Back aboard the _Shark_, Paula and Huntington did what Hermione
called their "wonderful disappearing act." Bell had lingered in the
club to play poker, at which he was very good, and to drink
whiskey-and-soda, of which he stood in no need. Cécile retired, and
Hermione went into the saloon, where she sat at a gravity
writing-table, and after destroying some dozen or more sheets of
expensive note-paper, with the _Shark's_ insignia, she gave up her
task in disgust and went to her room. Not being in the least sleepy,
she curled up in a heap of cushions and tried to interest herself in
a French play, but meeting with no success, she flung aside the
pamphlet, one of the _Illustration_ supplements, and gave herself up
to the topic which so occupied her mind. Needless to say, this was
Mr. Applebo.
Unlike Cécile's meditations, which were apt to be self-indulgent,
pleasant, and profitless, those of Hermione were swift, ruthless, and
followed by prompt and decisive action. Half an hour of concentrated
thought and she had extracted from her reflections three opinions and
a resolve.
Of these opinions, the first was that Applebo was in love with nobody
but himself and his Muse, that he found the situation piquant and
amusing, and was having just as much fun out of it as were the
"Sharks," which was saying a good deal.
The second opinion was that she, Hermione, had been very violently
and dangerously attracted by the peculiar personality of Mr. Applebo,
but that she had thoroughly overcome it (_sic_).
The third opinion was that Cécile was also violently and dangerously
attracted by the peculiar personality of Mr. Applebo, and was very
far from being over it.
And the resolve was that she would write to Mr. Applebo to say that
they had had enough of him, and would he kindly clear out!
Action always followed hot on the heels of Hermione's resolutions.
She was a mature-minded girl, and found no difficulty in
crystallising her thought into words. This was, no doubt, because
her thought was a saturated solution and not the dilute,
strained-out, indecisive brain-mush of so many of us. Hermione
whipped up her writing-pad and indited swiftly the following:--
DEAR MR. APPLEBO:--Permit me to compliment you upon the able way in
which you have demonstrated your admirable seamanship. It must be,
and no doubt is, a source of great satisfaction to you to prove to us
your capacities.
("That will cheer him up, if he has one grain of modesty!" thought
Hermione.)
I must tell you, however, that, in the opinion of some of us aboard
the _Shark_, the game has now gone quite far enough. We acknowledge
your ability to cope with our vessel in soundings or out of them.
My father is planning to sail for Bermuda in two days, and I must
request that you do not follow us. Your somewhat peculiar constancy
is beginning to excite a little comment outside our immediate circle,
and I think it better in many ways that it should be discontinued.
My father is inclined to resent your sending of verses to my sister
Cécile, and perhaps it would be better to discontinue this attention
also.
Sincerely yours,
HERMIONE CHESTER BELL.
Thought Hermione, having completed this hasty epistle, "There!
Something tells me that he will read this, and curl up his
six-feet-two in a manner to arouse the envy of a chestnut-worm!"
This heartless epistle achieved, Hermione decided for bed, but after
undressing and snapping off her light, for the _Shark_ had a dynamo,
she found herself still wakeful. Wherefore, she re-illuminated, and
attacked the French play with greater interest, other preoccupations
being disposed of. This play was one which, had her mother been
alive, Hermione would never have been permitted to read. But the
maternal vigilance of a Norwegian sailorman can hardly be expected to
ransack the lockers of nineteen-year-old young ladies, wherefore
Hermione was perusing a somewhat tarnished story, with her red lip
contemptuously curled, when the little ship's clock in the saloon
rang sharply four bells.
Hermione shoved the play through her port-hole and was about to try
for sleep again when she heard a rustling outside her door.
"Hermione..." said a low voice, which she recognised as Cécile's.
"Yes?"
The door opened and Cécile came in. Hermione, glancing with surprise
at her sister, was startled at Cécile's pale and tragic beauty. Her
shimmering hair was drawn severely back from her broad, low forehead,
and hung in two heavy braids well below her waist. Her grey eyes,
with their dark, encircling lashes, were like stars, but ringed about
in a way that alarmed Hermione. Cécile wore her white, embroidered
kimono, which hung straight from her shoulders like the sacrificial
robe of a Druidess. There was a bright red spot in either cheek, and
her bosom was rising and falling rapidly. Cécile reminded Hermione
of Goethe's "Bride of Corinth" ... that is, in appearance.
