The two travellers settled themselves and took stock of the passengers
in the casual way of those who go down to the sea in ships. Miss Watts
was prepared to have Isabelle throw herself into the activities of the
brief voyage, in order that she might forget her troubles. She did just
the opposite. She lay in her chair, reading or contemplating the sea;
she marched the deck in absent-minded solitude. Miss Watts was the only
person she spoke to, or permitted to speak to her.
But her odd face, her unusual clothes, and her great _hauteur_ marked
her at once in the eyes of the idlers who sat on deck and gossiped. She
was soon identified as the heroine of the Cartel opening. Speculation
and much interest followed her.
The second day out the chair to the right of Isabelle was occupied for
the first time. A cursory glance was enough to assure her of the
following facts: he was handsome "as an army with banners"; he wore an
English officer's uniform; and he was very pale. She decided to have
another look in a moment.
She settled herself comfortably--aware that his eyes were upon her--and
opened her book, with an air of great detachment. Miss Watts was not on
deck at the moment. It was some time before she got another chance to
look at him unobserved. She saw that he had crinkly hair and a
ridiculous little moustache, twisted at the tips. He had his eyes
closed. He certainly was white, but one strong, lean, brown hand lay on
his lap, giving her a feeling of relaxed power. His eyes opened
unexpectedly, and she had to return to her book in haste. His eyes were
very blue and she thought there was a smile in them.
Miss Watts's arrival interrupted this interchange, if it was an
interchange. But in a few minutes another officer came to chat with the
invalid.
"Hello, Larry, old man, how are ye?" he inquired.
"I'm fairly fit to-day, thanks."
"Glad you can be on deck."
"Rather. I thought I'd croak in that hole of a stateroom."
"Lot of people aboard we know. Mrs. Darlington, for one. Remember her in
London?"
"Rather."
"She's dying to see 'dear old Larry.' Sit tight, she's on her way now,"
he added, in a lower voice.
Isabelle permitted herself a look. A tall, handsome woman was coming
down the deck, with a swaying sort of walk that was fascinating. She was
very smartly turned out. A rather fat man, with prominent eyes,
accompanied her. They stopped beside Larry's chair, and she exclaimed
enthusiastically:
"How are you, old dear? They would not let me into your stateroom, or I
should have been holding your hand, and giving Mrs. Grundy a treat."
"Larry" got to his feet and accomplished a gallant bow.
"Awf'lly good of ye," he said, smiling, holding her hand in his.
"You know Monty Haven, don't you? Captain Larry O'Leary, Monty, and
Major O'Dell."
So his name was Larry O'Leary, mused Isabelle. She liked its softness on
the tongue.
"Does your wound trouble you, you brave thing?" Mrs. Darlington purred.
"Oh, no. Coming all right. It's nothing."
"Nothing? Do you know what this wonderful creature did, under fire and
all, Monty?" she demanded.
"O kind and beautiful lady, spare me blushes. I'm after being Irish and
susceptible to flattery," he cried.
"Larry, you old heart-breaker, don't look at me in that wistful Celtic
way," she commanded.
"Mrs. Darlington, dear, ye may as well resign yersilf to bein' looked
at," he retorted.
"It is good to hear your blarney and your brogue, Larry. By the way, old
Mrs. Van Dyke is aboard and demands a sight of you."
"Does she now? Come along and let's pay our respects to the old lady."
She put her hand through his arm, and they sauntered off, with the other
two men in their wake.
"Handsome woman, wasn't she?" Miss Watts remarked.
"No. I don't like that type. She struck me as _bold_."
Captain Larry O'Leary was the spoiled and petted darling of the boat.
The tale of his gallant action under fire, of his wounds, of his
decoration for valour, was passed from mouth to mouth, and lost nothing
in the retelling.
The men liked him because he was a simple, modest chap, in spite of it
all. The women followed him around like a cloud of gnats. He jollied
them all from old Madam Van Dyke, who was seventy, to the smallest girl
child on the boat.
He looked like a hero out of a fairy book. He had a rollicking,
contagious laugh, and a courteous heart toward every one. At the ship
concert for the benefit of wounded soldiers, he sang the songs of the
trenches, and the marching songs of the Irish troops, the English and
the French, in a clear baritone voice. There is no hope of disguising
the fact that Larry O'Leary was too good to be true. Like the star in
the melodrama, he was 99 per cent. hero.
His only rival for the centre of the stage on the brief voyage was
Isabelle. At first she kept to herself, because she was ill, and wanted
to be alone. But after a bit she grasped the fact that her aloofness was
a sensation, and she was not too ill to enjoy that. Her perambulations
about the deck were watched with undiminished interest. Everybody knew
everybody else. There were dances, and games and knitting contests, but
to all invitations Isabelle replied in the negative.
"Why don't you talk to some of these people, Isabelle? They seem very
pleasant," Miss Watts said.
"Oh," sighed the girl, "they bore me."
Captain O'Leary had made several attempts to get an opening to speak to
her in the afternoon, but she had successfully evaded them. Mrs.
