AN UNSATISFACTORY INTERVIEW.
She hurried through her second toilet in order that she might go and
see Miss Marsden before the breakfast-bell rang. On her way to her
a few minutes later, she met Mr. Delessert, who was coming from his
room. His attire was, as usual, irreproachably elegant. There was not a
wrinkle in the dark blue clothes that fitted so admirably his straight,
well-proportioned figure. The knot in his necktie was perfection
itself; and his carefully brushed hair and smooth moustache threw her
recent attempts at hair-brushing quite into the shade.
In the midst of her newly conceived horror of the man, she wondered
whether he would dare to speak to her. Not he; with a complete control
over his features, he absolutely looked through her blushing, indignant
face to the wall behind. Judging by his expressionless countenance
there was not a living creature near him.
“The coward,” she angrily reflected. “His spirit is as base as his
face is fair.” Then she turned her back on his retreating form, and
pursued her way to Miss Marsden’s room.
The latter young lady did not wish to go to the breakfast-table, and
Nina refused to leave her. “I don’t like the panther,” she said,
evasively. “His spots are beginning to show. His smooth skin is quite
changed. I shall not go to the table again unless you are there to take
the seat between us.”
Miss Marsden was curious; but she could obtain no further details from
her with regard to the spots, beyond the bald information that they
were plainly visible,--even though she sent Marie from the room under
pretence of getting coffee and toast for their breakfast.
For half the morning they amused themselves in their usual way. Miss
Marsden conversed in her semi-sarcastic fashion, usually on the
frailties of mankind, and Nina intently listened. So absorbed with each
other were they, that the first lunch-bell rang before the young lady
had left her berth.
Nina attempted to assist Marie, but the operation of dressing after so
many days in bed was a tedious one; and the attempt, owing to Nina’s
high spirits, degenerated into a frolic.
“Marie, go get us a tray,” said Miss Marsden, at last, pressing a hand
against her shaking side. “Child, I have laughed till I am weak. You
are better than a chest full of medicine. After lunch, we will try to
effect a combination of all these garments.”
Nina gazed at her in admiration when she was fully dressed. “You
are like the tall green poplars on the meadows at home,” she said,
impulsively. “I wish I were like you.”
“Nonsense, child; men like a rosebud like you far better than a poplar
like me.”
Nina shook her head unbelievingly, and trotted after her to the deck.
Marie established them both comfortably in steamer chairs, in the midst
of shawls and rugs, then she betook herself to the society of Lady
Forrest’s maid.
The day was now perfect. The sea had calmed down, save for a long
languid swell, and the sky was still dazzlingly bright. Nina surveyed
the unusual number of men, women, and children struggling on deck, and
asked Miss Marsden whether she would like to speak to some of them.
“No,” said the young lady, lazily, “I don’t care for people whose
antecedents are unknown to me; I think it is better to keep them all at
a distance. Women cannot be too careful of the associates they choose
when travelling alone. Who is that tall ugly man with the eye-glass
staring at us?”
“Captain Eversleigh.”
“Impertinence,” and Miss Marsden lowered her parasol.
“Why, he is the nice British dog with the honest bark,” said Nina.
“Captain Fordyce introduced him to me, so he is all right.”
“Good dogs sometimes have to suffer for the sins of bad ones,” said
Miss Marsden, composedly. “Nevertheless, I have confidence in your
husband in every way. He is said to be the best captain on this line,
and he has certainly brought us admirably through this gale.”
“What do you call a good dog?” inquired Nina, with a gentle questioning
air.
“A good dog is one that is clever, watchful, and that does exactly what
I tell him.”
“Just what I call a good dog,” said Nina, triumphantly; “not a snapping
cross creature, always heading you off, and driving you where you don’t
want to go.”
“Take into account what you are, though,” said Miss Marsden, sharply.
“Suppose you are a bad, wandering lammie with a proclivity for rushing
into briers and thorns?”
“Wouldn’t I feel them?” asked Nina, warmly. “Wouldn’t they scratch me
and make me back out?”
“But you might lose some wool.”
“Well, that wouldn’t matter to the dog.”
“It would mean loss of prestige to him.”
“Dogs ought to mind their own business,” said Nina, with such a
determined set of her rosy chin that Miss Marsden bit her lip to keep
from open laughter.
“If I were a lamb,” she said, presently, and with her usual calm and
superior air, “a mischievously disposed lamb, and had a good dog that
was interested in me, and tried to keep me away from the companionship
of briers, I should endeavour to reciprocate. I should propitiate the
dog lest he should get discouraged. Even good dogs will bite.”
Nina had apparently lost interest in the argument, and had gone
to sleep. Her white lids were drooping wearily over her eyes. Her
head was on her shoulder, and casting a sharp glance at her, Miss
Marsden followed her example. When she was really asleep, soundly and
unmistakably so, with her black head safely hidden from the scrutiny
of passers-by under the shade of her red parasol, Nina glided from her
chair and went stealthily away.