"Cécile!" she cried. "What is the matter? Are you ill?"
The colour flooded the face of Cécile.
"I am off my head, I think!" she answered. "I can't sleep; I can't
think! I don't seem to belong to myself!"
"Cécile...!" Hermione crossed the room and dropped on the transome
beside her sister, who had sunk down amongst the cushions. "What is
it, dear?"
Cécile caught her breath and choked back a sob. Tenderness in
Hermione touched her, where in Paula she would have thought nothing
of it. She pressed her hands over her eyes, then dropped both arms,
and looked intently at her sister.
"Hermione," she said, "are you in love with Harold Applebo?"
Hermione turned to her a very startled face.
"No!" she answered, emphatically.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I am! I never met him but once in my life!"
"Nor I," answered Cécile, and sprang to her feet, "but I am madly,
insanely, desperately in love with him! It's silly, I know! It's
unreasonable, and unmaidenly ... anything you like. But I can't
think of anything but this man! What _is_ it, Hermione? Am I crazy?"
She turned to her sister with a half-sob. Hermione saw that Cécile's
hands were clenched so tightly as to drive the finger-nails into the
delicate skin. Her face was colourless, except for two crimson spots
on either cheek and the red line of her lips.
Hermione was not only startled, but tremendously surprised. She had
always thought rather contemptuously of Cécile's possible capacity
for deep feeling, and rather pityingly of Paula's, ultimately
concluding that she, Hermione, was blessed, or cursed, with all that
there was in the family!
"But, my dear," cried Hermione, "you never spoke to him but once!"
"I know it," replied Cécile, wearily. "I'm a crazy fool! It's quite
shameless of me, is it not?" She gave a bitter little laugh. "The
man has put a spell on me! I can't close my eyes without seeing that
yellow mane and those sleepy amber eyes ... and they are not so
sleepy, either, when you look closely! It's a possession! What am I
to do? And the worst of it is, I know that he has some sort of a
tender sentiment for me. Oh, why doesn't he come over here and say
so, instead of keeping me on pins and needles with his everlasting
verses?"
Hermione looked thoughtfully at her sister. For an instant she was
on the point of telling Cécile bluntly that the verses were actually
intended for herself. But she was quite aware of her sister's
unconscious vanity, and felt that to do so would arouse her undying
resentment. So she merely asked:--
"Do you really care for him? Or is it only a sort of infatuation?"
"So far, I don't see how it can be more than infatuation," replied
Cécile, frankly; "but I think that I might easily care ... and care a
great deal, when I came to know him. You can scarcely be said to be
in love with a person you don't know. As it is, I sometimes feel as
if I hated him! It is not even an infatuation. I am fascinated, I
suppose ... as you sometimes see a bird fascinated by a cat. There
is something about his lazy, indifferent, cat-like look and manner
that makes me feel at times like whacking him!" She laughed,
nervously.
Hermione wrinkled her forehead and contemplated her sister in deep
thought. Cécile watched her in that confident anxiety with which a
patient might regard a very young but intelligent physician who has
just been put in possession of a history of the case. In force of
character and what is commonly called "strength," Hermione was easily
the senior of the three sisters, for all of her trifling nineteen
years of inexperience. Besides her natural intelligence, Hermione
had a good deal of theoretic knowledge of the world, its men and
women, and the psychology of love, from the reading of books written
by folk who should have understood their subject, and had frequently
obtained this knowledge at a considerable price. Wherefore, after a
few moments of thought, she observed, with all of the aplomb of forty
years:--
"When a girl feels as you do toward a man with whom she is not really
in love, it is time that he was told to clear out. Once removed from
your life, you would very quickly get over it."
Cécile looked dissatisfied.
"But I am not at all sure that I want him out of my life," she said.
"I would rather prefer that he came into it. The trouble is, he does
neither the one thing nor the other."
"Have you a clear idea of what you _do_ want?" asked Hermione.
"No."
"I have. What you would like would be to keep him dangling about, to
be ultimately reduced to the same pulpy substance into which you have
converted so many others. It can't be done. He's a different breed
of cat."
Cécile shivered. "Uncle Chris told me one day that this would happen
to me." She sighed. "What shall I do, Hermione?"
"Nothing," said Hermione. "Leave it to me."
"To you!"
"Yes. I will settle the matter." Hermione's pretty mouth assumed
the austerity of a school-marm's.
