The majority of the passengers aboard the steam yacht _Bluebottle_ said
that it was anybody’s game. In the smoking-room--when neither Somers nor
Norgate was present of course--the betting varied daily according to the
events of the day. At first the odds were slightly in favour of Teddy
Somers--yes, she undoubtedly gave signs of enjoying the companionship
of Mr Somers. She had been seen by trustworthy witnesses standing
behind him while he sketched with a rapid pencil the group of Portuguese
boatmen surrounding the solitary Scotchman, who had got the better of
them all in a bargain, within the first hour of the arrival of the yacht
in Funchal Bay. Afterwards she had been noticed carefully gumming the
drawing upon a cardboard mount. Would a girl take all that trouble about
a man unless she had a sincere regard for him? was the question which a
sapient one put to a section of his fellow passengers, accompanying an
offer of three to one on Somers.
But after a pause, which somehow seemed to suggest an aggregation of
thought--the pauses of a conscientious smoker are frequently fraught
with suggestions--a youth who had been accused of writing poetry, but
whose excellent cigars did much to allay that suspicion, remarked--“What
you say about the drawing suggests that the girl takes an interest in
him, and that would be fatal to her falling in love with him.” There
was another long pause, during which the smokers looked at one another,
carefully refraining from glancing at the speaker, until the man who had
offered the odds said--
“Do you mean to tell us that a girl’s being interested in a chap isn’t
the first step to her falling in love with him?”
“I have no hesitation in saying so much--I could say a good deal more on
the same subject,” replied the propounder of the theory.
Then it was that a number of the men glanced quickly toward him,--there
was something of an appeal for mercy in the glance of most of them: it
seemed as if they were not particularly anxious to hear a good deal more
on the same subject.
It is scarcely necessary to say, however, that the circumstance of their
not wanting to hear a good deal more did not prevent the poet (alleged)
from telling them a good deal more. It took him twenty-five minutes
to formulate his theory, which was to the effect that it is
impossible--impossible was the word he employed: there is no spirit of
compromise on the part of a theorist, especially when he is young,
and more especially when he has been suspected of writing
poetry--_impossible_ for a woman to love a man who has at first merely
interested her.
“Love is a passion, whereas interest is--well, interest is merely
interest,” said he, with that air of finality which a youthful theorist
assumes when he is particularly absurd--and knows it. “Yes, when a woman
hates a man thoroughly, and for the best of reasons,--though for
that matter she may hate him thoroughly without having any reason for
it,--she is nearer to loving him thoroughly than she is to loving a
man who merely interests her, however deep may be the interest which he
arouses.”
“I’ll give three to one in sovereigns on Somers,” said the man who had
originally offered the same odds. He was clearly not amenable to the
dictates of reason, the theorist said: he certainly was not amenable to
the dictates of a theory, which, however, is not exactly the same thing.
“It’s anybody’s game, just now,” remarked another of the sapient ones.
“Anybody’s except the man’s in whom she has become interested,” said the
theorist.
“My dear young man,” said the professional cynic--he had scarcely
recovered from a severe attack of _mal de mer_--“My dear young man,
you’re not a very much greater ass than most boys of your age; but you
will really not strike people as being much below the average if you
only refrain from formulating any theory respecting any woman. The only
thing that it is safe to say about a woman--any woman--every woman--is
that no human being knows what she will do next.”
“Yes, but we were not talking about what a woman will do next, but what
she will do first,” said the poet, who was not easily crushed. “Now I
say that she----”
“Oh, do dry up!” shouted a smoking man in a corner, who had just
rung for a whisky-and-soda. “I’ve heard more nonsense within the past
half-hour than I ever heard during an entire year of my life. There is
no sense in arguing, but there is some sense in betting. If you
believe in your theory, back it with a sovereign to show that you’re in
earnest.”
But the young man’s theory did not run into coin; though in other
directions three to one on Teddy Somers was officially reported as
offered and taken.
