"Would you be here if you hadn't?"
"Why shouldn't I have come for the pleasure of being with you, alone?"
"It's very kind of you to put it like that."
Mrs. Larpent flecked away the ash of her cigarette. "Sarcasm doesn't
suit you," she said sharply. "If you mean to imply that I am here for
money, you are wrong."
"I didn't mean to imply that," said Franklin. "On my honor."
"Thank you," she said, and was silent again. The conscientious beat of
the engines made a sort of tune. Then she got up and faced him, dropping
artificiality. "Why did you tell me you were married?"
"Ah!" thought Franklin, "it _is_ that, then." He said nothing. He was
no match for women.
"Couldn't you have been honest with _me_, of all people? You know my
feelings for you. _I_ was above board. Whatever the reason for
hatching this extraordinary story I wouldn't have given you away. I
would have helped you."
"I can't discuss this with you," said Franklin, "you were at the
Vanderdykes. You saw the papers. Beatrix is on the yacht. There it is.
I can't see any reason why you should say that she and I are not
married."
"Can't you? Haven't I seen you together for the last three days?
Wouldn't my eyes be the first to notice any sign of love or affection
between you, or even toleration? I came on the yacht expecting to be
made to suffer the jealous agony of the damned and I find,--it's easy
enough,--that this honeymoon is a farce. You are a bachelor
entertaining two duly chaperoned women."
What could Franklin do but lie? "Beatrix is my wife," he said, "and the
way in which we treat each other is our affair."
"Oh, no, believe me," said Mrs. Larpent quickly. "That's where you're
wrong. I am in this. You were on the verge of loving _me_ before
Beatrix cropped up. You may decline to accept this as a fact but I tell
you that you were, and I know. You stand there looking at me in
amazement because I am not afraid or ashamed to tell the truth. Women
are more or less a mystery to you and you've got a rooted idea that we
must go through life hiding our souls behind light laughter and lace
veils. And so we do until the inevitable hour when we come out into the
open to fight for love. This is my hour, Pelham, and I stand in front
of you as common and as human as a peasant woman or a squaw."
Her voice shook with emotion and she seemed to Franklin to be taller and
more beautiful and more dignified than he had ever seen her. All the
same he wished to Heaven that both these women had never come into his
life, that he were still a free agent, a mere sportsman, as Beatrix
called him so scornfully, the captain of his fate.
"I don't like your talking like this," he said, with a curiously boyish
bluntness and awkwardness. "It isn't fair to yourself--or me."
"I'm not thinking altogether about you to-night, my dear. I said that
this is my hour, my fight, the moment when I let you see me as I am.
Now listen. I overheard your quarrel with Beatrix on deck this
afternoon. I deliberately eavesdropped. I don't want to know why you
and she are playing this queer game. It doesn't interest me. From the
way you kissed her, without loving her in the very least, I saw that
what you want is what I want. You are free. I am free. We neither of
us owe allegiance to a living creature. I love you. You are the first
man who has made me understand the pain and ache of love. I make no
bargain. I ask for no bond. I just want you. Take me."
She held out her white arms, with her head thrown back and her lips
slightly parted and her eyes half closed. There was something utterly
simple and in a way fine about her. It wasn't so much an appeal that
she made as an offer of fellowship. Nature spoke in her voice and stood
alluring in her presence.
Perhaps because of the subtle sense of isolation that the open sea
gives, or of the wonderful silence of the night, or of the overwhelming
strength of her desire, Ida Larpent was nearer sincerity in what she
said than she had ever been. It wasn't only because she saw a chance to
catch Franklin on the rebound that she had gone into his room. She had
argued in cold blood that by becoming his mistress she would strengthen
her position, put a claim upon his sense of honor and win her way to
independence. But under the stress of genuine emotion these sordid
calculations lifted like hawks and left her a woman in love, a very
woman.
Franklin proved that he was very much of a man. To him love and its
rewards were only good if they were won by fighting. They were the
spoils of the chase. This inversion of the old right way was
distressing, chilling and rather indecent. What to say and how to say
it left him wordless. He would rather have found himself facing a lion
with two empty barrels. Then he told the truth. "You're very kind," he
said. "But I love Beatrix and I'm going to be true to that."