"What will you do?"
"I will request his resignation."
"Do you think that he will obey?"
"Of course. He is a gentleman, and he has assured us right along
that whenever we got tired of him we had only to say the word. I
will say it."
Cécile looked at her sister doubtfully. Hermione, returning the
glance, observed that Cécile's eyelids were heavy. It was evident
that she was feeling the reaction of her outburst and would now
sleep. The recital of her woes had relieved the pressure within.
But she was not entirely content with Hermione's solution.
"Do you think that he is in love with me, Hermione?" she asked, with
an odd shyness.
"No. He is in love with nobody but himself. This thing amuses him.
He is a natural-born seafarer with a soft streak in him, and nothing
pleases him more than to sail around and lead a hard life and write
mushy verse. He sent me fathoms of the same sort of harmless slush
before transferring his delicate attentions to you. I chucked them
back at him. Now go to bed."
Cécile arose, wearily.
"I knew that he had sent you verses," she said, "but I thought that
maybe he had got our names mixed up."
The irony of this almost extorted a true statement of the case from
Hermione. But she saw that Cécile had plainly had enough emotion for
one séance.
"Go to bed, dear," said she. "It's nearly five bells. Papa must be
making a night of it. You will sleep now, I am sure."
Cécile kissed her, then drifted, like a very lovely and dishevelled
ghost, out into the dim-lit corridor.
A few hours later, when Hermione went on deck for her morning row,
the fog was so dense that it gave her an impression of being under
water, and very soapy water at that. Heldstrom, who never appeared
to sleep, greeted her with a shake of the head.
"Not this morning, yoong lady," said he. "Go back to bed."
"Oh, please..." begged Hermione. "I love to row around in the fog."
Heldstrom assumed an expression of severity.
"Und I love not to haf you!" said he. "Vat if you r'row str'raight
out to sea, and keep on Growing? Vat vould your fadder say to me for
losing der skiff?"
Hermione laughed. "You are not very flattering to yourself as a
teacher, Uncle Chris," said she. "If I were to do a landlubber trick
like that, I'd deserve to get lost! What do you take me for, a
Sunday picknicker? Give me a dory-compass."
Heldstrom was evidently shaken. He took tremendous pride in
Hermione's nautical abilities.
"You are forever saying that I'm a better sailor than anybody
aboard," said Hermione. "Now prove it. You have sent the dinghy
ashore...." She glanced at the boat-boom.
Heldstrom grinned. "That proves nodding. If a square-head gets lost
who gifs a hang? Dere are plenty more. Und dinghys, too. But dere
iss only von Hermione in all der vorld."
Hermione saw that the old sailor was weakening fast. She slipped to
his side, threw one arm over his shoulder, and raising herself on
tiptoes, dropped a light kiss on the weather-beaten cheek.
"Please, Uncle Chris," she whispered, "or I'll think that all you say
about my seamanship is just a bluff!"
Christian Heldstrom threw up his great arms like a drowning man.
"By Jingo!" growled he, "vat's der use? Take your boat. Take all
der boats...." He turned to the grinning and delighted
quartermaster. "Miss Hermione's skiff!" said he, gruffly.
He himself placed the dory-compass in the sternsheets.
"Der landing bears sout'east by sout'," said Heldstrom. "So we bear
from der landing ... what?"
"Nor'east by nothe..." said Hermione, with a laugh. "Would you like
to hear me say my letters?"
"You try to sass me? Ven you hear _dong ... dong ... dong ... dong_
... steady like dis on der ship's bell, that iss we."
"And when you hear _bang!_ and a square-foot of paint off the ship's
side," laughed Hermione, "that am I...!"
"Off wit' you...!" growled Heldstrom, and made a feint to dash at
her. Hermione's light oars took the water, and her laugh came back,
merry though muffled, as she slipped like a wraith into the fog.
There was really no danger, as traffic was at a standstill and one
could tell by the swell when opposite an entrance leading out to sea.
Hermione was wearing a green flannel shirtwaist and her green plaid
homespun skirt. Hunting-green and deep shades of crimson were
Hermione's colours, just as the yellow tones belonged to Applebo.
This morning her colour-scheme extended even to her tam, while the
reflection of the drab-grey water in her violet eyes did its best to
carry out the prevailing tone. The only alien note was the crimson
ribbon, wound like a fillet about her black hair, which she wore
twisted around her pretty head, as tightly as she could draw it.