Two days afterwards the layer of the odds tried to hedge. The fact was
that the girl had shown such a marked inclination for the society of
Jack Norgate in preference to that of Teddy Somers, it seemed as if
the former would, to make use of an apt phrase, romp in. But before the
steam yacht _Bluebottle_ had crossed the equator the odds were even,
as a passenger named Molloy--he was reputed to be of Irish
descent--remarked.
It was a pleasant company that had left Gravesend on September 10th, for
the six months’ cruise to cheat the winter (see advertisements) in
the steam yacht _Bluebottle_, 3500 tons, Captain Grosvenor, R.N.R.,
in command. The passengers numbered sixty, and included singularly few
disagreeable persons, in spite of the fact that the voyage was one that
only people with money and leisure could afford. The vessel was well
found, and her commander and officers were the pick of the Company’s
fleet, and possessed innumerable resources in the way of deck games. The
report found ready credence in the service that Captain Grosvenor had
gained his position through being the originator of deck-golf.
However this may be, he certainly recognised in the amplest way the
responsibilities of the position of trust which he occupied, and he
never allowed any duty to interfere with his daily exposition of the
splendid possibilities of deck-golf. He had started a golf tournament
before the yacht had left the Channel, and he hove to for three days
in the Bay of Biscay, when the heavy sea that was running threatened to
interfere with the playing off of the tie between Colonel Mydleton and
Sir Edwin Everard.
The cruise promised to be all that the advertisements had predicted it
would be. But before Madeira was reached comments were made upon the
extraordinary scarcity of young girls among the passengers. Among a
certain section of the passengers the comments on this point had a
highly congratulatory tone, but among another section the matter was
touched upon with a considerable amount of grumbling. Old voyagers,
who were accompanied by vigilant wives (their own), foresaw a tranquil
voyage, undisturbed by those complications which their experience told
them invariably arise when attractive young women are to be found in
graceful attitudes on deck chairs. On the other hand, however, there
were several men aboard who had just sufficient experience of going down
to the sea in steam yachts to cause them to look askance, during their
first day aboard, over the deck chairs, which were occupied mainly by
fathers and matrons. Yes, there was, undoubtedly, a scarcity of girls.
The fact is that such a pleasure cruise as that which had been mapped
out for the _Bluebottle_ differs essentially from the ordinary Indian or
Australian voyage. On the two last-named, girls are to be found by
the score going out or returning. It is not a matter of pleasure with
them--though most of them contrive to get a good deal of pleasure out of
it--but a matter of necessity. The majority of people who set out on
a cruise in a steam yacht do so only because time hangs heavy on their
hands, and they do not take their daughters with them, for the simple
reason that their daughters decline to expatriate themselves for six or
eight months at the most critical period of their lives.
Only six young women were among the passengers, of the _Bluebottle_; of
these only three were quite good-looking, and of these three the only
really beautiful one was Viola Compton. It did not take the experienced
voyagers long to perceive that Miss Compton would have an extremely good
time aboard the yacht. With all their experience they knew no better
than to suppose that a girl is having a good time when she has half a
dozen men at her feet, and a reserve force of twenty others ready
to prostrate themselves before her at a moment’s notice--when she is
sneered at by her less pretty sisters, who tell one another that she
gives herself insufferable airs--when she is frowned at by the wives of
uncertain husbands, who call her (among themselves) a forward minx,
and when she cannot snub the most odious of the men who disarrange her
cushions for her, and prevent her from reading her novels by insisting
on chatting to her on all the inanities which a long voyage fosters in
men who on shore are alluded to as “genial.” If to be in such a position
is to be having a good time, Viola had certainly the best time on record
even before the yacht had crossed the Line. She had about a score of men
around her who never allowed her to have a moment to herself; she was
bored by Colonel Mydleton’s story of Lord Roberts’ mistakes when in
India, the crowning one being--according to Colonel Mydleton--the march
to Kandahar, which he assured her was one of the greatest fiascos of
the century; she was rendered uncomfortable for a whole afternoon
of exquisite sunshine by the proximity of the poet, who insisted on
repeating to her a volume of lyrics that only awaited a publisher; she
was awakened from a delightful doze after tiffin by the commonplace
jests of the young man who fondly believed himself to be a humourist;
she was sneered at by the other girls and frowned upon by the matrons,
and she was made the subject of bets in the smoking-room,--in short, she
was having, most people agreed, an uncommonly good time aboard.
