MONSIEUR CHARLOIX
"What's the matter, Lucy? You look so--funny----"
It was the morning of the second day out and the three girls were leaning
against the rail, gazing dreamily out over the boundless expanse of
ocean. They wore natty white middy suits and, with floppy little sailor
hats shading flushed cheeks and laughing eyes, they made an alluringly
picturesque little group that had attracted much attention from their
fellow-passengers.
"I'm glad you think so," said Lucile, dryly, in response to Jessie's
question. "If I look the way I feel I must be a very laughable object!"
A quick glance of consternation passed between Jessie and Evelyn, and the
latter turned to Lucile with dismay in her uplifted eyebrows.
"Seasick?" she inquired in a still, small voice.
Lucile nodded grimly. "Rather," she answered. "Guess I'm going to die."
"Don't say that," begged the girls, stifling a desire to laugh and cry at
once.
"Oh, Lucy, dear, what can we do?" said Jessie, putting a comforting arm
about her friend, whose complexion had grown a peculiar, greenish-gray
color in the last few moments. "Don't you think you had better go below?
Maybe if you lie flat on your back you will feel better. Come, dear."
"I knew I'd go and spoil everything by getting seasick," moaned Lucile,
in the same toneless voice, and then, as a flash of her old saving humor
came to the front, she turned to the girls with a suggestion of a smile.
"I suppose I'll have to come to the lemon and herring," she said.
She was deathly sick all the rest of that day and most of the next, and
it was not till near nightfall of the second day that she began to feel
the first faint desire to live.
Jessie and Evelyn had wandered about aimlessly all the time, looking, as
Phil said, as if some one had just pronounced a death sentence upon them.
Though they had become acquainted with a great many of the passengers, no
one of them had been able to coax a smile to the girls' long faces. In
spite of Phil's uncivil remarks, it must be noted that even the wondrous
engine-room had lost much of its charm for him and he had cut his visit
short, merely to ask if they, meaning his father and mother, thought it
would not help some to get Lucile on deck--fresh air--etc., etc.
Toward evening the cause of all this unrest opened heavy eyes upon a
tossing gray world and turned her head languidly toward the porthole.
At the slight sound, Evelyn, who had been sitting, chin in hand, gazing
gloomingly out to sea, rose quickly and ran to the side of the bed.
"Are you better, dear?" she said, softly stroking Lucile's dark hair back
from her forehead with gentle fingers. "You went to sleep and I was so
afraid of disturbing you that I didn't dare move."
Lucile caught her friend's hand and pressed it to her cheek. "You and
Jessie have been darling to me--both of you," she cried, warmly, and
Evelyn dropped to her knees beside the bed.
"Oh, that sounds like our old Lucy," she exulted. "You are feeling better
aren't you, dear?"
"Lots," said Lucile, smiling up at her friend.
Then Jessie came running in and they hugged each other and laughed and
cried after the dear and foolish manner of all girls, until a gentle
knock disturbed them and brought Jessie to her feet with a start.
"Oh, I promised Phil I'd come right back and tell him if you were awake,
and I never did," she cried, in consternation.
But, upon opening the door, the visitors proved not to be a wrathful and
avenging young god, but Mr. and Mrs. Payton, coming to inquire after the
patient's health.
"Hello!" said Mr. Payton, as Jessie gave a relieved sigh. "We came down
to see a sick girl and we find a rank imposter in her place."
"Aren't you disappointed?" gibed his daughter. "Is that you, Mother? It's
so dark in that corner I can hardly see."
Her mother's answer was a very comforting one, for she took Lucile in her
arms and kissed her gently.
"I'm glad you are feeling better, my dear," she said. "It will do you
good to get on deck as soon as possible. The salt air works wonders."
So it was decided that Lucile should have a light supper brought her in
the cabin, for she was beginning to develop an appetite, after which she
was to go on deck and test the revivifying power of salt sea air, mixed
with a little soft moonlight, for Phil had laughingly prophesied that
there would be "a peach of a moon to-night."
When Lucile, pale of face and lips and a trifle shaky and trembly on her
feet, stepped from her cabin into the full beauty of a cloudless night,
she turned to her friends with the first smile they had seen for ages--or
so it seemed to them.
"Girls, it's good to be alive again!" she stated, fervently.
"Huh, you haven't been dead yet," grunted Phil.
"Well, I thought I was going to die, which is as bad," she retorted, with
spirit. "But I'm going to live now, my brother, if only to disappoint
you," she added.
"My, what a disposition!" said Evelyn, with a sad shake of her head, and
Jessie murmured, with an encouraging pat, "Cheer up, Lucy; you are far
from being a dead one yet."
Lucile sank into the chair they had so carefully prepared for her with a
low laugh. "They are all pickin' on me," she said, plaintively. "But what
do we care, on such a night? Just look at that sky," and, leaning
forward, with her hand on the rail, she let her gaze wander hungrily out
over the water, where the long, graceful combers caught the reflected,
starry light and passed it on till it merged in the silvery pathway of
the moon, which, as Phil had prophesied, was at its height. She sat quite
still, realizing as she had never done before the utter grandeur, the
awe-inspiring majesty of the ocean.
"It's enough to make one sentimental, isn't it?" said Jessie, at her
elbow. "Wouldn't it be nice if Jack were here?" she added, innocently.
"Oh, bother!" said Lucile, leaning back with a contented sigh. "He would
spoil everything. He would probably want to talk, and I can't."
"Oh," said Jessie, silenced, but unconvinced.