There was something on her mind that she must get rid of. Disagreeable
as the duty was, she would not feel justified in escaping its
performance. Up the bridge ladder and into the chart-room she hastened.
There she hesitated an instant. Her eyes, dazzled by the glare of the
sun, could perceive not one thing in the interior of the little cool,
dark room.
Presently she made out the table and a chair before it. She stumbled
into the latter, and, blindly reaching out her hand, seized a pen and
piece of paper, and began to write, “Dear Captain Fordyce.”
No, that would not do. It was too stiff, and, scratching out the
“Captain Fordyce,” she put “My dear Esteban.” Now--how should she
begin? “Though circumstances were apparently very much against me--”
That was too stilted. She drew her pen through the carefully written
words, and began again: “Will you allow me to explain to you a
circumstance--”
Always that word “circumstance.” It turned up like a bad penny. “I
don’t believe it was a circumstance at all,” she said, aloud, and with
a vexed exclamation she dashed a heavy black line down the page, and,
seizing a fresh piece of paper, wrote:
“DEAR ’STEBAN:--I wasn’t flirting with that young man. I
detested him from the beginning.
“NINA.”
Then folding and addressing it, she uttered a profound and relieved
sigh, and prepared to leave the room.
“You might as well deliver it,” said a quiet voice behind her.
With a faint shriek she wheeled around. There, extended full length on
the lounge, was the very man to whom she had been writing. He had been
lying there watching her. “I am tired,” he said, slowly. “I was trying
to get forty winks by way of refreshment.”
“When I came and disturbed you. Please forgive me,” and, cautiously and
penitently, she began to edge her way toward the door.
“Wait,” he said, calmly. “I wish you to hand me that bit of paper from
the table.”
“I would rather have you read it after I have gone,” she said, her
cheeks a furious red.
“And I would rather read it now,” he returned, gently. “Bring it here,
Nina.”
Reluctantly, and dragging her feet after her as slowly as if there
were balls and chains attached, she went back, seized the paper by a
corner, and extended it to him as if it were a noxious reptile.
He took it and her hand at the same time, obliging her to stand by him
while he read it. He pored over it for some minutes; then, raising his
eyes to her face, he said, “So you imagine I am vexed with you?”
Nina thought of Miss Marsden’s words, “Even good dogs will bite,” and
answered meekly in the affirmative.
“Don’t you suppose I have been watching you during the last two days?”
“Have you?” she said, quickly.
He smiled. “I know every breath you draw. There is nothing of the
coquette about you. You like to admire men at a distance. Near at hand
they frighten you. A caress from any man but myself would send you into
hysterics.”
This smacked so strongly of self-conceit that Nina was goaded into a
retort. “No, it doesn’t,” she cried, hastily.
“It doesn’t,” he repeated, haughtily; “it wouldn’t, I suppose you mean.”
“I mean what I say,” she replied, stubbornly.
His face, already alarmingly pale, took on a yet more sickly hue. He
put a hand to his head, and raised himself on his elbow. “Nina, has
that fellow dared--”
His voice choked, he was really in a passion now.
“Yes, he has dared,” she said, slowly. There was a short pause; then,
overcome by sudden fright at the expression overspreading his face, she
rattled on, “But he only squeezed my hand, and I ran to my room and
washed it. But that wasn’t what I meant.”
He did not speak, and she began to wonder whether excitement was a
good thing for him. “How is your head now?” she asked, with concealed
interest.
When he did not answer her she proceeded, “Your cheek is less swollen,
now. You look quite yourself. Those bandages were not so very
unbecoming; they were clean and--”
“Which hand was it?” he asked, abruptly.
She extended one trembling and seemingly agitated set of fingers. He
laughed shortly and unamiably, made a slight motion toward them, then
drew back.
“What did you have in mind when you said this affair was not what you
meant?”
There was an ominous glitter in his eye foreshadowing approaching
civilities; and Nina, with treacherous meekness, resolved to satisfy
his curiosity. But she would take her own time about it, and she asked
first, “Did you tell that--that creature not to speak to me?”
“Yes,” he said, shortly.
“I met him and he passed me by. I thought you had been advising him.
What would you do if you built a nice, nice house, and put me in
it, and sailed away over the sea, and came home one day and found a
beautiful young man with blue eyes and curly hair, and not a sign of a
bald spot, with--with--”
She stopped in pretended bashfulness.
“With his arm around you,” he said, coolly, “making love to you.”
“Y-yes.”
“I should say: ‘Go on, sir,--may you get more satisfaction out of that
amusement than I have ever done.’”
She gave him a curious child-like glance of gratification between her
half-shut eyelids. “Suppose you came home when it was a black, black
night, and you found me half-way out the window with the beautiful
young man holding my hand, and his tall black steed standing by ready
to carry us away off from you to the end of the world?”
“I should say, ‘Good luck to you!’ I might even give you a hand up to
the tall steed’s back.”