So dense was the fog that Hermione rowed slowly, fearful of bumping
some of the many craft at anchor. From time to time she glanced at
her compass, and occasionally she twisted about on the thwart and
tried to pierce the opacity which appeared to hang like a soft,
fleecy blanket directly before the bow of her skiff. Once she heard
the chug-chug of a motor-boat, apparently approaching, but at her
musical hail it sheered off and she heard voices talking loudly,
against the din of the engine.
"If I don't look out," thought Hermione, "I will run slap into the
_Daffodil_. She is hung up squarely in my course to the landing."
At the thought of this possibility it occurred to Hermione that, were
she to run onto the yawl, she might leave her note in person, with
perhaps a few supplementary words. This practical idea, while not
particularly discreet, gave her a decided thrill. The heavy fog
would prevent her call from being observed, and in any case she would
conduct the interview from her skiff.
Wherefore, when Hermione estimated that she must be very close aboard
the yawl, she rested on her oars and tried to stare into the
enveloping fog. There was not a breath of air, and the moisture was
not chill, but warm and humid like steam. It was so thick as to be
almost palpable, following any motion in swirls, and making one's
breathing slightly laborious. The little harbour was full of yachts,
and from all sides there came to the girl's ears the muffled and
random sounds of the floating community; a snatch of song, the creak
and whine of blocks, the splash of a packing-box most slovenly thrown
overboard, a laugh, the chunk-a-chunk of oars, and the hail of a
voice calling out to locate the vessel sought. Hermione felt herself
to be in a mystic, sightless, and elusive world.
She altered her course slightly, and took a dozen strokes, then
rested again. She was looking and listening when suddenly, out of
the fog and spoken almost in her ear, there came a resonant bass,
which announced to any who might wish to hear:--
"_Her eyes are blue as the violet's hue,
Her voice is a carol of bliss,
Her teeth are pearls from the deep-sea worlds,
Her mouth is the throne of a kiss._
"To take her hand is to ... to ... to ..." (sudden changing of the
recitative tone) "to ... oh, dammit ... what is it to take her hand?
Hanged if I haven't forgot ... hand, sand, fanned, land ... damned
... oh, poison! What is it to take her hand...?"
"Fresh, cheeky, presumptuous, and undesired...!" supplied Hermione,
invisible in the fog. "You might take her painter, though, if you
don't mind interrupting the lecture in anatomy!"
She heard a gasp and the sound of something which evidently dropped
upon the deck, then bounced overboard, for there was a tiny splash.
"Oh, wap!" complained the resonant voice. "There goes my
fountain-pen...." The tone changed to one of invocation. "Cécile,
is it thou or thy spirit out there in the mist?"
"Neither!" snapped Hermione. "Look out ...!"
The high freeboard of the yawl rose suddenly before her bow; she held
water with one oar, and the skiff came rubbing gently alongside.
There was the scuffle of feet above her, and Hermione glanced up to
see a figure in flannels and sweater, looming titanesque through the
white fog.
"Cécile...!" said the rich voice.
"Take the painter," replied Hermione. "No, I'm not going aboard. It
would be stretching my elastic conventionality too far to visit a
young man aboard his boat at seven-thirty of a foggy morning. I have
a note for you and a few words to add to it."
Applebo caught a turn with the painter and dropped into a primitive
crouching position on the yawl's deck. Hermione observed that his
face had assumed its sleepy look, while the voice took on the lazy
drawl which she so well remembered. His eyes, which looked yellower
than ever in the colourless fog, blinked at Hermione almost with
appreciation. Their swift scrutiny passed from her green tam to her
costume of the same colour, vivid against the white mist.
"You look like an emerald packed in cotton," he observed.
"Always a poet. Am I all green?"
"No; you are set with rubies, coral, and a pair of rare sapphires.
To fancy your being poetic also! You seem to be such a practical
maid. I don't know whether I am glad or sorry."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your verses, of course. I wear them here." He laid his hand over
his heart. "Just at this moment, however, they are below.
Unfortunately, a sweater has no pockets. I was deeply touched,
Cécile, and have already mailed you the answer. But, if you do not
mind, I might point out certain technical errors ..."
"What are you driving at, anyway?" Hermione demanded.
"Don't be piqued. Art should come before personal vanity. There are
a few errors ... of a trifling sort. That is nothing. I make them
myself. But there are also one or two ... eh ... banalities...."
