They were leaning upon the rail at the stern of the ship, which was
going with what little wind there was, and a following sea, with which,
as it plunged down the long slopes of the waves, the vessel seemed to be
running a victorious race. The sea was a deep sapphire, and in the wake
the sunlight turned the broken water to vivid emerald. The air was of a
caressing softness, and altogether it was a day and scene of
indescribable beauty and inspiration. For a while there was silence
between them, which John broke at last.
"I suppose," he said, "that one would best show his appreciation of all
this by refraining from the comment which must needs be comparatively
commonplace, but really this is so superb that I must express some of my
emotion even at the risk of lowering your opinion of my good taste,
provided, of course, that you have one."
"Well," she said, laughing, "it may relieve your mind, if you care, to
know that had you kept silent an instant longer I should have taken the
risk of lowering your opinion of my good taste, provided, of course,
that you have one, by remarking that this was perfectly magnificent."
"I should think that this would be the sort of day to get Mr. Carling
on deck. This air and sun would brace him up," said John.
She turned to him with a laugh, and said: "That is the general opinion,
or was two hours ago; but I'm afraid it's out of the question now,
unless we can manage it after luncheon."
"What do you mean?" he asked with a puzzled smile at the mixture of
annoyance and amusement visible in her face. "Same old story?"
"Yes," she replied, "same old story. When I went to my breakfast I
called at my sister's room and said, '"Come, boys and girls, come out to
play, the sun doth shine as bright as day," and when I've had my
breakfast I'm coming to lug you both on deck. It's a perfectly glorious
morning, and it will do you both no end of good after being shut up so
long.' 'All right,' my sister answered, 'Julius has quite made up his
mind to go up as soon as he is dressed. You call for us in half an hour,
and we will be ready.'"
"And wouldn't he come?" John asked; "and why not?"
"Oh," she exclaimed with a laugh and a shrug of her shoulders, "shoes."
"Shoes!" said John. "What do you mean?"
"Just what I say," was the rejoinder. "When I went back to the room I
found my brother-in-law sitting on the edge of the lounge, or what you
call it, all dressed but his coat, rubbing his chin between his finger
and thumb, and gazing with despairing perplexity at his feet. It seems
that my sister had got past all the other dilemmas, but in a moment of
inadvertence had left the shoe question to him, with the result that he
had put on one russet shoe and one black one, and had laced them up
before discovering the discrepancy."
"I don't see anything very difficult in that situation," remarked John.
"Don't you?" she said scornfully. "No, I suppose not, but it was quite
enough for Julius, and more than enough for my sister and me. His first
notion was to take off _both_ shoes and begin all over again, and
perhaps if he had been allowed to carry it out he would have been all
right; but Alice was silly enough to suggest the obvious thing to
him--to take off one, and put on the mate to the other--and then the
trouble began. First he was in favor of the black shoes as being thicker
in the sole, and then he reflected that they hadn't been blackened since
coming on board. It seemed to him that the russets were more appropriate
anyway, but the blacks were easier to lace. Had I noticed whether the
men on board were wearing russet or black as a rule, and did Alice
remember whether it was one of the russets or one of the blacks that he
was saying the other day pinched his toe? He didn't quite like the looks
of a russet shoe with dark trousers, and called us to witness that those
he had on were dark; but he thought he remembered that it was the black
shoe which pinched him. He supposed he could change his trousers--and so
on, and so on, _al fine_, _de capo_, _ad lib._, sticking out first one
foot and then the other, lifting them alternately to his knee for
scrutiny, appealing now to Alice and now to me, and getting more
hopelessly bewildered all the time. It went on that way for, it seemed
to me, at least half an hour, and at last I said, 'Oh, come now, Julius,
take off the brown shoe--it's too thin, and doesn't go with your dark
trousers, and pinches your toe, and none of the men are wearing
them--and just put on the other black one, and come along. We're all
suffocating for some fresh air, and if you don't get started pretty soon
we sha'n't get on deck to-day.' 'Get on deck!' he said, looking up at me
with a puzzled expression, and holding fast to the brown shoe on his
knee with both hands, as if he were afraid I would take it away from him
by main strength--'get on deck! Why--why--I believe I'd better not go
out this morning, don't you?'"
"And then?" said John after a pause.