Ida Larpent dropped her arms. Just for an instant the supreme
mortification of being turned down put a red mist in front of her eyes.
She could have fallen upon Franklin and struck him again and again. Then
the sense of self-preservation came to her rescue. Her cunning returned
and with it the vista of a doubtful and tricky future. She hid her
disappointment and humiliation and impatience behind a perfect piece of
acting and told herself that, after all, Franklin was difficult and
different because he was a sportsman. She held out her hand and said, in
a very sweet voice, "I love you. You know where to find me when you
need a friend," and went away quickly before she might be moved to spoil
the effect of her lack of drama. She believed that in this way she
would win a warm place in Franklin's esteem,--the first step to the goal
that she intended to gain by hook or crook,--and she was right.
*XXII*
Beatrix slept too late the following morning to take her usual exercise
in the gymnasium. She was called at eight-thirty by Helene, who dared
not give her less than half an hour in which to get ready for breakfast
at the luxurious hour of nine. It was a delicious morning, with the sea
in a very gracious mood, the sky blue and cloudless and a gentle breeze
which brought the taste of salt to the lips.
Waking after a dreamless night, Beatrix found the sun pouring through
the portholes of her state-room, caught the infection of health and high
spirits, sprang out of bed, gave the sturdy Breton a cheery word, went
into the bathroom and alternately sang and whistled one of Jerome Kern's
catchy little tunes,--while the French girl gave thanks. The world was
worth living in when her mercurial-mistress found it so--otherwise death
held many charms.
It was an easy matter to dress Beatrix for the morning,--a white silk
shirt with a turned down collar, a grey-blue jersey cloth skirt with
stockings to match, white shoes with brown strips and a man's tie of
blue and white. In these she stood in front of a glass and turned about
in careful examination before throwing a little smile of congratulation
at herself and her handmaiden. "I don't give a single whoop what the
fool fashions may ordain, Helene," she said, "the too short skirt is for
Coney Island only and makes women look either comic or pathetic,
according to their weight. See that I never have anything shorter than
this, won't you?"
Murmuring a suitable reply and blessing her patron saint for the good
day, Helene opened the door and Beatrix passed out, touching the girl's
cheek with the tips of kindly fingers. "We go ashore to-day," she said,
"I will let you know when to pack."
Ah, there was, then, a fly in the amber! Helene gave one of those
exquisitely eloquent gestures, that are peculiar to the Latin race, and
sat down suddenly, her eyebrows almost lost behind her straight cut
fringe. "What a life!" she said, addressing the whole suite. "Joost as
we settle and tink to breathe,--up and away. Joost as Mistare Jones
breaks his Engleesh ice,--we go. I leave a republic and come to a
democracy and I fall into the entourage of a monarch!"
From which it will be seen that Horatio Jones had been playing the
sailor again.
And then Beatrix went into the stateroom of Mrs. Lester Keene. "Why,
Brownie dear, what's the matter? Have you had a bad night?"
The little lady was sitting up in bed in an early Victorian white linen
night dress with a discreet touch of lace about the high neck. Her
mousey hair was still done for the night and contained several long
brown kid curlers about her forehead. Her face was pale and a little
petulant as of one who has a grievance. She might have been one of
Cruikshank's drawings come to life.
"I heard every hour strike until five," she said, "and my neuralgia very
nearly made me scream."
"Oh, you poor dear old thing. I am sorry! Why didn't you come and call
me? I don't know what I could have done but at any rate I could have
listened to your tale of woe and it always does one good to keep someone
else awake when one can't sleep, doesn't it?"
She bent over the devoted companion and put her head gently against her
breast as if it were the head of a child.
"Oh dear, oh dear," whimpered Mrs. Keene, "I shall never be able to get
up in time for breakfast and I do so hate being unpunctual."
