"Please."
"Cigarette, Major?" asked Meade.
"I will--thanks."
Lavis came in. Both men passed the greetings of the evening with him,
and then Meade, at least, forgot that he existed. Only interesting
people were of value to Meade, and he had early in the passage appraised
Lavis--one of those negligible persons whose habit was to hover near
some group of notables and look at them or listen to them, and, if
encouraged, join in the conversation, or, if invited, take a hand in a
game of cards.
"Seen Cadogan since dinner, Major?" asked Meade.
"He's patrolling the deck right now."
"With the beautiful lady?"
"Nope--alone."
"Thank God! And where is she?"
"Oh, she's nicely enthroned, thank you, in an angle of the loungeroom
with that sixty-millionaire coal baron, Drissler."
"It's bath-tubs, and he's only got twenty millions."
"The poor beggar! Well, Meade, if ever she gets within shelling distance
of his little twenty millions they'll melt like a dobey house in the
rain."
"No doubt of that, I guess. And yet--and yet up to late this afternoon,
at least, she appeared to be delighting in the presence of Cadogan."
"She surely did. But"--Major Crupp eyed Meade quizzically--"what are you
worrying about?"
"I'm afraid she hasn't really shook him. I know too much about her. The
twenty millions would be nice to draw upon, but her one unquenchable
passion is man, and in build, looks, age, and temperament Cadogan is
just one rich prize. But how do you account for Cadogan? He's certainly
bright enough in other matters."
Crupp projected three smoke rings across the table at Meade. "I was
stationed in the wilds of the Philippines one time. The native women
where I was were unwashed, bow-legged, black creatures about four feet
high. After three years of it I returned home in a government transport.
I landed in San Francisco. At first I thought it was a dream."
"Thought what was a dream, Major?"
"The women going by. I posted myself on the corner of two streets, and
there I stood transfixed, except every ten minutes or so, when I'd run
into the hotel bar behind me and have another drink. And I'd come out
again, and I'd take another look at those big, beautiful, upstanding
creatures floating by, hosts and hosts of 'em, and I'd whisper to
myself: 'Cruppie, you're dead. You've been boloed on outpost and gone to
heaven, and you don't know it.' And googoo-eyed I kept staring at 'em,
investing every last one of 'em with a double halo, till a long,
splayfooted, thin-necked hombre in a policeman's uniform came along and
says: 'Here, you, I've been pipin' you off for about four hours now.
About time you moved on, ain't it?' Lord, and not one of 'em that
couldn't have married me on the spot, I held 'em in such respect."
"Thick, wasn't he?"
"I thought so--then. But I wonder if Caddie would think we were thick,
too, if we told him to move on? He's just back, remember, from two years
in the jungle, and her eyes haven't changed color and her hair still
shines like a new gold shoulder-knot at dress parade. She is still
beautiful--and clever."
"Clever? She's surely that; but he's only a boy, Major."
"M-m--twenty-six!"
"What's twenty-six? He's still a dreaming boy. I'd like to say what I
really thought of her."
"Don't. They'd be having a squad of stewards in here to police the place
after you got through."
"Why don't you give him a hint?"
"Huh! No, no, Mister Meade--I'm still young and fair. You break it to
him. Who knows, your age may save you from being projected through the
nearest embrasure!" Crupp crushed the smoking end of his cigarette
against the ash-tray. "I'll have to run along now."
"Back soon?"
"After I've said good night to two or three dear old ladies in the
loungeroom before they go below."
"And two or three dear young ladies who won't be going below."
"Don't be saucy, Meade. You look out of uniform when you try to be
saucy. Exactness as to fact and luminosity of language--that's you, if
you please."
"Bring Vogel on your way back."
"If I can detach him from his beloved maps. Forty millions in railroads
he's got now. And colored maps of 'em he's got. He gloats over 'em---
gloats, every night before he turns in."
"Hurry him up, anyway. And drive Cadogan in. I'll get him going on a few
adventures, and make him forget his beautiful lady."
* * * * *
Lavis had been sitting on the transom. He always seemed to be sitting on
the transom--a long, lean, huddled-up figure in the corner, looking out
with half-closed eyes on the life of the smoking-room.
Cadogan came in. Meade revolved the chair next to him at the table, so
that Cadogan had only to fall into it. Cadogan abstractedly nodded his
thanks. Catching sight of Lavis, he nodded and smiled.
With eyes staring absently into space Cadogan was drumming on the table
with his fingers.
"Sounds like some tom-tom march you're trying to play," interrupted
Meade, and proffered a cigar. Cadogan shook his head.
"No?" Meade dropped his cigar placidly back into its case. "But listen
here, Cadogan. As a writer and newspaper man, my main business in life
is to discover people who know more than other people about some
particular thing, and then get it out of them. What about this
ocean-liner travelling of to-day--is it perfectly safe?"
"The safest mode of travel ever devised--or should be."
"But lives are lost?"
"Surely. And probably will be. But they should not be--not on the high
sea--except in a collision, and then probably one ship or the other is
to blame. Even inshore, if they keep their lead and foghorn going, and
steam up to kick her off, nothing will happen either, unless"--he
shrugged his shoulders--"they've gone foolish or something else on the
bridge."
Meade questioned further. And Cadogan answered briefly, abstractedly,
until--Meade growing more cunning and subtle--he was led into citing one
experience after another from out of his own life in proof of this or
that side of an argument.
Cadogan had begun in short, snappy sentences, and in a tense, rather
high-keyed voice; but once warmed up he swung along in rounded, almost
classic periods; and his voice deepened and softened and, as he became
yet more absorbed in his subject, grew rhythmical, musical almost, the
while his words took on added color and glow.
Once in full swing it was not difficult for Meade to get him to run on;
and he ran on for an hour, and would have gone on indefinitely only,
suddenly coming to himself and looking around, he discovered that half
the room had gathered in a semicircle behind his chair. He flushed, cut
his story short, and said no more. The crowd dispersed to their various
seats.
Presently Meade observed: "How did you ever find time in your young life
for the half of it? And how you do suggest things--possibilities that
try a man's spirit even to contemplate!"
Cadogan did not respond; but from Lavis, the man on the transom, came:
"And now you are suggesting the really great adventuring!"