He took the imploring little hands in his own firm grip. "Listen.
There's no telling what has happened. We may have to go on deck. We may
even be ordered to the boats. Warm clothing is an absolute necessity.
Think now, and tell me what you need."
She gave him a quick but rather sketchy list. "And your own overcoat and
sweater--or I won't let you go. Promise." Her fingers turned in his and
caught at them.
"Very well, tyrant. I'll be back in three minutes."
Had he known what was awaiting him he might have promised with less
confidence. For there was a dragon in the path in the person of young
Mr. Diedrick Sperry, breathing, if not precisely flames, at least,
fumes, for he had sat late in the smoking-room, consuming much liquor.
At sight of the Tyro, his joke which he had so highly esteemed, returned
to his mind.
"Haberdashin' 'round again, hey?" he shouted, blocking the passage
halfway down to Stateroom 129. "Where's Cissy Wayne?"
"Safe," said the Tyro briefly.
"Safe be damned! You tell me where before you move a step farther." He
stretched out a hand which would have done credit to a longshoreman.
Fight was the last thing that the Tyro wished. More important business
was pressing. But as Sperry was blocking the way to the conclusion of
that business, it was manifest that he must be disposed of. Here was no
time for diplomacy. The Tyro struck at his bigger opponent, the blow
falling short. With a shout, the other rushed him, and went right on
over his swiftly dropped shoulder, until he felt himself clutched at the
knees in an iron grip, and heaved clear of the flooded floor.
The stateroom door opposite swung unlatched. With a mighty effort, the
wrestler whirled his opponent clean through it, heard his frame crash
into the berth at the back, and slammed the door to after him, only to
be apprised, by a lamentable yell in a deep contralto voice, that he had
made an unfortunate choice of safe-deposits.
In two leaps he was in room 129 D, whence, peering forth, he beheld his
late adversary emerge and speed down the narrow hall in full and
limping flight, pursued by Mrs. Charlton Denyse clad in inconsiderable
pink, and shrieking vengeance as she splashed. Relieved, through this
unexpected alliance, of further interference, the messenger collected a
weird assortment of his liege's clothing and an article or two of his
own and returned to her. There was no mistaking the gladness of her
relief.
"You've done very well," she approved. "Though I don't know that I
actually need this lace collar, and I suppose I _could_ brave the perils
of the deep without that turquoise necklace."
"I took what I could get," explained he. "It's my rule of life."
"Did you obey my orders? Yes, I see you did. Put on your overcoat at
once. It's cold. And you're awfully wet," she added, with charming
dismay, looking at his feet.
"They'll dry out. There's quite a little water below."
Little Miss Grouch studied him for a moment of half-smiling
consideration. "I want to ask you something," she said presently.
"Ask, O Queen, and it shall be answered you."
"Would you have come after me just the same if--if I'd been really a
Miss Grouch, and red-nosed, and puffy-faced, and a frump, and homely?"
He took the question under advisement, with a gravity suitable to its
import. "Not just the same," he decided, "not as--as anxiously."
"But you'd have come?"
"Oh, yes, I'd have come."
"I thought so." Her voice was strange. There was a pause. "Do you know
you're a most exasperating person? It wouldn't make any difference to
you who a woman was, if she needed help, whether she was in the
steerage--"
He leaped to his feet. "The baby!" he cried, "and his mother. I'd
forgotten."
On the word he was gone. Little Miss Grouch looked after him, and there
was a light in her eyes which no human being had ever surprised
there--and which would have vastly surprised herself had she appreciated
the purport of it.
In five minutes he was back, having calmly violated one of the most
rigid of ship's rules, in bringing steerage passengers up to the first
cabin.
"Here's the Unparalleled Urchin," he announced, "right as a trivet.
Here, let's make a little camp." He pulled around a settee, established
the frightened but quiet mother and the big-eyed child on it, drew up a
chair for himself next to the girl and said, "Now we can wait
comfortably for whatever comes."
News it was that came, in the course of half an hour. An official, the
genuineness of whose relief was patent, announced that the leak was
above water-line, that it was being patched, that the ship was on her
way and that there was absolutely no danger, his statement being backed
up by the resumed throb of the engines and the sound of many hammers on
the port side. Stateroom holders in D and E, however, he added, would
best arrange to remain in the saloon until morning.
So the Tyro conveyed his adoptive charges back to the steerage, and
returned to his other and more precious charge. There he found Judge
Enderby in attendance.
"Isn't there something more I can get from your room?" the Tyro asked of
Little Miss Grouch, after he had greeted the judge.
She shook her head with a smile.
"So the dumb has found a tongue, eh?" remarked the lawyer.
"Emergency use only," explained the Tyro.
"Well, my legal advice," pursued the jurist with a reassuring grimace at
the girl, "is that you can make hay while the moon shines, for I don't
think any officer is going to concern himself with your little affair
just at present. But my personal advice," he added significantly, "in
the interests of your own peace of mind, is that you go and sit on the
rudder the rest of the voyage. Safety first!"