Darlington in search of the bonny Captain spoke to her.
"Your handsome neighbour isn't on deck?"
"Isn't he?" said Isabelle. "I hadn't noticed."
Mrs. Darlington stared, laughed, retreated and the story went the
rounds. It amused O'Leary, and it also piqued him. He was used to being
noticed by ladies in his vicinity. He made up his mind that he would
make that girl look at him. He intended to lay siege to Miss Watts, but
he came upon Isabelle unattended, in deep contemplation of the sea, and
he promptly sat down beside her.
"I beg pardon, Miss Bryce, but are you Irish?" he said deliberately.
She turned big, enquiring eyes upon him.
"No. Why?"
"I thought nobody could be as sad as you look except an Irishman."
"I'm not Irish," she said, and returned her gaze to the sea.
"I am," he exclaimed.
No answer.
"We're very sensitive to--to rebuffs."
"I suppose so. You were shot in a rebuff, weren't you?" she said,
politely.
His laugh rang out at that.
"Yes, but we're not so sensitive to a rebuff from guns as we are to a
rebuff from ladies."
"No?"
"Have ye taken an unconquerable dislike to me, Miss Bryce?" he begged.
"I think you're very--pleasant," admitted Isabelle.
"Couldn't ye take a lesson from me?"
"You think I'm unpleasant?"
"I think your heart is as hard as the rocks in Flodden Field," he
exclaimed.
"Being pleasant hasn't anything to do with your heart," was her calm
reply.
"Hasn't it? Ye think I can be as pleasant as I am, and still have a
hard, black heart?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"So you don't like me?" he persisted.
"Yes, rather. But I'm a little tired of heroes just now," was her reply.
"I'm afraid I don't qualify," he said curtly, "but as a possible
nuisance I'll take mesilf off."
He rose. He stopped behind her chair and leaned over her to say:
"That rebuff, ye spoke of, in France. After all, it was an amateur
affair, as rebuffs go."
With which he marched off down the deck, his head very high in the air.
Miss Watts sat down beside Isabelle with a quick glance at her.
"Weren't you talking to Captain O'Leary?"
"He talked to me."
"Isn't he charming? All the women are so excited about him."
"That's what's the matter with him."
"Is he conceited?"
"Fearfully!" quoth Isabelle.
She went over that interview dozens of times. Of course he would never
look at her again. She remembered how Mrs. Darlington purred over
him--how Madam Van Dyke patted him. That was the way to make him like
you, but she had scratched and spit at him, like an angry kitten. She
couldn't imagine why she had acted like that. She admired him immensely.
He was more attractive than Jerry Paxton or Sidney Cartel or any man she
had ever loved, and yet--she had deliberately made him hate her. Well,
anyhow, she liked the idea of her heart being as hard as the rocks in
Flodden Field. It had an important sound. He could never say that to the
gushing Mrs. Darlington, or any of the other women who ran around after
him.
So she closed the chapter of their acquaintance on the boat, but she
worked out a scene or two at Bermuda, including an aeroplane flight in
which he and she were lost in the clouds. On the whole she preferred the
things she made up to the things that happened.
As they neared the Islands the weather grew warmer. White clothes
appeared on deck. Captain O'Leary appeared in an undress uniform that
caused a flutter in feminine hearts. The night of the day of her
encounter with her hero was stuffy and very hot.
Isabelle was restless and wakeful. She tossed and turned and tried to
banish all thoughts of the Irishman, but it was no use. She leaned out
of her upper berth to gaze down upon the sleeping features of Miss
Watts.
"How wonderful to be so old that you don't care about handsome
Irishmen!" mused Isabelle.
A few minutes later she decided that, unless she had some air, she
would perish. She made a most careful descent from her perch, without
waking her companion. She opened the door cautiously, and put her head
out. It was a trifle cooler in the passageway. Her watch reported three
o'clock. There would be no one awake at that hour.
She put on her slippers, and the tight little orange-and-black Chinese
cloak. She left the door open, and went into the corridor. She walked up
and down, up and down, trying to believe that she was cooler. It was
rather spooky! Several stateroom doors stood open, and the sound of
sleepers--breathing evenly, or snoring--came to her as she passed.
Finally she turned in at her own door, slipped off the Chinese coat, and
laid it across the chair. She moved very quietly not to disturb Miss
Watts. She put her foot on the extreme edge of the lower berth to mount,
when the boat rolled and threw her off her balance. To save herself from
falling, she put out her hand; it descended upon the upturned face--it
should have been the face of Miss Watts, but it was not. Her hand fell
upon a moustache! With one bound Isabelle was out of the door, into the
passageway, and into the next open door.
"Miss Watts!" she gasped.
"Yes, what is it?"--sleepily.
"Oh, nothing. I went out to get a breath of air. I left the door open,
but I wasn't just sure----"
She was climbing up into her berth during this explanation. Suddenly a
hideous thought caused her to collapse on the edge of her bed--she had
left her Chinese coat behind!