"Banalities...!"
"Let me point them out. I am sure that you will agree with me...."
Applebo plunged into his companionway, leaving Hermione completely
mystified. A moment later he emerged, holding a piece of note-paper
which Hermione was quick to recognise as the _Shark's_. To her
amazement and disgust, she saw that this was covered by Cécile's
stylish penmanship.
"I will read it through," said Applebo, "and then point out to you
what I mean."
In his deep, sonorous voice he proceeded to read as follows:--
TO A PILOT-FISH
_The billows flee from the shriek of the wind
And the scud from the lash of the gale,
But the "Shark" swims away and naught behind
But one poor little tossing sail.
Tell me, surges, ere you go,
Should a Pilot-fish be treated so?_
_The sky-line darkens as night draws near,
From the sea strikes the East Wind's chill,
For the sturdy "Shark" there is naught to fear,
But how for the "Daffodil"?
Tell me, moon, from your heights above,
Sails the "Daffodil" to the Port of Love?_
_Is it for Love that my viking roves,
Or doth he despise the shore?
Shall we meet in the Port of Missing Loves,
Or shall we meet no more?
Tell me, breezes, ere you part,
Can true love warm a fish's heart?_
"Do you mean to tell me," cried Hermione, "that Cécile actually wrote
and sent you that slush?"
"Eh ... what...?" Applebo appeared startled out of his habitual
repose. His yellow eyes opened very wide. "What do you mean?
Cécile?"
"Oh!" cried Hermione. "You make me sick! Both of you! If possible
you make me the sicker ... because you began the whole silly
business! In the first place, if you must pose as an enamoured
swain, and bombard innocent folk with sickening slop, why don't you
take the trouble to recognise your inamorata when you see her? I am
not Cécile. I never was Cécile. Cécile is my sister ... the one who
went with papa to thank you for helping me. I am Hermione!"
Applebo stared and his lean jaw dropped. He sank into a sort of heap
upon the dripping deck. Mouth and eyes were generously open, and he
stared at the angry beauty in the boat with an expression of such
utter imbecility that Hermione lost her temper. She wished that
Cécile could have seen him.
"You look like a fool!" she snapped.
Applebo gulped and shut his mouth.
"I have the perfect right!" he answered, sepulchrally. "But why
didn't you tell me?"
Hermione's chin went into the air. "I suppose that when you told me
in your naïve way that you were in love with Hermione, I should have
put my finger in my mouth, dropped my shy head, plucked bashfully at
the hem of my high-water bathing skirt, and murmured, 'I am it!'"
Applebo groaned as one in pain.
"Do you mind if I say what I think of myself?" he asked.
"Not in the least. I might even help."
"I am a blithering ass, idiot, fool, dolt, imbecile, chump, ninny
lump, and I ought to put my head in a bag and jump overboard. A
hydrocephalic child cutting out paper-dolls on the floor of an asylum
is a font of intelligence compared to me."
"You are letting yourself off easily," observed Hermione.
"I shall die of this. And so your sister must have been receiving
the verses intended for you!"
"Every mail adds to her vocabulary of soul-talk," replied Hermione.
Applebo looked very ill. All of the feline drowsiness had been swept
from his face, leaving it of an actually human intelligence.
"I shall never write another poem!" said he, with solemnity.
"When you talk like that," said Hermione, "you make me believe that
there is still hope for you. But there is still more that you must
do. That is why I am here."
"What must I do?" asked Applebo, hopefully. "I promise to do it."
"Stop following us about."
The face of the poet fell. For a moment he regarded Hermione in
gloomy silence.
"As bad as that?" he asked. "Very well. I have promised. I will
start for New York as soon as the weather clears, lay up the
_Daffodil_, and go into outlawry. Perhaps later, when I have done my
penance, you may graciously permit me to meet your charming family in
the conventional way." He looked at her eagerly.
Hermione dropped her eyes. "I will consider it," she answered.
"Are you offended with me?" asked Applebo.
"Not offended exactly," said Hermione, looking at him frankly. "But
you have made an awful lot of trouble. Poor Cécile thinks that you
are madly in love with her. Of course, she does not return the
sentiment, but it has worked on her romantic sensibilities apparently
to the point of inspiring the stuff that you just read. When she
finds out that your delicate attentions were intended all of the time
for my humble self, I'm sure I don't know what will happen."
