do my best to keep things in abeyance until we reach Hong-Kong. Once
they are separated, the danger is practically over."
It is doubtful, however, whether the combined efforts of the captain,
Mrs. Weston, and even Percival himself could have kept things _in
statu quo_ had a timely typhoon not arrived and taken things into its
own hands. It was about four in the afternoon that the sky darkened and
the bright blue water turned to gray. The wind shifted and came on to
blow dead ahead.
"What a queer light there is on everything!" cried Mrs. Weston, who was
dutifully stationed between Bobby and Percival, doing sentry duty. "I
wonder if it is going to blow up a storm."
"I hope so," said Bobby. "I love for things to happen."
Percival glanced despairingly at Mrs. Weston, who was beginning on a
fresh ball of yarn. If she continued to sit there and knit the rest of
her life, nothing ever would happen.
"I ought to close my port-hole if it's going to rain," she said. "Do you
think it is?"
"Sure to," said Percival, with unusual alacrity. "Hard shower any
minute."
Mrs. Weston rose reluctantly.
"Don't you think you'd better come down, too, Bobby, and close yours?"
"Mine's closed, thanks. I'll take your place and hold Mr. Hascombe's
tea-cup."
Now, when a person with outrageously blue eyes is leaning on the arm of
your steamer-chair, steadying your saucer for you, and the wind has
blown everybody else off the deck except a bow-legged Chinese steward
who is absorbed in tying things down, it does look as if Fate meant to
be propitious.
Percival put his cup in his saucer and let his fingers touch the small
hand that held it.
[Illustration: "It's quite worth while" he said "getting a jab in the
wrist, to have you looking after me like this"]
"It's quite worth while," he said, "getting a jab in the wrist, to have
you looking after me like this. I wonder if you realize that you saved
my life last night?"
"I bet I know what this is leading up to," cried Bobby, accusingly.
"What?" asked Percival, catching his lip between his teeth and looking
at her with devouring eyes.
"A medal!"
"Much more serious. As a matter of fact, the truth is, I've been trying
to get a minute alone with you all day. There's something I want--"
"Oh, yes, I know. It's that Manchu coat. You want it to pack, of course.
I'll get it now."
But his fingers held hers fast to the saucer.
"You stupid child! You don't understand. It's yours, everything I have
is--"
"Oh, goody! Here's the rain!" cried Bobby. "Andy bet me ten pounds of
candy it wouldn't come before night. Quick, let me put your cup under
the chair. Don't bother about the cushions."
"But there's something I've _got_ to say to you. You must listen to
me!"
"I'll listen to anything you like in the music-room just so it isn't
'Tales from Hoffman.' Come, we'll have to hurry!"
Percival, with his passion once more arrested, strode after her
furiously. He was intolerant of every moment that passed before be
claimed her for his own, and unable longer to restrain his mad desire to
fold her in his arms.
In the midst of these fervent anticipations he was unpleasantly aware of
the increased motion of the ship. It was the first time he had felt that
pitching, rolling motion since leaving the Golden Gate, and he shuddered
involuntarily.
"Here's a cozy little corner all to ourselves!" cried Bobby, tossing the
cushions into a nook in the music-room, and inviting him to a place
beside her.
But Percival remained standing in the doorway, supporting himself with
his free hand, his eyes fixed on space, and a leaden color spreading
over his face.
"If you don't mind," he said slowly, "I think I'll go below. Feel the
storm a bit in my head. Atmospheric pressure, you know."
"Of course you do," cried Bobby, all solicitude. "It's no wonder, after
the blood you lost last night. Sit right down there until I find
Judson."
XV
PERCIVAL RISES TO AN OCCASION
During the two nights and days that followed the typhoon had everything
its own way. The sea bellowed with rage, and battalion after battalion
of mountainous waves charged the ship, only to fall back and form again.
For thirty consecutive hours the captain stayed on the bridge watching
every variation in the glass, and keeping all of his Nelson features in
active service. Whatever frivolities might fill his idle hours, there
was no question of his attention to duty when the call came.
As for the Honorable Percival, he had ample opportunity during his long
hours of solitary confinement to make a complete inventory of his varied
emotions. Two things which should never be interrupted are a sneeze and
a proposal. That second declaration, so ardently begun and so ruthlessly
arrested, still hung in mid-air, and lying on his back in his darkened
stateroom, he had ample time in which to survey it from every angle.
