Out of the blue void of a fleckless sky, came whooping at dawn a
boisterous wind. All the little waves jumped from their slow-swinging
cradles to play with it, and, as they played, became big waves, with all
the sportiveness of children and all the power of giants. The Clan
Macgregor was their toy.
At first she pretended indifference, and strove to keep the even tenor
of her way, regardless of them. But they were too much and too many for
her. She began to cripple and jig most painfully for one of her size and
dignity. She limped, she wobbled, she squattered, she splashed and
sploshed, she reeled hither and thither like an intoxicated old rounder
buffeted by a crowd of practical jokers, and she lost time hand over
fist, to the vast approval of Mr. Alexander Forsyth Smith. Time was now
just so much capital to his hopes.
The tonic seduction of the gale was too much for Little Miss Grouch.
This was no day for a proven sailor to be keeping between decks.
Moreover, the maiden panic was now somewhat allayed. The girl's
emotions, after the first shock of the surprise and the resentment of
the hitherto untouched spirit, had come under control. She could now
face a Daddleskink or a regiment of Daddleskinks, unmoved, so she
felt--with proper support. Hence, like the Tyro, she was on deck early.
So they met. As in the mild and innocent poem of Victorian days, "'twas
in a crowd." Little Miss Grouch had provided the crowd, and the Tyro
simply added one to it. He was fain if not wholly content to stay in the
background and bide his chance.
Now Little Miss Grouch, ignorant of the fact that her high-priced
counsel had betrayed her cause, marveled and was disturbed when the Tyro
approached, greeted her, and straightway dropped into the fringe of
Society as constituted by herself for the occasion. Was he deliberately,
in the face of his own belief that imprisonment would be the penalty of
any communication between her and himself, willing to risk her liberty?
If so, he was not the man she had taken him for. Little Miss Grouch's
ideal was rocking a bit on his pedestal.
Patience was not one of the young lady's virtues. On the other hand, the
compensating quality of directness was. "Do It Now" was her prevailing
motto. She wanted to know what her slave meant by his abrupt change of
attitude, and she wanted to know at once. But her methods, though
prompt, were not wholly lacking in finesse. Out of her surrounding court
she appointed Judge Enderby and Lord Guenn escorts for the morning
promenade, and picked up Dr. Alderson on the way.
Be it duly set down to the credit of the Joyous Vision's solider
qualities, that old men found her as interesting a companion, though in
a different way, as did young men. By skillful management, she led the
conversation to the house on the Battery, with the anticipated result
that Judge Enderby (all innocent, wily old fox though he was, that he
was playing her game) suggested the inclusion of the other claimant in
the conference. The Tyro was summoned and came.
"The charge against you," explained the judge, "is contumaciousness in
that you still insist on coveting a property which is claimed by
royalty, under the divine right of queens."
"I'd be glad to surrender it," said the Tyro meekly, "but there seems to
be a species of family obligation about it."
"Obligation or no obligation, you know you can't have it," declared the
lady.
"I rather expect to, though."
"When papa says he'll get a thing, he always gets it," she informed him
with lofty confidence, "and he has promised me that house."
"Then I'm afraid that this is the time his promise goes unfulfilled,"
said Judge Enderby.
She turned to him with incredulously raised brows.
"Alderson knows the old records; he's seen the option--it's a queer old
document, by the way, but sound legally--and can swear to it."
"The only loose joint is the exact plan of the original property,"
observed the archæologist.
"And that is in the picture at Guenn Oaks," contributed Lord Guenn.
"Why are you all against me?" cried Little Miss Grouch in grieved
amazement.
"Not against you at all," said Judge Enderby. "It's simply a matter of
the best claim. Besides, you, who have everything in the world, would
you turn this poor homeless young wanderer out of a house that he's
never been in?"
"Except by ancestral proxy," qualified Dr. Alderson.
"How _mean_ of you!" She turned the fire of denunciatory eyes upon the
archæologist. "You told me with your own lips that no family named
Daddleskink was ever connected in the remotest degree with the house.
You said the idea was as absurd as the name."
"So it is."
"Yet you turn around and declare that Mr. Daddleskink's claim is good."
"_Whose_ claim?"
"Mr. Daddleskink's." She indicated the Tyro with a scornful gesture.
"Oh," she added, noting the other's obvious bewilderment, "I see you
didn't know his real name."
"I? I've known him and his name all his life."
"And it isn't Daddleskink?"