"Don't worry, dear little Brownie. I tell you what. You and I will
have breakfast here. Shall we? I want to talk to you about a most
important thing and afterwards you shall have a little sleep and then
Helene shall dress you. What do you say?"
"Dear Beatrix, you're very kind. I should like nothing better, but----"
"Don't but. No sooner said than done," and Beatrix rang for a
stewardess. "Now, here are your dressing gown and slippers.
Jump,--that is, struggle out of bed and I'll have you all ready by the
time breakfast comes."
Mrs. Keene's attack of neuralgia had been very painful. She had really
heard several hours slip by, but, for the pleasure and ego-warming of
having Beatrix wait upon her and say kind things she would most
willingly have undergone twice the pain and almost total sleeplessness.
Beatrix knew this. Without conceit or the smallest suggestion of
inflated vanity, she was aware of the fact that she was making her
little old friend and flatterer quite happy. Her training among
sycophants had made her an expert in playing upon the feelings of those
about her. The unbelievable and unhealthy wealth which had placed a
golden halo round her head had cultivated in her the gift, peculiar to
Royalty, of dealing out easily given favors, little acts of kindness
which bound her subjects more closely. This dangerous knowledge
acquired as a child made her as dexterous in striking answering notes as
though she were a professional pianist. Her instrument was temperament
and she was a past-mistress in reading character.
The stewardess took the order, hurried to carry it out, and presently
found "Mrs. Franklin" arranging her companion among many cushions on a
sofa near the table. A message had been sent to the major-domo that the
two ladies would be absent from the dining-saloon.
"Well," said Beatrix, pouring out tea, "well, Brownie, and how do you
like the sea?"
Mrs. Keene had removed her curlers and so had regained her sense of
propriety. Curlers somehow stood to her as very intimate things. She
felt in them as most nice women do when they are caught by men with
their hair down. "My dear, I shall never be anything but scared to
death away from land. This is a very beautiful yacht, of course, with
every modern convenience and invention, but I dread to think what might
happen to her in a storm. I am sure that I shall not be well again
until I put my foot on solid earth."
Beatrix gave a rather excited laugh. "Then you will be well again this
afternoon," she said.
Mrs. Keene turned eagerly. "You don't mean that we are going to land,
that this dreadful cruise is coming to an end _this afternoon_?"
"Oh, yes, I do."
"But, Mr. Franklin? Has he----?"
"Mr. Franklin doesn't count in the scheme of things," said Beatrix
coolly, "I've made up my mind to get off the _Galatea_ and there it is."
Mrs. Keene's first flush of pleasure and relief faded before her next
thought. "But your Aunt Honoria and Mrs. Vanderdyke,--what will they
say?"
"Everything that human beings can find to say and then some, my dear,
but I don't think I shall go home at once," said Beatrix airily. "This
seems to be a good opportunity of seeing a little of our United
States,--of which I only really know Fifth Avenue. I think I shall get a
good touring car, take Ida Larpent and we three will go for a joy-ride.
That will give me time to think out a plan of action. It goes without
saying that I shall have now to blow the gaff before Franklin does.
There will be a certain amount of satisfaction in getting in first.
After that,--well, my dear little long suffering Brownie, Aunt Honoria
will lead the family against me and unless I can get a really splendid
brainwave you and I will go into exile to gloat, like Napoleon, on our
brilliant misdeeds,--martyrs on the altar of adventure. And I don't mind
telling you in strict confidence that all my courage oozes away at the
bare idea. I've been an awful little fool, Brownie, there's no getting
over it."
To her great surprise, Mrs. Keene felt a curious glow of reckless
triumph in being included in Beatrix's wild scheme. Even she, almost
the last living representative of the mid-Victorian era, had become used
to this sham marriage. Modernism is strangely infectious. All the same
an overwhelming curiosity sent personal comfort into the cold and
summoning up all her courage she put a question that had begun to burn
her like a mustard plaster. "What has happened?" she asked. "Have you
had further trouble with Mr. Franklin? Has he tried----"
Beatrix lifted a cover from a dish. "Try some of these delightful
looking scrambled eggs, Brownie dear. I've heard they're very good for
neuralgia."