Never for a moment did he question the undying nature of his affection
for Bobby. His emotion was too insistent and too consuming to be
doubted. It was the proprieties that he questioned, and they all shook
emphatic and disapproving heads. The proprieties in Grosvenor Square, to
be sure, loomed rather dim through the distance; but that immediate
propriety in Hong-Kong, toward whom he was speeding with every turn of
the screw, towered ominously.
If only he could hold things in abeyance until after the _Saluria_
sailed from Hong-Kong, all might be well. It was of the utmost
importance that he should not present Bobby to Sister Cordelia until the
die was irrevocably cast. Faults that in Miss Boynton of the Big Gully
Ranch would be glaring iniquities would, in the wife of the Honorable
Percival Hascombe, dwindle away to charming eccentricities.
A daring plan occurred to him. With proper strategy he might go down
to see the steamer off, get left on board, have the return trip in
uninterrupted bliss with Bobby, then boldly cable from America that
he had met his fate and succumbed to it, and that remonstrances were
useless. The scheme appealed to him the more he considered it.
Cablegrams were necessarily unemotional, and by the time letters were
exchanged, the proprieties would probably have decided to accept the
will of Providence and try to make the best of dear Percy's strange
choice of an unknown American girl.
In the meanwhile he would devote all his energies to fitting her for
the honor about to be conferred upon her, For he had quite given up the
idea of the "blossomed bower in dark purple spheres of sea," and had
definitely decided to take her back to England as the future mistress of
Hascombe Hall. All he asked was six months in which to cut and polish
his priceless gem.
It was not until the evening before the _Saluria_ was due in
Hong-Kong that the sea got over its fit of temper and decided to make
that last night the most beautiful one of the crossing. Everybody was
down for the farewell dinner. Even those who had been invisible for two
days emerged from their state-rooms like gorgeous butterflies from their
cocoons. Speeches were made, toasts were drunk, and a general air of
festivity prevailed.
Percival raged inwardly at the length of the dinner. The golden moments
were racing by, and he was in a fever to get Bobby away to himself,
he had decided on a course which he felt did credit to his power of
self-control. He would permit himself the luxury of showing her that her
affection for him was wholly returned, without in any way committing
himself to a definite engagement. He would, in short, ask her to accept
a sort of promissory note on his affections, to be presented at any time
after the steamer left Hong-Kong.
It was ten o'clock before he contrived, to escape Mrs. Weston's vigilant
eye and whisk Bobby off to a certain favored nook on the boat-deck just
outside the captain's state-room. Here they had spent many happy
evenings, notwithstanding the fact that their figures, silhouetted
against the light, had never failed to provoke the captain to a
profanity that was not always inaudible.
To-night, however, the captain was detained below, and they had the
entire Yellow Sea to themselves as they sat on a projecting ledge and
leaned their elbows comfortably on the rail.
It was an enticing night, with nothing left of the recent storm save a
subtle thrill that still lingered in wind and wave. Overhead spread a
canopy of luminous, subtropical stars; in undisturbed silence they gazed
up at their brilliance. From below floated faint strains of music
mingling with the sound of rippling: water.
"And to think it's our very last night!" murmured Bobby, her chin on her
palm. "I'll never bear 'La Paloma' that I sha'n't think of this trip and
of you."
Percival dared not answer. He had reached that stage when, according
to the philosopher, the moonlight is a pleasing fever, the stars are
letters, the flowers ciphers, and the air is coined into song. He
regarded her gaze as she bent it upon the stars as the most exquisitely
pensive thing he had ever behold.
"My! but there are some dandy billiard-shots up there!" she exclaimed
suddenly. "Do you see that lovely carom over there beyond the Dipper?"
"I am not thinking of caroms," he said impatiently, "I am thinking of
you."
"What have I done now?" she asked indignantly.
"You've made me forget that there's anything else in the whole universe
but just you!"
"And now you've got to begin to remember," said Bobby, sympathetically.
He searched her face for a clue as to what was passing in her mind, but
he found none.
"You are a most awfully baffling girl," he said. "Sometimes I can't
determine whether you are subtle or merely ingenuous."
"I'd give it up," advised Bobby.