The captain knew better, however: he had kept his eyes open during a
lifetime of voyages on passenger steamers, and he could see a good deal
with his eyes without the aid of a binocular telescope.
There could be no doubt that Miss Compton treated both Teddy Somers and
Jack Norgate with a favour which she could not see her way to extend
to the other passengers. It was only natural that she should do so, the
captain saw at once, though he was too experienced to say so even to his
chief engineer, who was a Scotchman. Norgate and Somers were both nice
chaps, and had won distinction for themselves in the world. The former
was a mighty hunter, and had slain lions in the region of the Zambesi
and bears in the Rockies: the latter was well known as an artist; he
was something of a musician as well, and he had once had a play produced
which had taken a very respectable position amongst the failures of
the season. Both men were very well off,--the one could afford to be a
hunter, and the other could even afford to be an artist. They were both
clearly devoted to Viola; but this fact did not seem to interfere with
the friendship which existed between them. Neither of the two tried
to cut out the other so far as the girl was concerned. When Somers was
sitting by her side, Norgate kept apart from them, and when Norgate
chanced to find himself with her, his friend--although the tropical
moonlight was flooding the heaven--continued his smoking on the bridge
with the captain.
The captain was lost in admiration of both men; he reserved some for
the girl, however: he acknowledged that she was behaving very well
indeed--that is, of course, for the only really pretty girl aboard a
ship. The captain was a strong believer in the advantages of a healthy
competition between young women: the tyranny of the monopolist had
frequently come within his range of vision. Yes, he saw that Miss
Compton was behaving discreetly. She did not seek to play off one man
against the other, nor did she make the attempt to play off a third man
against both. For his own part, he utterly failed in his attempt to find
out in what direction her affections tended. He saw that the girl liked
both men, but he did not know which of them she loved--assuming that she
actually did love one of them. He wondered if the girl herself knew. He
was strongly inclined to believe that she did not.
But that was just where he made a mistake. She did know, and she
communicated her knowledge to Teddy Somers one night when they stood
together watching the marvellous phosphorescence of the South Atlantic
within ten days’ sail of the Cape. A concert was going on in the great
saloon, so that there was an appropriate musical background, so to
speak, for their conversation. Teddy had said something to her that
forced from her an involuntary cry--or was it a sigh?
Then there was a pause--with appropriate music: it came from a banjo in
the saloon.
“Is that your answer?” he inquired, laying one of his hands upon hers as
it lay on the brass plating of the bulwarks.
“My answer?” she said. “I’m so sorry--so very sorry, Mr Somers.”
“Sorry? Why should you be sorry?” he said softly. “I tell you that I
love you with all----”
“Ah, do not say it again--for pity’s sake do not say it again,” she
cried, almost piteously. “You must never speak to me of love; I have
promised to love only Jack--Mr Norgate.”
“What--you have promised?--you have----”
“It only happened after tiffin to-day. I thought perhaps he might have
told you--I thought perhaps you noticed that he and I--oh yes, you
certainly behaved as if you took it for granted that... ah, I am so
sorry that you misunderstood.... I think that I must have loved him from
the first.”
There was another long pause. He looked down into the gleaming water
that rushed along the side of the ship. Then she laid one of her hands
on his, saying--
“Believe me, Mr Somers, I am sorry--oh, so sorry!”