Applebo stared at her wildly.
"Good Heavens!" he gasped. "Then she must never know! Oh, what an
awful mess!"
Hermione, watching him with more intentness than her supercilious
expression betrayed, saw an entirely new and unknown Applebo. All of
the indolent pose was swept away in the rush of sincere and honest
regret for what had occurred. The poet, thus revealed in his true
nature, became a very normal and penitent young man. Hermione was
conscious of a sudden rush of liking for him, he was so sincerely
sorry.
"What shall I do?" he asked. "Simply clear out? That's the hardest
of all. Perhaps if I were to go over and meet your sister and let
her see what an ordinary, every-day sort of ass I am, it might do
some good. I'll do whatever you tell me to."
Hermione gave him a pitying smile.
"You need not feel so tragic about it," said she. "Cécile does not
really care, of course..." She watched him narrowly. Applebo's face
expressed relief.
"Of course she doesn't," he replied. "I can see just how it is; she
was rather taken by the romantic idea of my rotting around in the
wet, just to be near. Her verses show it. Or maybe she was just
trying to get a rise out of me," he added, most unpoetically.
"No," said Hermione, "she was a little touched. It will do her no
harm, and might even do her some good. She has been a bit of a
flirt, I'm afraid. You really haven't done anything so terrible...."
Hermione found herself getting a little bored with the subject of
Cécile.
Said Applebo: "I would rather set fire to my tub, and sail her
straight to sea ... as my forbears used to do, than give unhappiness
to any living soul. That is the beginning and end of my religion ...
at least of the negative side of it. To think that I should have
given you this trouble! If you will accept her as a gift, I will
present you with the _Daffodil_ here and now, and shoulder my kit,
and clear out on foot. I have never been so sorry."
Hermione was, for the instant, tempted to close with this extravagant
offer, just to see what would happen. But a glance at Applebo's face
told her. He was undeniably in earnest. Hermione began to feel
sorry for him.
"It is not as bad as that," said she. "Once you are gone, Cécile
will soon forget about you. Next time you play at knight-errant,
take my advice and identify your damsels. Now I must go. Good-bye."
Applebo gave her a hopeless look. "Good-bye," he answered, in a dull
voice, and threw off the turns of the painter. Hermione handled her
oars. For some reason she felt a disinclination to pull off into the
fog, leaving him there, unhappy, alone, forsaken. It seemed so
dreary an end to their peculiar association. She thought of the many
weeks that the little yawl had so bravely and blithely followed them
through rain and gale and fog and calm.
Her skiff drifted clear of the yawl's side. Hermione looked back at
Applebo. He was sitting disconsolately on the sodden deck, back
bent, shoulders hunched, his hands clasped in front of his knees.
"Good-bye," repeated Hermione, more gently.
"Good-bye," said Applebo, in a sepulchral tone, and without moving.
Hermione thought that he might at least have got on his feet. She
dipped her oars for a lusty stroke, then did not take it. It seemed
quite impossible to leave him there in that state of dejection. If
he had been sleepily and blinkingly inscrutable in his habitual way,
Hermione would not have cared. But the feline pose had been
ruthlessly torn away, leaving only the direct, childish nature
underneath. There was plenty of the maternal in Hermione, and
Applebo, at that moment, seemed to her a big, unhappy little boy.
"I wonder if I can find my way back to the _Shark_..." she said,
uncertainly.
"I'll send the Finn with you if you will wait a few minutes. He has
gone ashore to mail a poem to Cécile."
Hermione bit her lip. Applebo slightly roused himself and reached
for the blade of the oar which she extended to him.
"Before I go," said Hermione, "would you mind telling me your real
reason for following us about? I am not such a fool as to think that
it was because of a sentimental attraction to one of us girls" ...
she laughed ... "when you did not so much as know us apart. Was
there any other reason?"
Applebo's eyes narrowed. He gave her an intent look.
"Why do you ask? Curiosity?"
"No. Interest."
"That is better. Well, then, I will tell you. I am only too glad to
be able to tell you and to ask your advice. But if you are really
enough interested to care to hear all about it, you are in for the
story of my life."
"I want to hear it," said Hermione, "but I haven't a great deal of
time. When we hear the _Shark's_ bell, I will have to go."
