grinning, believe me. Come on. Let's walk and I'll put you up to date."

And away they went arm in arm along the shore while the sun went down.

And up in her bare bedroom Beatrix gave herself eagerly into the hands of her maid. "If I look my best," she thought, "perhaps——"

Men and women and history,—repetition, that's all!

XXXVII

Dinner was fairly good. The word had been taken to the kitchen that Franklin might stalk in and kill the chef. That dark mass of humanity outdid himself in consequence. Life was very dear to him.

One of the waiters at Franklin's table had been fifteen years in the hotel. The other twelve. They mutually agreed behind the screen that there had never been two such beautiful ladies in its dining-room in their time. They too were on their mettle.

Beatrix played up. She had bathed and slept a little and poured out her heart to Brownie and felt better from the fact that her presence had done her old friend so much good. Besides, she had grit and the courage of a thoroughbred. She was not going to let anyone see that there was a pain in her heart if she died for it. And so she set the ball rolling and kept the table merry. It was well done.

Malcolm did his share and brought tears of laughter from everybody by describing a scandal-mongering conversation between two turkeys. The younger of the two waiters nearly had a fit. Ida Larpent was in excellent spirits and Franklin as cheery as he could always be when he tried.

Afterwards they adjourned to a ludicrously-furnished room called the drawing-room decorated with tortured wood and chairs which had obviously been designed by plumbers. Everything in it was the color of Virginia tobacco,—the epitome of biliousness. Here they played Bridge while the proprietor's over-plump daughter with a huge white bow on the top of her head giggled and whispered to several girl friends in the sun parlor and presently set a Victrola going. Between the tunes, which were redolent of Broadway, the click of billiard balls could be heard. Frogs in a nearby pond croaked their inevitable chorus.

At the end of the third rubber Beatrix rose. "I can't go on," she said. "There are so many distractions. It's almost like being in a railway accident. Take me down to look at the sea, Pelham."

Franklin led the way. He would have liked it better if she had been angry with him and there had been an excuse for quarreling. He might then have had a reason for blazing at her and losing his self-control. To be treated like a brother,—it was better than nothing, he supposed, but it made him feel like a man with his arms roped to his sides.

They went along the sandy road lined with curious stunted trees to the quay. A full moon dominated a sky that blazed with stars. There was not even the tail-end of a cloud. The lazy sea plopped heavily against the stanchions and made the small craft wobble from side to side. Ropes creaked and quivered. There was hardly any wind. On the tip of the quay a girl was sitting with her head on a man's shoulder. One of his arms was round her waist. Their legs dangled over the edge. It was a night for love.

Beatrix said nothing for several minutes. She stood hatless, with her hands behind her back and her shoulders square. She looked dangerously young, Franklin thought, and far too precious to be unguarded. But with another look he corrected himself,—so young that her confidence was a better guard than an armed man. He wondered what she was thinking about.

"You've never had a sister, have you?" she asked suddenly.

"No," said Franklin.

"What a pity."

"Why?"

"She would have been a lucky girl."

"There you are," thought Franklin. "Nothing but a brother, you see."

She faced him unexpectedly. "What are you going to do with me now?"

He knew his answer but he made it, "What do you want me to do with you?"

And she made hers, "Something must be done."

He stood looking at her. He had no inkling that they were at cross purposes because he was not a woman's man. Also because he was entirely without conceit. It was only when he dreamed and a miracle happened, that Beatrix returned his love. In her new state, which was so new that she felt almost a stranger in the world, Beatrix was without conceit too. She believed that Franklin, because she had seen the nobility of his character out there in that strange mist, had outgrown the attraction of her sex and had become brotherly. Some big moment was needed to startle these two young people who were so much alike into the truth,—these two who had always been handicapped by excessive wealth and whose lives had touched in a manner that was so bizarre and accidental. What if the big moment never came? Big moments are not put in the way of everybody and even if they are, go by unrecognized in so many instances.

"Yes," said Franklin, "we can't go on like this."

"You still think that the only way out is marriage?"

"I'm afraid so."

"And then divorce?"

"Yes."

Beatrix heaved a deep sigh. "I've asked so much of you. I couldn't ask you for that."

"You don't have to ask me. It's my suggestion."

"You certainly are a sportsman," she said. And then she gave a little gasp. "Good Heavens, what must I have been made of to have done that thing? It seems incredible as I look at it now."

He spoke wistfully, eagerly. "Does it? Why? You're the same Beatrix. You haven't changed."

"Are you the same Pelham Franklin? Haven't you changed? Let's be honest out here to-night. This is the hour for honesty with the moon so plain and the stars so gleaming and the sky so transparent. Besides, I can't tell you why, but I have a sort of premonition that you and I are going to be required to face another crisis. I got the feeling this afternoon, when I was lying down. A bird was singing outside my window, a curious, jerky little song, and it seemed to tell me that I must meet something squarely and with courage."

"Courage?" said Franklin. "You have that."

"You think so?"

"I don't know it if you haven't got it."

"That's the first really nice thing you've ever said to me, Pelham."

It was a pity that she couldn't see the queer thing that happened to his eyes. "I don't say everything I think," he said, with a sort of laugh.

"That's nothing to be proud of. There's lots of room for silence in the grave. Let's go back." She was impatient again. She couldn't understand why things were not going as she would have them go. They always had.

He stopped her. "No, not yet. I want to tell you something, kiddie."

Tears came into her eyes somehow when he called her that.

"Listen. If anything is on the way to us,—and if you think so I expect there is,—most probably it will send me one way over the earth and you another because this way has failed. When I'm out of sight I want you to remember one thing."

"I shall remember it all," she said.

"But especially one thing. I set out to break you."

"You've done that," she said.

"No, please don't rot me,—not to-night, out here. If ever my name flicks across your memory at any time remember my idiotic attempt to give you the spurs."

"Why especially that?"

"Because you beat me,—beat me to a frazzle and that's the only good thing about this episode."

"You're very generous," she said, and held out her hand. She had an insane desire to sit down on those dirty boards and cry. Everything he did and said made her love him more and more. What was the matter with her that she had turned him into a brother? Life had appeared to be so easy to arrange. It had become so difficult.