However, they were not destined to enjoy the beauty of the night in
peace, for it was not long before the after-dinner crowd began to pour
out on deck and the girls were surrounded by friendly, interested
fellow-passengers, who inquired solicitously after Lucile's health.
Lucile was surprised and touched by these demonstrations, and it was not
long before she was chatting naturally and merrily with a jolly little
group to whom her father had laughingly introduced her as "the
convalescent."
"Do you see that young man coming toward us?" said Evelyn, nodding in the
direction of a tall, spare young fellow, who, with his shock of black
hair, long, aquiline nose, and sensitive, thin-lipped mouth, looked
decidedly temperamental, even to the most casual observer.
Lucile nodded. "What about him?" she asked.
"He's a Frenchman," adding, with a mysterious shake of her head, "Thereby
hangs a tale."
Much to Lucile's secret annoyance, the young man at her right claimed her
attention at that important moment, asking her, inanely, or so she
thought, if she could swim.
It was not until an hour later, when most of the passengers had drifted
off to different, and often more secluded, parts of the deck, and only
three or four remained with them, that Lucile had an opportunity to
question her friend.
"I hate mysteries, Evelyn," she whispered. "What did you mean by 'thereby
hangs a tale'? Explain yourself."
"I can't just now," answered Evelyn. "He might hear us. Anyway, I don't
know very much to tell. He would probably explain for himself if only
those old stick-plasters would go away and tend to their own affairs,"
and she glared belligerently at the three unconscious gentlemen and young
Monsieur Charloix, the Frenchman.
"No chance--they're glued!" said Jessie, gloomily, and Lucile looked from
one to the other of them despairingly.
"I wish I knew what you were getting at," she sighed.
"Mademoiselle has been very seek?" the voice was low, caressing, with the
slightest suggestion of a foreign accent.
Lucile turned her head and found herself looking into the bright,
restless eyes of the mysterious stranger.
For the first moment she was startled and a little confused, but the next
instant, recovering herself, she answered, gravely, "Yes, I have been
rather under the weather for a couple of days," and she added, with her
bright smile, "The thing that bothers me most is the thought of what I
have missed during that time."
"Mademoiselle is brave," he smiled back. "Most would think only of their
sufferings. However, there are still two good days in which to see
everything."
"Two days?" sighed Lucile. "It seems to me as if it would take two years
to see all I'd like to."
"Ah, but it is Mademoiselle's first voyage." There was an undertone of
sadness in the low voice that made Lucile steal a quick glance at him.
There was something about the man, perhaps in the tired droop of his
shoulders, perhaps something in the wistful way he had of looking far out
to sea, as if seeking the solution of his problem there; perhaps it was
only the pathos in his low, Southern voice. Be that as it may, Lucile's
heart went out to him then and there.
"When one has been back and forth, back and forth, many times," he went
on, "he is bound to lose that so fresh enthusiasm and long only for the
shore where something may be done. At such times the days, they seem to
have no end. But I transgress," he interrupted himself, with a little
deprecatory laugh. "Mademoiselle should have reminded me."
"You speak of having crossed the ocean many times," said Mr. Payton, who,
with his wife, had approached the absorbed little group unknown to them.
Monsieur Charloix arose from his chair quickly and offered it, with a
Frenchman's elaborate courtesy, to Mrs. Payton. When they were again
seated, this time in a cozy little semicircle, Mr. Payton repeated his
question and the girls listened eagerly for the reply.
"Didn't I tell you?" Jessie managed to whisper. "Now we are going to have
the story."
"Yes," came, in the gentle, modulated tones, "Monsieur is right; I am not
a stranger to America."
"And you like our country?" said Mrs. Payton, adding, with a laugh, "Do
not be afraid to tell the truth; we shall not be offended."
"Ah, but that is where Madam does me great injustice," said the stranger,
with a smile. "There is no country in the world for which I have so great
respect and admiration as I have for your great America. It has been my
misfortune that, in my flying visits, I have had so little time and
opportunity to make the acquaintance of so great a nation."
"Hip-hip-hooray!" cried Phil, the irrepressible, taking possession of the
chair next to Jessie. "It's good to have the old country boosted when
you're so far away."
"Phil," protested his mother, "I do wish you could get along without so
much slang."
"He'll be engaging an interpreter next," murmured Jessie, at which the
culprit looked his reproach.
"I hope you will pardon the interruption, Monsieur Charloix," said Mrs.
Payton, apologetically, and her husband added, "Our excuse for Phil is
that he is young and still has much to learn, although it is mighty hard
to convince him of the truth of that last fact," at which scathing
remark, delivered with a twinkle that was lost in the dark, Phil looked
almost cast down, until Jessie declared in a whisper "that she loved
slang," accompanying the declaration with a comforting little pat that
cheered him immensely.
"No apologies, Madame and Monsieur," the Frenchman was saying. "I was
once a boy myself. The slang has many advantages which the more flowery
language has not; it is, at least, much to the point."
"If he would only use it, he might reach the point sooner," complained
Jessie, in an aside.
"I'd be happy if I only knew what point you wanted him to get to," sighed
Lucile. "You see, I am completely in the dark."
"'Listen, my children, and you shall hear,'" Jessie broke in, still in an
undertone. "Methinks the story is about to unfold itself----"
"Sh-h!" said Lucile, warningly. "Listen!"
Mr. Payton was speaking. "You say the will cannot be found?"
Four pairs of bright young eyes centered upon the stranger with eager
intensity as they waited for his reply.