"Then I'll make it short," said Applebo. "Do you remember my telling
you that day at Shoal Harbour that my mother was a cousin to the King
of Sweden? She married a Norwegian boat-builder; a good enough man,
of a very respectable family. Her family made an awful row about it,
and tried to have the marriage annulled, for she was almost royalty.
The two left Norway and went to America. They were not happy, and
shortly after I was born they separated. My mother would not return
to Norway, but lived in Brooklyn, supported by a small annuity she
had from a brother. My father enlisted in the United States Navy."
Hermione, listening, absorbed in this tale, let her eyes rest on the
face of the narrator. She wondered that she had ever thought it
feline and baffling.
"When I was ten years old," said Applebo, "my mother died. An uncle
of hers, named Applebo, who had come to America years before, made me
his heir. He was an old man and died not long ago. I was sent to
school, and afterwards to college. In the vacations I always went to
sea, usually on sailing ships. It was on a ship that I met a man,
the captain, who had known my father and who told me all about the
affair, not knowing who I was. He told me that my father had left
the Navy and was the sailing-master of a yacht, and that the yacht
was the _Shark_."
Hermione's oars dropped from her hands. She gripped the gunnel of
her skiff.
"Uncle Chris Heldstrom?" she gasped.
Applebo nodded. "There seems to be no doubt that he is my father,"
he said, "although he too has taken a different name. There goes
your oar...." He sprang to his feet, whipped a boat-hook from its
slings, and rescued the oar.
Hermione watched him dumbly, but her thoughts were revolving fast.
She had often suspected some romance in the life of Heldstrom, from
slight things let fall now and then. Like a flash there occurred to
her mind Heldstrom's remarks after seeing Applebo the day they had
undertaken to swim out to the schooner. "An echo..." Heldstrom had
said, of the young man. Again, it was only the night before that
Captain Bell had commented on a certain resemblance between Heldstrom
and Applebo, and this Hermione had been quick to appreciate.
Her heart beat furiously and she felt the blood rushing into her
cheeks. Applebo was rather pale. He had secured the oar and
returned it to her.
"But why have you not declared yourself?" cried Hermione.
"Stop to think. The situation is extremely delicate. To begin with,
he left my mother before I was born. I believe that their separation
was conditional to her receiving this annuity, and they were very
poor. I am rather a sensitive person and I find it embarrassing to
go up to a strange, stern-looking man and inform him that he is my
father."
Hermione gave a nervous, excited laugh.
"He might not care to admit the relationship," said Applebo, "and
then think what a fool I would feel! And yet, I am certainly drawn
to him. I have been following the _Shark_ for no other reason ... up
to some time ago. Heldstrom seldom goes ashore, so I have not seen
him many times. It seemed better not to act hastily. For all I
know, he might be the very last person whom I would care to claim as
a parent. I have been horribly perplexed."
"Then you needn't be!" cried Hermione. "Let me tell you that
Christian Heldstrom is as splendid a man as ever lived. I don't know
anything about his early life, but I know this much, that no kinder,
braver, truer-hearted sailor ever walked a deck! And he is no common
man! He is a gentleman! I don't know what your mother may have been
like, but I hope, for your sake, that you inherit your father's
traits!"
Applebo stared at her with shining eyes.
"You make me happier than I can say!" he cried. "But I have not
worried about that aspect of the case. The question is, would he
care to acknowledge me?"
"Anybody might be glad to acknowledge you if you would chuck your
silly, mocking pose!" retorted Hermione. "Why do you not stand out
in your true nature instead of blinking at people like a cat?"
Applebo smiled. "A sort of shield," said he. "It puzzles people,
who might otherwise consider me an ass."
"Not always. But the question is, what are you going to do?"
"That is exactly what I have been trying to decide for the last three
months. What would you advise?"
Hermione hesitated. Applebo watched her, with an expression which
the casual observer would not have ascribed entirely to his interest
in an unknown parent. Hermione, in that moment, was very lovely.
The romantic excitement of the situation had brought her warm soul
into her face, which was radiant in the colourless light.
About them swirled the fog, thicker than before. It beaded
Hermione's dark eyebrows and softened her brilliant cheeks. She was
thinking deeply, when out of the mist came the distant _dong ... dong
... dong_ ... of a ship's bell, patient and monotonous, muffled and
lifeless of note, yet with an insistence, partly anxious, partly
peremptory.
Hermione looked at Applebo and smiled.
"What a situation!" said she. "Yonder is your father ... striking
the bell to guide me home!"