"But I sha'n't give it up. I sha'n't be content until I know every
little corner of your mind and heart."
She stirred uneasily. From, the way he was looking at her it was
evidently a good thing that his near arm was in a sling.
"You need a cigar," she said soothingly. "Get one out; I'll light it for
you."
He obediently produced his cigar-case, and together they selected a
cigar. She made a great point of cutting off the end, and then, when he
had got it into his mouth, she struck a match and, sheltering the blaze
with her scarf, held it close. The sudden intimacy of that beautiful
face in the little circle of light, with the darkness all around, was
quite too much for Percival. He looked straight into her eyes for one
resolution-breaking second, then he blew out the match and catching her
to him, passionately kissed those smiling, upturned lips.
"Mr. Hascombe!" she protested, shrinking away; but Percival had made his
leap and nothing could stop him.
"You are mine!" he cried rapturously, pressing her hand again and again
to his lips. "It's all quite right, my darling. Don't be frightened. We
shall be married any time, anywhere you say, to-morrow, if you like, in
Hong-Kong."
"But, Mr. Hascombe--"
"Not Mr. Hascombe. Percival, Percy, if you will. Fancy! Love at first
sight. One glance on those desolate plains, and you were mine!"
"But I'm not. That's what I'm trying to tell you."
He looked at her fatuously. "But you will be! My little lady of the
manor! My beautiful little mistress of Hascombe Hall!"
She struggled away from him, and stood at bay.
"How _can_ you talk to me like this?" she cried, her voice
trembling with indignation, "after what I told you that day in the
wind-shelter?"
"In the wind-shelter?" He looked at her in bewilderment.
"Yea, about Hal Ford and the captain and all that. Why, you promised to
help me, and now--"
"Hal Ford?" repeated Percival, dazed. "What has he to do with it?"
"More than anybody else in the world. He's waiting for me in Wyoming,
and I'm counting the days and the hours and the minutes until I get back
to him. I thought you understood, and were helping me bring the captain
around."
He stood before her too stunned to speak.
Sheer amazement for the moment crowded out the pain.
"But--but don't you love me?" he stammered at last.
"Of course I don't," said Bobby, almost indignantly; "I never have loved
anybody, and I never will love anybody but Hal."
Then Percival realized that it was quite possible for lightning to
strike twice in the same place. He felt a sudden pain in his throat,
a burning under his lids, and he sat down limply.
[Illustration: "I'm so sorry!" whispered Bobby, putting her arm
impulsively around his heaving shoulders]
"I'm so sorry!" whispered Bobby, putting her arm impulsively around his
heaving shoulders. "I thought we were playing a game. I thought you
understood. Please forgive me, Mr. Hascombe! Please! Won't you?"
He shook off her arm and stood up. He was whiter than he had been on the
night of the accident, but he managed to achieve a smile.
"Nothing whatever to forgive, I assure you. Just a bit of a bunker, you
know. Silly ass I was, not to have seen it all along. May I offer my
congratulations?" he added.
She took the hand that he hold out, and for a longer time than either of
them knew they stood silent, looking out into the vast mystery of the
night, while the throbbing strains of "La Paloma" floated up from below,
mingling with the music of the rippling water.
"I guess this is good-by," said Bobby, tremulously.
Then it was that the Honorable Percival illustrated the fact that an
English gentleman is often greatest in defeat.
"Not necessarily," he said gamely. "Quite possible you and your husband
may come to England."
"Or you to Wyoming!" cried Bobby, brightening instantly, and turning
upon him the full splendor of her eyes. "Hal and I'd just _love_ to
give you a summer on the ranch. Do you suppose it ever will be
possible?"
"Oh, I dare say," said the Honorable Percival, nonchalantly adjusting
his monocle.
XVI
IN PORT
The next morning the long voyage of the _Saluria_ came to an end.
The steamer docked at Hong-Kong just as the first pink streaks of dawn
crept over the bay and the terraced city.
Bobby was up with the officers, and breakfasted alone with the captain.
"Can you spare me five minutes?" she asked as he was hurrying through
his second cup of coffee.
"What for?"
"For a talk. I've got something to tell you."
"It'll have to wait," said the captain, gruffly. "We are landing a cargo
of sugar machinery here, and I've got my hands full."