The learned archæologist lapsed against the rail and gave way to wild
mirth. "Wh--where on earth d-d-did you gu-gu-get such a notion?" he
quavered, when he could speak.
"He told me, himself."
"I? Never!" The Tyro's face was as that of a babe for innocence.
"_You--didn't--tell--me--your--name--was--Daddleskink?_"
"Certainly not. I simply asked if you didn't think it a misfortune to be
named Daddleskink, and you jumped to the conclusion that it was my name
and my misfortune."
"Perhaps you didn't tell me, either, that your friends called you
'Smith,'" she said ominously.
"So they do."
"Why should they call you 'Smith' if your name isn't Daddleskink?" she
demanded, with an effect of unanswerable logic.
"Because my name _is_ Smith."
"Permit me to present," said Lord Guenn, who had been quietly but
joyously appreciative of the duel, "my ancestral friend, Mr. Alexander
Forsyth Smith."
"Why didn't you tell me your real name?" Little Miss Grouch's offended
regard was fixed upon the Tyro.
"Well, you remember, you made fun of the honorable cognomen of Smith
when we first met."
"That is no excuse."
"And you were mysterious as an owl about your own identity."
"I could see no occasion for revealing it." The delicately modeled nose
was now quite far in the air.
"So I thought I'd furnish a really interesting name for you to amuse
yourself with. I'm sorry you don't care for it."
Little Miss Grouch's limpid and lofty consideration passed from the
anxious physiognomy of the speaker to the mirthful countenances of the
other three.
"I'm not sure that I shall ever speak to any of you again," she stated,
and, turning her back, marched away from them with lively resentment
expressed in every supple line of her figure.
"Young man," said Judge Enderby to his client, as the male quartette,
thus cavalierly dismissed, passed on, "will you take the advice of an
old man?"
"Have I paid for it?" inquired the Tyro.
"You have not. Gratis advice, this. The most valuable kind."
"Shoot, sir."
"Don't let two blades of grass grow under your feet where one grew
before."
"But--"
"--me no buts. Half an hour I give you. If you haven't found the young
lady in that time I discard you."
Opportunity for successful concealment on shipboard is all but
limitless. Hence the impartial recorder must infer that the efforts of
Little Miss Grouch to elude pursuit were in no way excessive. A quarter
of an hour sufficed for the searcher to locate his object in a sunny
nook on the boat-deck. He approached and stood at attention. For several
moments she ignored his presence. In point of fact she pretended not to
see him. He shifted his position. She turned her head in the reverse
direction and pensively studied the sea.
The Tyro sighed.
Little Miss Grouch frowned.
The Tyro coughed gently.
Little Miss Grouch scowled.
The Tyro lapsed to the deck and curled his legs under him.
Little Miss Grouch turned upon him a baleful eye. But her glance
wavered: at least, it twinkled. Her little jaw was set, it is true. At
the corner of her mouth, however, dimpled a suspicious and delicious
quiver. Perhaps the faintest hint of it crept into her voice to mollify
the rigor of the tone in which she announced:
"I came here to be alone."
"We are," said the Tyro. "At last!" he added with placid satisfaction.
"Well, really!" For the moment it was all that came to her, as offset to
this superb impudence. "Go away, at once," she commanded presently.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"I'm lame," he said plaintively. "Pity the poor cripple."
"A little while ago you were deaf; then dumb. And now--By the way," she
cried, struck with a sudden reminiscence, "what has become of your
dumbness?"
"Cured."
"A miracle. Listen then. And stop looking at that crack in the deck as
if you'd lost your last remaining idea down it."
"To look up is dangerous."
"Where's the danger?"
"Dangerous to my principles," he explained. "You see, you are somewhat
less painful to the accustomed eye than usual to-day, and if I should so
far forget my principles as to mention that fact--"
"You haven't a principle to your name! You're untruthful--"
[Illustration: THE TYRO CURLED HIS LEGS UNDER HIM]
"Ah, come, Little Miss Grouch!"
"Deceitful--"
"As to that Smith matter--"
"And most selfishly inconsiderate of me."
"Of you!" cried the Tyro, roused to protest.
"Certainly. Or you wouldn't be exposing me to imprisonment in my cabin
by talking to me."
"Nothing doing," said he comfortably. "That little joke is played out."
"How did you know?"
Loyalty forbade the Tyro to betray his ally. "That you were of age, you
mean, and couldn't be treated like a child?" he fenced.
"Yes."
"Well, when you spoke of the house on the Battery being deeded over to
you, I knew that you must have reached your majority! The rest was
simple to figure out."