A little flush suddenly swept over the elder woman's face. She had
taken advantage of the princess's condescension and received as usual a
well-deserved snub. Greatly to her relief--she had an inherent dislike
of apologizing--Ida Larpent sailed in, looking like a French actress on
a holiday.
"May I come in?" she asked, a little too late. "I was anxious about
you, dear child, and so was Mr. Fraser."
Beatrix got up. She was not amazed at Mrs. Keene's curiosity. She
sympathized with that. She felt it incumbent upon her, however, to
register disapproval for the sake of the future. "You're both very
kind," she said. "There's nothing the matter. Come to the library.
Send for Helene as soon as you're ready to dress, Brownie, won't you?
Au revoir." She nodded, took Mrs. Larpent's arm and went out.
Poor little Mrs. Lester Keene. When _would_ she remember that she was
in the service of plutocracy!
"How would you like to break the monotony of cruising by coming on a
motor tour?" asked Beatrix. The sun set her hair on fire.
Mrs. Larpent shut the library door quickly. "But, how do you mean? Is
Mr. Franklin going to bring the cruise to an end?" She also had decided
upon a plan of action,--and the scene of it was the yacht.
"No," said Beatrix laughing, "but I have. I'm going ashore this
afternoon with Mrs. Keene and Helene."
"Ashore--this afternoon?"
"Why not? There's no reason why you shouldn't be the only woman on
board, I suppose. It's a free country. But if you'd care to come with
me, do. We may have some fun."
"Thanks most awfully," said Ida, trying quickly to make order out of
chaos. "Yes, we ought to have great fun. I don't know much of
America." But what would Franklin say? Would he let her remain alone
on the _Galatea_? If that could be worked the rest seemed easy. But it
would mean, she knew, breaking with Beatrix, who was, of course, an
asset. It was the choice between a good thing and one that might be
made of incalculable excellence. Mentally she plumped for Franklin, her
knowledge of men and her confidence in herself and her beauty. "Have
you told Mr. Franklin yet?"
"Yes, vaguely," said Beatrix. "But as I haven't the faintest idea where
we can land I'm on my way to see him now and clinch the matter. I don't
think there will be too much time to pack. Be in the gym in half an
hour and let's have some exercise." She turned at the door and a smile
lit up her face. "It'll be a tremendous joke cutting about the country
without any man to look after us. Four lone women on the long trail?
Why, we shall _ask_ for trouble."
Her merry laugh remained in the room and Ida Larpent added a chuckle to
it. "Enjoy your joke, my child," she said to herself, "but count me
out. If I have to work a miracle I'll stay on the yacht and in good
time, with ordinary luck and great tact, I may have something to laugh
at too."
*XXIII*
Franklin was in his room talking to the Captain about a fishing
expedition when Beatrix knocked at the door.
"Come in ... and if we lie at anchor for a couple of days we can ship
some grub on the big launch..." He stopped on seeing Beatrix, who stood
framed in the doorway, the most bewitching picture he ever hoped to see.
"Am I disturbing you? ... I'll come back presently."
"Oh, no, please!" said Franklin. "We've finished."
Beatrix had no intention of leaving whether she disturbed or not. "Good
morning, Captain," she said, "What a wonderful day!"
"Good morning, Mrs. Franklin. It's good to be alive in such weather,
isn't it? ... Very good, sir. I'll see about the fishing trip at once."
He picked up his cap, dropped the ash of his cigar into a silver tray,
bowed to Beatrix and took himself off, wondering for the hundredth time
what sort of marriage this was in which these two young people treated
each other as though they were casual acquaintances.
"Won't you sit down?" Franklin pushed an armchair forward.
"No wonder you like this room," said Beatrix. "May I wander round for a
moment? How jolly these Yale groups are, and I see you play polo,--the
only game that makes me wish I were a man. And what's this uniform?
The National Guard?"
"Yes, I hold a commission."
"I didn't know that. Very versatile, aren't you? And that's a tarpon,
isn't it? What a big fellow. Probably gave you some trouble."