"Oh," she replied, "I looked at Alice, and she shook her head as much to
say, 'It's no use for the present,' and I fled the place."
"M'm!" muttered John. "He must have been a nice traveling companion. Has
it been like that all the time?"
"Most of it," she said, "but not quite all, and this morning was rather
an exaggeration of the regular thing. But getting started on a journey
was usually pretty awful. Once we quite missed our train because he
couldn't make up his mind whether to put on a light overcoat or a heavy
one. I finally settled the question for him, but we were just too late."
"You must be a very amiable person," remarked John.
"Indeed, I am not," she declared, "but Julius is, and it's almost
impossible to be really put out with him, particularly in his condition.
I have come to believe that he can not help it, and he submits to my
bullying with such sweetness that even my impatience gives way."
"Have you three people been alone together all the time?" John asked.
"Yes," she replied, "except for four or five weeks. We visited some
American friends in Berlin, the Nollises, for a fortnight, and after our
visit to them they traveled with us for three weeks through South
Germany and Switzerland. We parted with them at Metz only about three
weeks since."
"How did Mr. Carling seem while you were all together?" asked John,
looking keenly at her.
"Oh," she replied, "he was more like himself than I have seen him for a
long time--since he began to break down, in fact."
He turned his eyes from her face as she looked up at him, and as he did
not speak she said suggestively, "You are thinking something you don't
quite like to say, but I think I know pretty nearly what it is."
"Yes?" said John, with a query.
"You think he has had too much feminine companionship, or had it too
exclusively. Is that it? You need not be afraid to say so."
"Well," said John, "if you put it 'too exclusively,' I will admit that
there was something of the sort in my mind, and," he added, "if you will
let me say so, it must at times have been rather hard for him to be
interested or amused--that it must have--that is to say--"
"Oh, _say_ it!" she exclaimed. "It must have been very _dull_ for him.
Is that it?"
"'Father,'" said John with a grimace, "'I can not tell a lie!'"
"Oh," she said, laughing, "your hatchet isn't very sharp. I forgive you.
But really," she added, "I know it has been. You will laugh when I tell
you the one particular resource we fell back upon."
"Bid me to laugh, and I will laugh," said John.
"Euchre!" she said, looking at him defiantly. "Two-handed euchre! We
have played, as nearly as I can estimate, fifteen hundred games, in
which he has held both bowers and the ace of trumps--or something
equally victorious--I should say fourteen hundred times. Oh!" she
cried, with an expression of loathing, "may I never, never, never see a
card again as long as I live!" John laughed without restraint, and after
a petulant little _moue_ she joined him.
"May I light up my pipe?" he said. "I will get to leeward."
"I shall not mind in the least," she assented.
"By the way," he asked, "does Mr. Carling smoke?"
"He used to," she replied, "and while we were with the Nollises he
smoked every day, but after we left them he fell back into the notion
that it was bad for him."
John filled and lighted his pipe in silence, and after a satisfactory
puff or two said: "Will Mr. Carling go in to dinner to-night?"
"Yes," she replied, "I think he will if it is no rougher than at
present."
"It will probably be smoother," said John. "You must introduce me to
him--"
"Oh," she interrupted, "of course, but it will hardly be necessary, as
Alice and I have spoken so often to him of you--"
"I was going to say," John resumed, "that he may possibly let me take
him off your hands a little, and after dinner will be the best time. I
think if I can get him into the smoking room that a cigar
and--and--something hot with a bit of lemon peel and so forth later on
may induce him to visit with me for a while, and pass the evening, or
part of it."
"You want to be an angel!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I--we--shall be so
obliged. I know it's just what he wants--some _man_ to take him in
hand."
"I'm in no hurry to be an angel," said John, laughing, and, with a bow,
"It's better sometimes to be _near_ the rose than to _be_ the rose, and
you are proposing to overpay me quite. I shall enjoy doing what I
proposed, if it be possible."
Their talk then drifted off into various channels as topics suggested
themselves until the ship's bell sounded the luncheon hour. Miss Blake
went to join her sister and brother-in-law, but John had some bread and
cheese and beer in the smoking room. It appeared that the ladies had
better success than in the morning, for he saw them later on in their
steamer chairs with Mr. Carling, who was huddled in many wraps, with the
flaps of his cap down over his ears. All the chairs were full--his own
included (as happens to easy-tempered men)--and he had only a brief
colloquy with the party. He noticed, however, that Mr. Carling had on
the russet shoes, and wondered if they pinched him. In fact, though he
couldn't have said exactly why, he rather hoped that they did. He had
just that sympathy for the nerves of two-and-fifty which is to be
expected from those of five-and-twenty--that is, very little.