"Oh, dear!" she mourned. "It was such fun chasing you around the ship!"
"Yes? Well, I've emulated the startled fawn all I'm going to this trip."
"What's your present rôle?"
"Meditation upon the wonder of existence."
"Do you find it good?"
"Existence? That depends. Am I to come to Guenn Oaks?"
"I'm sure you'd be awfully in the way there," she said petulantly.
"You've been a perfect nuisance for the last two days."
"My picturesqueness has gone glimmering, now that I'm only a Smith
instead of a Daddleskink. Why, oh, why must these lovely illusions ever
perish!"
"_You_ killed cock-robin," she accused.
"Not at all. It was Dr. Alderson with his misplaced application of the
truth."
"Anyway, I don't find you nearly so entertaining, now that you're plain
Mr. Smith."
"Nor I you as Miss Cecily Wayne, equally plain if not plainer."
"In that case," she suggested with a mock-mournful glance from beneath
the slanted brows, "this acquaintance might as well die a painless
death."
"But for one little matter that you've forgotten."
"And that?"
"The Magnificent Manling of the Steerage."
"So I had forgotten! Let's go make our call on him. We must not neglect
him a moment longer."
The Tyro leaped to his feet and they ran, hand in hand like two
children, down to their point of observation of the less favored
passengers. They spent a lively half-hour with the small Teuton, at the
end of which Little Miss Grouch issued imperative commands to the Tyro
to the effect that he was to wait at the pier when they got in, and see
to it that mother and child were safely forwarded to the transfer.
"Yessum," said the Tyro meekly. "Anything further?"
"I'll let you know," she returned, royally. "You may wire me when the
commission is executed. Perhaps, if you carry it through very nicely,
I'll let you come to Guenn Oaks."
"Salaam, O Empress," returned the Tyro, executing a most elaborate
Oriental bow, the concluding spiral of which almost involved him in Mrs.
Charlton Denyse's suddenly impending periphery.
Mrs. Denyse retired three haughty paces.
"I wish to speak to Miss Wayne," she announced with a manner which
implied that she did not wish and never again would wish to speak to
Miss Wayne's companion.
"With me?" asked Little Miss Grouch, bland surprise in her voice.
"Yes. I have a message."
Little Miss Grouch waited.
"A private message," continued the lady.
"Is it very private? You know Mr. Daddleskink-Smith, I believe?"
"I've seen Mr. Daddleskink-Smith," frigidly replied the lady, mistaking
the introducer's hesitation for a hyphen, "if that is what he calls
himself now."
"It isn't," said the Tyro. "You know, Mrs. Denyse, I've always held that
the permutation of names according to the taste of the inheritor, is one
of the most interesting phases of social ingenuity."
Mrs. Charlton Denyse, relict of the late Charley Dennis, turned a deep
Tyrian purple. "If you would be good enough--" she began, when the girl
broke in:--
"Is your message immediate, Mrs. Denyse?"
"It is from my cousin, Mr. Van Dam."
"To me?" cried the girl.
"No. To me. By wireless. But it concerns you."
"In that case I don't think I'm interested," said the girl, her color
rising. "You must excuse me." And she walked on.
"Then the gentlemanly spider on the hot griddle loses," murmured the
Tyro.
"I don't know whom you mean," said the girl, obstinately.
"I mean that your foot-destroying 'Never-never-never' holds good."
"Yes," she replied. "I did think I _might_ marry him once. But now," she
added pensively and unguardedly, "I know I never could."
The Tyro's heart came into his throat--except that portion of it which
looked out of his eyes.
"Why?"
A flame rose in Little Miss Grouch's cheeks, and subsided, leaving her
shaking.
"Why?" He had halted her beside the rail, and was trying to look into
her face, which was averted toward the sea, and quivering with panic of
the peril suddenly become imminent again.
Lord Guenn, approaching along the deck, furnished Little Miss Grouch an
inspiration, the final flash of hope of the hard-pressed.
"Shut your eyes," she bade her terrifying slave.
"What for?"
"Obey!"
"They're shut."
"Tight?"
"Under sealed orders."
Little Miss Grouch made a swift signal to the approaching Englishman,
and executed a silent maneuver.
"Count three," she directed breathlessly, "before you ask again or open
your eyes."
"One--two--three," said the Tyro slowly. "_Why?_"
"Hanged if I know, my dear fellow," replied Lord Guenn, upon whose trim
elegance the Tyro's discomfited vision rested.
Little Miss Grouch had vanished.