"About four hours," said Franklin. Good Lord, what was this
extraordinary girl made of! Yesterday she had fought him like a
tigress, to-day she was as sunny and calm as the weather.
She sat down on the edge of a table, pushing back a box of cigars and
half a dozen well-smoked pipes. "I've come to have a little friendly
talk," she said, "if you can give me ten minutes."
"I'm absolutely at your service."
"Thanks. Don't stand there. It makes me feel formal. And please go on
smoking." She gave him one of those smiles that made obedience a
delight. "That's better. I want to tell you that, except for one
incident, I shall look back on these days on the _Galatea_ with real
pleasure. You're sorry that you committed assault and battery, aren't
you?"
"Very sorry," said Franklin. What else could he say with those frank
laughing eyes upon him.
"Yes, I'm sure you are. I was too, but will agree to forget, because
otherwise you've been so nice and kind."
Franklin bowed. He knew that he was a fool, but he felt that she had
decorated him with an order. What was behind all this?
Beatrix threw back her golden head and burst out laughing. "I'll tell
you," she said, reading his thoughts on his face. He had not troubled
to become socially expert in disguising his feelings. She got up, ran
one of the bachelor chairs near to Franklin, sat down and bent forward.
Artificiality, self-consciousness and that touch of the precocious that
she took an impish pleasure in adopting in a crowd, all left her. "Look
here," she said, "I'm going to be very honest with you, for a change.
Can you bear it?"
"Go ahead," said Franklin, boyishly. It seemed to him that he was
looking at and sitting close to a new girl,--the girl described to him
by Malcolm in that emotional outburst of his.
"I'm awfully, really awfully sorry I played the fool and let you into
all this, Pelham. I took a horrible advantage of you and I'm beastly
ashamed about it."
"Oh, that's all right," said Franklin, who would willingly have gone
through it all again to be treated so charmingly.
"You say that because, at this moment, you and I are friends and have
put our cards on the table, but I know jolly well that I've given you a
very bad time and have got you into a hateful mess."
"That's true enough," he said. "But why not fall in with the only
possible plan to put us both out of it?"
"You mean marry you?"
"Yes." He did his best to hide his eagerness.
She shook her head, and put her hand lightly on his arm, "My dear man, I
can't. It isn't fair to you. I think it's, well, immense of you to
have thought of it but I draw the line at divorce. If you had to go
through all that horrid business I'm perfectly certain it would be on my
conscience all my life."
Franklin saw his chance to put up a bloodless fight. "But why should
there be a divorce?"
"I don't follow you," said Beatrix.
"Let's be married for the sake of everybody concerned and remain
married."
Beatrix looked at him squarely and bravely. "I'll tell you why not,"
she said, after a pause. "Deep down somewhere in me there's a little
unspoiled fund of romance and sentiment. I'm looking rather wistfully
forward to marriage as the turning point in my funny life. I want it to
be the best thing that I shall ever do. I want it to be for love."
"And you don't think that you could ever love me?" asked Franklin,
trying to keep his voice steady.
"No," she said, simply, "I don't. And what's more, I'm not your sort of
girl, I know that perfectly well."
"Speak, you fool, speak!" cried Franklin inwardly. "Get off your stilts
and lay yourself at her feet and give up this crazy idea of breaking her
splendid spirit and blurt out that you love her to desperation and would
gladly go to the devil for her."
But the moment passed,--one of those innumerable moments in life which,
if instantly seized, turn pain into joy, misunderstandings into complete
agreement and are capable of changing the destiny of nations.
Beatrix got up and went back to her place on the table among the pipes.
"No," she said, with an involuntary sigh, "I've still to meet the right
man and you the right girl. We mustn't smash our lives because I've
dragged you into a perfectly inconceivable muddle,--and that's putting
it mildly. No, I've got to face the music and take my punishment, much
as I hate it."