When he went in to dinner the Carlings and Miss Blake had been at table
some minutes. There had been the usual controversy about what Mr.
Carling would drink with his dinner, and he had decided upon
Apollinaris water. But Miss Blake, with an idea of her own, had given an
order for champagne, and was exhibiting some consternation, real or
assumed, at the fact of having a whole bottle brought in with the cork
extracted--a customary trick at sea.
"I hope you will help me out," she said to John as he bowed and seated
himself. "'Some one has blundered,' and here is a whole bottle of
champagne which must be drunk to save it. Are you prepared to help turn
my, or somebody's, blunder into hospitality?"
"I am prepared to make any sacrifice," said John, laughing, "in the
sacred cause."
"No less than I expected of you," she said. "_Noblesse oblige!_ Please
fill your glass."
"Thanks," said John. "Permit me," and he filled her own as well.
As the meal proceeded there was some desultory talk about the weather,
the ship's run, and so on; but Mrs. Carling was almost silent, and her
husband said but little more. Even Miss Blake seemed to have something
on her mind, and contributed but little to the conversation. Presently
Mr. Carling said, "Mary, do you think a mouthful of wine would hurt me?"
"Certainly not," was the reply. "It will do you good," reaching over for
his glass and pouring the wine.
"That's enough, that's enough!" he protested as the foam came up to the
rim of the glass. She proceeded to fill it up to the brim and put it
beside him, and later, as she had opportunity, kept it replenished.
As the dinner concluded, John said to Mr. Carling: "Won't you go up to
the smoking room with me for coffee? I like a bit of tobacco with mine,
and I have some really good cigars and some cigarettes--if you prefer
them--that I can vouch for."
As usual, when the unexpected was presented to his mind, Mr. Carling
passed the perplexity on to his women-folk. At this time, however, his
dinner and the two glasses of wine which Miss Blake had contrived that
he should swallow had braced him up, and John's suggestion was so warmly
seconded by the ladies that, after some feeble protests and misgivings,
he yielded, and John carried him off.
"I hope it won't upset Julius," said Mrs. Carling doubtfully.
"It won't do anything of the sort," her sister replied. "He will get
through the evening without worrying himself and you into fits, and, if
Mr. Lenox succeeds, you won't see anything of him till ten o'clock or
after, and not then, I hope. Mind, you're to be sound asleep when he
comes in--snore a little if necessary--and let him get to bed without
any talk at all."
"Why do you say 'if Mr. Lenox succeeds'?" asked Mrs. Carling.
"It was his suggestion," Miss Blake answered. "We had been talking about
Julius, and he finally told me he thought he would be the better of an
occasional interval of masculine society, and I quite agreed with him.
You know how much he enjoyed being with George Nollis, and how much like
himself he appeared."
"That is true," said Mrs. Carling.
"And you know that just as soon as he got alone again with us two women
he began backing and filling as badly as ever. I believe Mr. Lenox is
right, and that Julius is just petticoated to death between us."
"Did Mr. Lenox say that?" asked Mrs. Carling incredulously.
"No," said her sister, laughing, "he didn't make use of precisely that
figure, but that was what he thought plainly enough."
"What do you think of Mr. Lenox?" said Mrs. Carling irrelevantly. "Do
you like him? I thought that he looked at you very admiringly once or
twice to-night," she added, with her eyes on her sister's face.
"Well," said Mary, with a petulant toss of the head, "except that I've
had about an hour's talk with him, and that I knew him when we were
children--at least when I was a child--he is a perfect stranger to me,
and I do wish," she added in a tone of annoyance, "that you would give
up that fad of yours, that every man who comes along is going to--to--be
a nuisance."
"He seems very pleasant," said Mrs. Carling, meekly ignoring her
sister's reproach.
"Oh, yes," she replied indifferently, "he's pleasant enough. Let us go
up and have a walk on deck. I want you to be sound asleep when Julius
comes in."