“Did you ever get with naughty men that made you drink, and drink, and
drink, till you were quite drunk, ’Steban?” she asked, earnestly.
“Often,” he replied, ironically. “Who was the other man who tried to
flirt with you?”
“It was a good while ago,” she said, with hanging head. “He didn’t
flirt. It was only his arm.”
“Dislocated, I suppose. Well--upon what occasion?”
“Two years ago this month,” she said, gently. “I remember because the
roses were in bloom, and they blushed quite, quite red as they looked
in the window.”
“Modest roses! Well, to continue.”
“I will tell you some other time,” she said, precipitately.
“No, tell me now.”
“Will you let go my hand if I tell you?”
“Yes.”
“Truly?”
“Yes, truly.”
“The beautiful young man was a dentist,” she said, mischievously, “and
I never saw him before, and I’ve never seen him since, and he just had
to put his arm around me, ’cause how could he get at my back tooth if
he didn’t? There,--are you satisfied now, monster?” and pulling her
hand from him she ran to the other end of the room.
She was bubbling over with waggishness and mirthfulness; and if he
stirred a finger she would run away from him. “I knew that all the
time,” he said, calmly. “You can’t come over me with your tricks. Wait
a minute, though. I want to give you something to read.”
She prudently retreated to the steps when he approached the bookcase.
“I’m not very fond of reading on this old _Merrimac_, Captain Fordyce.
The screw jars my brain.”
“Just as well,--you have read too much trash already,” he retorted;
“but I want you to go through this, every word of it. Will you promise
me?”
“I suppose so. Put the book on that upper step.”
“It is a French novel,” he went on; “but it is a good one. Pierre
Loti’s ‘_Pêcheur d’Islande_.’”
“Is it in French?”
“Yes.”
She made a wry face at him.
“You have been taught that language, which is more than I have,” he
said; “I read it in English. Come, run over a few pages of the French
to me.”
She shook her head and he slapped the book down on the table. “I don’t
think much of your gratitude. Here am I half ill, or ‘sick,’ as you
say in Rubicon Meadows, and you won’t do as much for me as you do for
strangers.”
“What do I do for strangers?” she asked, falteringly, and stretching
her neck around the door-post.
“You drove Miss Marsden’s headache away the other day. She told me.”
“Does your head ache? Could I do it any good?” she asked, wistfully,
reëntering the room.
“No, no, birdie,” he replied, touched by her suddenly altered
expression. “I have no headache; run away. I have made a vow that for
the rest of the trip I shall see as little of you as possible. You need
not look startled. You are not to blame, except for being the most
prodigious temptation that ever flesh and blood was subjected to. I
can’t endure you at all. I must keep away. I see now that I did wrong
to bring you on this trip. It”--with a frown and a slight blush--“has
led to disagreeable complications. I find that fellow Delessert has
started some smoking-room gossip to the effect that I am persecuting
you with unwelcome attentions. What? You are not crying? Upon my word,
you laugh and cry as easily as you breathe.”
She was not crying, although she was cowering over the table with her
head on her arms. At his question she straightened herself and showed
him a pitiful, quivering face. “I wish I could comfort you, ’Steban. I
wish I could stay with you, but--but I can’t.”
She was crying now--in regular torrents--and he muttered to himself,
and stared helplessly at her. “P-please don’t touch me,” she gasped; “I
will get over it in a minute. I am very sorry to disturb you, I--I--”
She wanted him to stroke her brown head, to show that he forgave her;
but he restrained himself and presently she sprang from her seat and
took the book from him. He stood holding back the curtains for her, as
politely and formally as if she were a duchess, and she tottered from
the room as unsteadily as the characterless Adonis had entered his the
evening before. After she had passed her changed and impassive husband
she flashed him a grieving glance, in which resentment, approval, and
bewilderment were so strangely mixed that he involuntarily muttered a
compassionate, “Poor little thing!” as he went back to his sofa.
Being anxious to avoid questions, Nina ran to her room, hastily washed
her face, and returned to Miss Marsden, whom she found wide-awake and
watchful.
“Well,” she said, as Nina slipped back into the seat beside her, “did
the dog receive the lamb’s overtures kindly?”
“A good dog is always reasonable,” said Nina, soberly.
“Miss Marsden,” she said, after a time, “you think I’ve been
quarrelling with my husband, don’t you?”
“Not quarrelling,--having a little tiff,” said the young lady.
“Do you think husbands usually stand by their wives?”
“You know they don’t, Miss Innocence. The book of life has been open
before you, and you have read it, young as you are. Likewise endless
novels, I fancy, like all girls.”
“But if a woman is a man’s wife, that makes him feel--well, I don’t
know how,” said Nina, with a puzzled air.
“A man will stand by his wife because he is a born egotist. She belongs
to him--is a part of him. He puts up with her faults because she has
the honour of bearing his name.”
“My husband loves me because I am myself,” whispered the girl against
the book that she put up to her cheek, “not because I am his wife. He
is a very good man.”