Franklin kept his ego away from her. Her frankness, her childlike
simplicity beat him just as badly as her imperious moods. His pride,
and the knowledge that she would laugh at him if he confessed himself,
made it impossible to speak. But she tempted him almost beyond
endurance. He had never loved her so much as he did at that moment.
"Well," he said, "what do you want me to do?"
Beatrix laughed softly. "How extremely nice you can be when you try,"
she said. "When you fall in love I hope the girl will be a real
corker."
"Thanks very much," said Franklin.
"I'll tell you what I want you to do. Run in this afternoon and put me
ashore, will you?"
"Yes."
"Thank you. I've thought it all out. I shall get a car,--two cars, one
for the baggage,--and go for a short tour. While I'm on the road with
Mrs. Keene and probably Ida Larpent, I shall write as short a letter as
possible to mother,--whew, the mere thought of it makes me hot all
over,--and give her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth. Then, one fine day, I shall walk in upon the family and give
myself up to justice. Aunt Honoria has the very jolly idea of taking me
into exile for a year during which, I suppose, she is optimistic enough
to think that I shall 'find' myself. What I shall really do during that
appalling time will be to write the confessions of a spoilt girl for the
use of millionaire parents."
"It will make good reading," said Franklin.
"I'll see that it does," said Beatrix a little grimly. "One chapter, at
least, will have a scathing attack on the sycophancy of the fashionable
girls' school." She held out her hand. "Thank you again, Pelham
Franklin, sportsman, for all you've done for me. I shall never forget."
Franklin sprang up and faced her. He was beaten then. He was to fail
in breaking in this amazing girl. He was not the man marked out by fate
to find the woman in Beatrix, to be the cause of her abdicating a sham
throne, to give that good woman Aunt Honoria the longed-for opportunity
to offer praise to God. Right. He would take his beating.
He grasped her hand. "You're sure you can be ready to land this
afternoon?"
"Quite."
"Very good. I'll make it so. Mrs. Larpent will go with you, of
course."
"Just as you like. And Malcolm?"
"Yes. I'll try being alone for a change." He let her hand go and stood
back, waiting for whatever she might do or say next.
Beatrix laughed again. She rather liked the queer boyishness of this
man, the awkwardness, the inarticulation; and it flashed across her mind
as she looked at him, strong and clean-cut and sun-tanned, that there
might perhaps have been a different conversation if he had not bent over
the end of her bed and rapped out the offensive words that were rooted
in her memory.
"Well, then, I'm off to the gym," she said, "for the last time. How
happy you'll be to be rid of women."
And out she went, as graceful as a young deer.
*XXIV*
Franklin locked his door.
He knew very well that within ten minutes Ida Larpent would be upon him
and that inevitably, being told by Beatrix of the latest move, Malcolm
would be down to see what he could do. He had no wish to see anyone at
that moment, not even his best friend.
He quietly loaded and lit a pipe, sat down in his favorite arm-chair,
shoved his hands into his pockets and his long legs out and settled down
to think. He hadn't done such a thing since the night of his father's
death when for the second time in his young life grief had seized him by
the throat and there did not seem to be one speck of light on his black
horizon.
He went back to the night in New York, which was still within easy
reach, when he and Malcolm had caught sight of Beatrix and Sutherland
York. He was then his own master, heart-whole, a complete
individualist, in the almost uncanny position of being free from
responsibility, at the beck and call of no living creature. He was then
one of the very few men in civilization who was able to go through life
unattached either to a business or a cause. He was able to buy almost
everything that caught his fancy. The one thing that all the money in
the world cannot purchase he was lucky enough to possess. He had
health. He was sound in wind and limb.
He followed himself into his antler-hung studio and stood again looking
round its crowded walls, suddenly and for the first time impatient of
his games, realizing that his toys were empty and meaningless. Malcolm's
surprising outburst about Beatrix rang again in his ears. He remembered
that it had drawn from him a sort of prayer. "My God," he had said, "I
wonder when _I_ shall begin to live!"