"I think he's an awfully queer old man," pouted Little Miss Grouch, as
the judge sauntered away.
"Don't abuse my counsel," said the Tyro.
"He isn't your counsel. He's my counsel. I paid him five whole dollars
to be."
"Hoots, lassie! I paid him ten."
"You want my house," said Little Miss Grouch, aggrieved, "and you want
my lawyer. Is there anything else of mine you'd like to lay claim to?"
It may have been accident--the unprincipled opportunist of a godling who
rules these matters will league himself with any chance--that the Tyro's
eyes fell upon her hand, which lay, pink and warmly half-curled in her
lap, and remained there. It certainly was not accident that the hand was
hastily moved.
"Do you suppose Baby Karl and his mother are safe?" she inquired, in a
voice of extreme detachment.
"Just as safe as we are. By the way, you heard what Judge Enderby
suggested to me about 'safety first'?"
Her face took on an expression of the severest innocence. "No. Something
stupid, I dare say."
"He advised me to go and sit on the rudder for the rest of the voyage."
"Wouldn't it be awfully wet--and lonely?"
"Unspeakably. Particularly the latter."
"Then I wouldn't do it," she counseled.
"I won't," he promised. "But, Miss Grouch, the dry land may be just as
lonely as the wet ocean."
"Haven't you any friends in Europe?"
"No. Unless you count Lord Guenn one."
"You never met him until I introduced you, did you?"
"No. But he's asked me to come and visit him at Guenn Oaks."
"Has he! Why?"
The Tyro laughed. "There's something very unflattering about your
surprise. Not for my _beaux yeux_ alone. It seems he's sort of inherited
me from a careless ancestor."
"_I_ came to him by marriage."
"So he tells me. Also that you're going to Guenn Oaks."
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Why 'well'? I didn't say anything."
"You didn't. I'm waiting to hear you."
"What?"
"Tell me whether I'm to go or not."
"What have I to do with it?"
"Everything."
"Your servitude ends the moment we touch land."
"It will never end," said the Tyro in a low voice.
Little Miss Grouch peeked up at him from under the fascinating, slanted
brows, and immediately regretted her indiscretion. What she saw in his
face stirred within her a sweet and tremulous panic, the like of which
she had not before experienced.
"Please don't look at me like that," she said petulantly. "What will
people think?"
"People are, for once, minding their own businesses, bless 'em."
"Well, anyway, you make me n-n-nervous."
"Am I to come to Guenn Oaks?"
"I'll tell you to-morrow," she fenced.
"To-morrow I shan't be speaking to you."
"Why not?--oh, I forgot. Still, you might write," she dimpled.
"Would you answer?"
"I'll consider it."
"How long would consideration require?"
"Was there ever such a human question-mark! Please, kind sir, I'm
awfully tired and sleepy. Won't you let me off now?"
"Forgive me," said the Tyro with such profound contrition that the
Wondrous Vision's heart smote her, for she had said, in her quest of
means of defense, the thing which most distinctly was not true.
Never had she felt less sleepy. Within her was a terrifying and
quivering tumult. She closed her eyes upon the outer world, which seemed
now all comprised in one personality. Within the closed lids she had
shut the imprint of the tired, lean, alert, dependable face. Within the
doors of her heart, which she was now striving to close, was the memory
of his protective manliness, of his unobtrusive helpfulness, of the
tonic of his frank and healthy humor--and above all of the strength and
comfort of his arms as he had caught her up out of the flood. As she
mused, the slumber-god crept in behind those blue-veined shutters of
thought, and melted her memories into dreams.
While consciousness was still feebly efficient, but control had passed
from the surrendering mind, she stretched out a groping hand. The Tyro's
closed over it very gently. At the corner of her delicate mouth the
merest ghost of a smile flickered and passed. Little Miss Grouch went
deep into the land of dreams, with her knight keeping watch and ward
over her.
Came then the destroying ogre, in the form of the captain, and passed
on; came then the wicked fairy, in the person of Mrs. Charlton Denyse,
and passed on, not without some gnashing of metaphorical teeth (her own,
I regret to state, she had left in her berth); came also the god from
the machine, in the shape of Judge Willis Enderby, with his friend Dr.
Alderson, and paused near the group.
"Love," observed the jurist softly, "is nine tenths opportunity and the
rest importunity. I hope our young protégé doesn't forget that odd
tenth. It's important."
"It seems to me," observed his companion suspiciously, "that you boast
considerable wisdom about the tender passion."
The ablest honest lawyer in New York sighed. "I am old who once was
young, but _ego in Arcadia fui_ and I have not forgotten." Then the two
old friends passed on.
[Illustration: HER KNIGHT KEEPING WATCH OVER HER]