"I don't want your hands," said Bobby, quietly; "I want your ears.
There's something I've just got to tell you."
"I can't listen. I'm due on the bridge now."
He escaped for the time being, but later In the morning, when the
commotion of arrival was at its height, and the passengers were
beginning to go ashore, he found Bobby on the bridge beside him. He
fancied he saw defiance written all over her, from the crown of her
white hat to the tip of her white shoes.
"Captain," she said, "It won't take a minute."
He was on the point of refusing when she laid her hand on his.
"Cut away!" he said, looking straight ahead of him. "Make it short."
"It's about Mr. Hascombe. He's--he's asked me to marry him."
The captain jerked his hand away and brought it down on the rail with a
resounding blow.
"You sha'n't do it!" he thundered. "I'd see you sewed up in a bag and
dropped alongside first."
"But, Captain--"
"I won't have it! There's no use arguing. The idea of a girl of mine
being carried away by a condescending, conceited jack-in-the-box--"
"He _isn't_! He's a darling!" Bobby flashed out hotly. "It's just
that you don't understand him."
"What's more, I don't want to. I've had enough of him and his kind. If
I'd known you were going to run amuck of a thing like this, I'd have let
you bury yourself on the ranch for the rest of your life."
"Well," agreed Bobby, carefully studying her pink palm, and weighing her
words as one who is quite open to reason, "I think I could have been
happy with Hal; but you thought we were both too young and that I ought
to see some other men first."
"Yes, but I didn't know you were going to get your head turned by the
first fool that came lording it around with a valet and a title. The
Fords may be plain people, but, by Jugs! they are the sort to tie up to
in a squall."
Bobby smiled broadly under the brim of her hat.
"Then you advise me to take Hal?"
"I advise you to let me send this fellow Hascombe about his business.
I'll make short work of him."
Bobby slipped her arm through his, and looked up saucily.
"You needn't bother, dear," she said. "Now that it's all settled about
Hal, I don't mind telling you that I refused Mr. Hascombe last night."
* * * * *
On the gangway below, the passengers were slowly filing ashore. Among
the last to debark was the Honorable Percival Hascombe, followed by a
fur coat, a gun-case, two pigskin bags, a hat-box, and a valet. On his
face was an expression of unutterable ennui. As he reached the wharf he
turned and casually surveyed the steamer. On the bridge he discerned a
small alert figure, clad in white, her dark head framed by the broad
brim of a Panama hat. She waved her hand and smiled, and he waved back,
but he did not smile.
"Judson," said the Honorable Percival as they handed their bags to
Sister Cordelia's footman, "quite unnecessary to mention any--er--any
incidents of the voyage. You understand?"
"Quite so, sir," said Judson.
FINIS
* * * * *
"When Alice Hegan Rice writes a little book, lovers of whimsical
fiction rejoice with open rejoicing."--_Chicago Tribune_.
"Mrs. Rice has been paid the compliment of being compared with Dickens.
Those who appreciate her real merits will see that she is more natural,
more lifelike, and more unaffectedly humorous than the author of
'Pickwick Papers.'"--_Rochester Post-Express_.
"There is a delicious humor in everything she writes, and it has
the virtue of non-boisterousness and sobriety in tone. There is
no straining for wit: everything has the merit of spontaneity and
naturalness."--_Philadelphia Record_.
"She is one of the real humorists, for at the bottom of her humor there
is a deep well of human kindness."--_The Metropolitan_.
_See next page for complete list of Mrs. Rice's books_
* * * * *
Books by Alice Hegan Rice
MRS. WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH
"A sure cure for the blues, and a gay challenge to pessimists in
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LOVEY MARY
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MR. OPP
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character portrait gallery."--_New York Sun_.
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A ROMANCE OF BILLY-GOAT HILL
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the book is worth knowing."--_Chicago Record-Herald_.
_Price_ $1.25 _net, postage_ 10 _cents_
SANDY
Sandy is a lovable Irish waif, and his story overflows with sunshine and
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_Price_ $1.00
CAPTAIN JUNE
A happy story of a dear little American lad who has all kinds of
interesting and unusual experiences in Japan.
_Price_ $1.00
At all booksellers. Published by THE CENTURY CO.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Honorable Percival, by Alice Hegan Rice