Then he went over the ground from New York to the Vanderdyke House in
the new car which had provided him with a momentary thrill. He had gone
reluctantly because his interest in meeting Ida Larpent again was not
keen. Their friendship had been very pleasant and agreeable but it had
served its purpose. And then he saw himself, the super-individualist, as
sceptical of Fate as all young men are, come down into the hall to be
met by Beatrix with her urgent plea for help.
Without hesitation or motive, without thought or fear of consequences he
had given his help and in an instant had lost his detachment, his
splendid isolation, and rendered himself liable to responsibility,
signed on to life's roll-call as the slave of a cause.
The amazing irony of it all only came to him in its utter nakedness as
he sat there, locked into his own room, summing up the subsequent rush
of events. In one careless moment he had flung his freedom away for the
girl in whom he had never been able to squeeze up any sort of interest,
the girl who had been the unconscious cause of his discontent and
self-disgust, the girl to whom he had intended to give the spurs, who
had set the torch of love to his breast and who was now to be allowed to
go free and unpunished merely because she disarmed him with a smile.
He got up and walked about.
It might be that what people call Fate,--he was vaguely inclined to
believe that their word for it was not the honest one,--had suddenly, in
the multiplicity of its daily work, become interested in his particular
case and in that curious and almost ineradicable way, given him a very
good reason for beginning to live,--or was it one of the haphazard
incidents that come into the lives of human beings from out of the
clouds, not in the nature of tests or trials, but as mere accidents out
of which to shuffle in the best possible manner?
He drew up short.
What was going to happen if he let Beatrix go? Her name and his, her
family and his own, would be the centre of such a scandal as the papers
had not been able to batten upon in his memory. That mattered. He
liked and respected the Vanderdykes. He was intensely jealous of
Beatrix's good name. He valued his own and detested publicity. He
didn't care whether it would be a good thing for her character for
Beatrix to spend a year out of the stir, excitement and flattery of
society. He loved and wanted her. He would be half content if he could
bring her to the point of common sense and make her his wife in its mere
empty meaning. That step achieved there were others that might lead to
the fulfilment of his incessant dreams, if not through love then through
tolerance and the acceptance of things.
Fate or accident, was he going to permit this wilful, nimble-minded,
imperious girl, this child spoiled by a system, to make a fool of him
again? "No, she shan't," he said. "I'll put up another fight and break
her by other methods. We'll both begin to live and face things. I'll
see this through."
He threw out his arms and took a deep breath, unlocked his door, went on
deck, saw that the chairs were empty under the awning and made for the
gymnasium. As quick as lightning he had made his plans.
There was Ida Larpent, introspective and calculating, in one of her most
artful dresses and a soft wide-brimmed hat, sitting on a rolled-up
mattress, with her gleaming fingers interlocked. There was Malcolm
Fraser, in white flannels, with rounded shoulders and head bent forward,
riding a fixed bicycle for dear life with his eyes on the dial in front
of him,--and there, in blue knickers and a silk shirt with wide open
collar was Beatrix perched straddle on the electric horse, with her
hands on her hips, riding like a cavalryman. Her eyes were dancing, her
lips parted and her face alight with health.
"Hello, Pel," she cried out, "here we are. Get into whites and come and
show us the way on the bars."
A wave of sheer honest passion flooded Franklin's brain. Assuredly he
would fight and go on fighting to win this girl.
Malcolm staggered off the bicycle. "Never was so glad in my life of an
interruption," he said, panting. "This is not a poet's job."
And Ida Larpent rose slowly and touched a button on Franklin's coat.
"Come out and talk to me," she said, under her breath.
Franklin went into the middle of the gym. "I'm not staying," he said.
"I just came to say, Beatrix, that the launches will be ready at
three-thirty. Can you be packed by then?"
"Oh, yes," she said, breaking into a gallop. "Too bad to have to go,
isn't it?"
"Go? Go where?" asked Malcolm, staring at Franklin.
"Ashore, old man. Beatrix is sick of the _Galatea_ and is taking her
party off the yacht this afternoon."
"Her party?" The words came sharply from Mrs. Larpent.
"Her party,--yes," said Franklin, "so sorry," and he gave her a little
bow which permitted of no argument.