"And cross?"
"A regular virago."
"And ugly, and messy and an idiot--"
"Hold on! You're double-crossing the indictment. I'm the offended
idiot," declared the Tyro, opening his eyes upon her.
She took advantage of his indiscretion.
"_Am_ I red-nosed?"
"You are. At least, you will be when you cry again."
"I'll cry straight off this minute, if you don't promise to take it all
back."
"I'll promise--the instant we touch shore."
There was a gravity in his tone that banished her mischief.
"Perhaps I don't really want you to take it back," she said wistfully.
"Ah, but with firm earth under our feet once more, and realities all
around us--"
"There's Guenn Oaks. That's on the very borders of Elfland. Don't you
think Bertie looks like a Pixie?"
"I'm not going to Guenn Oaks."
"Not if I say my very prettiest 'please'?"
From those pleading lips and eyes the Tyro turned away. Instantly there
was a piercing squeak of greeting from across the narrow strip of water.
"It's the Beatific Baby!" cried Little Miss Grouch. "How did he ever get
there? Oh! Oh!! Get him, some one!"
Near an opening at the rail of the ship some of the third-class luggage
had been left. Upon this the Pride of the Steerage had clambered and was
there perilously balancing, while he waved his hands at his departing
friends. There was a deeper-toned answering cry to Little Miss Grouch's
appeal, as the mother, leaping to the rail, ran swiftly along it,
seized and hurled her child back, and, with the effort, plunged
overboard herself.
By the time she had touched the water, the Tyro's overcoat and coat were
on the deck and his hands on the rail.
"Take that life-preserver," he said, with swift quietness to Little Miss
Grouch. "As soon as you see me get her, throw it as far beyond us as you
can. You understand? Beyond. There she is. _Damn!!_"
For Little Miss Grouch's arms had closed desperately around his
shoulders. With his wrestler's knowledge, he could have broken that hold
in a second's fraction, but that would have been to fling her against
the rail, possibly over it. He twisted until his face almost touched
hers.
"Let me go!"
In all her pampered life Miss Cecily Wayne had never before been
addressed in that tone or anything remotely resembling it, by man,
woman, or child. Her grip relaxed. She shrank back, appalled.
For perhaps a second she had checked him, and in that second the huddle
of blue had drifted almost abreast. It was an easy leap from where the
Tyro stood. One foot was on the rail, when he staggered aside from an
impact very different from the feminine assault. Mr. Henry Clay Wayne
had turned from an absorbing conversation with Mrs. Denyse in time to
see his daughter in hand-to-hand combat with a man. Observing the man
now about to precipitate himself into the sea, he formulated the theory
of an attempted robbery and escape, and acted with the promptitude which
had made him famous in Wall Street. As he was a decidedly husky one
hundred-and-seventy-pounds' worth, his arrival notably interfered with
the Tyro's projects.
Now the Tyro's naturally equable temper had been disturbed by the other
encounter, and this one loosed its bonds. Here was no softening
consideration of sex. Who the interferer was, the Tyro knew not, nor
cared. He drove an elbow straight into the midsection of the enemy,
lashed out with a heel which landed square on the most sensitive portion
of the shin, broke the relaxed hold with one effort, and charged like a
bull through the crowd now lining the rail at the stern curve,--and
stopped dead, as a general shout, part cheers, part laughter, arose. The
woman was ploughing through the water with great overhand strokes. In a
few seconds she stood on the tender's deck, while the crowd
congratulated and questioned.
"I'm a feesh," she explained, pointing to a crudely embroidered dolphin
on her sleeve, which, as Dr. Alderson explained, meant that she had
undergone the famous swimming test in her own German town of Dessau on
the Mulde.
Meantime two dukes, a ship's pilot, a negro pugilist, a goddess of grand
opera, a noted aviator, and some scores of lesser people looked on in
amazement at the third richest man in America hopping on one foot like
an inebriated and agonized crane, with his other shin clasped in his
hands, and making faces which an amateur photographer hastened to snap,
subsequently suppressing them for reasons of humanity and art.
Several people, including Mrs. Charlton Denyse with two red spots on her
cheeks besides what she had put there herself, endeavored to explain to
the Tyro just what species of high treason he had committed by his
assault, but he was in no mood for gratuitous information, and removed
himself determinedly from their vicinity. Presently Judge Enderby
appeared upon his horizon.
"His leg isn't broken," he announced.
"Whose leg?"
"That of the gentleman you so brutally assaulted. He wants to see you."
"Tell him to go to the devil."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that," soothed the legal veteran, his face twinkling.
"All right. Bring him here and I'll tell him."
"Even though he is Little Miss Grouch's father?"
"What!"
"Precisely. Now, will you go to him?"
"No."
"When you employ one of the highest-priced counsel in America," observed
the old man plaintively, "while it isn't essential that you should
receive his advice with any degree of courtesy--"
"I really beg your pardon, Judge Enderby. The fact is, my temper has
been a little ruffled--"
"Calm it down until you need it again and come with me." The judge
tucked an arm under the Tyro's, who presently found himself being
studied by a handsomely grim face, somewhat humanized by an occasional
twinge of pain. The owner of the face acknowledged Judge Enderby's
introduction and waited. The Tyro likewise acknowledged Judge Enderby's
introduction and waited. Mr. Wayne was waiting for the Tyro to
apologize. The Tyro hadn't the faintest notion of apologizing, and, had
he known that it was expected, would have been more exasperated than
before, since he considered himself the aggrieved party. Finding silence
unproductive, the magnate presently broke it.
"You were going in after that woman?"
"Yes."
"Did you know her?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"On shipboard."
"Oh! She was the one you and my daughter used to pamper, in the
steerage. Mrs. Denyse told me. So you thought you'd be a Young Hero,
eh?"
The Tyro caught Judge Enderby's eye, and, reading therein an admonition,
preserved his temper and his silence.
"Well, I rather spoiled your little game. And you pretty near ruined my
digestion with your infernal elbow."
The Tyro smiled an amiable smile.
"Did you know who I was when you kicked me?"
"No," answered the Tyro in such a tone that the elder man grinned.
"Nor care either, eh?"
"No. I'd have punched you in the eye if I'd had time."
"Don't apologize. You did your best. Now that you do know who I am--"
"I don't. Except that you're the father of Little Miss Grouch."
"Of who--um!" demanded the other, rescuing his grammar from his surprise
barely in time to save its fair repute.
The Tyro had the grace to blush. "It's just a foolish nickname," he
said.
"Particularly inappropriate, I should say. By the way, your own name
seems to be a matter of some doubt. What do you call yourself?"
"Smith."
"By what right?"
"Birthright. If it comes to rights, where is your license to practice
cross-examination?"
"Mrs. Charlton Denyse says that your real name is Daddleskink."
"Well, it won't seriously handicap her popularity with me to have her
think so."
"Mrs. Charlton Denyse says that your attentions to my daughter have been
so marked as to compromise her."
"Mrs. Charlton Denyse is a--well, she's a woman."
"Otherwise you'd punch _her_ in the eye?"
"I'd scratch all the new paint off her," said the Tyro virulently.
"My clerk had an awful time with that name of yours. He thought it was
code. What's your occupation, Mr. Smith?"
"Answering questions. Have you got many more to ask?"
"I have. Are you a haberdasher?"
"Don't answer," advised Judge Enderby, in his profoundest tones, "if it
tends to incriminate or degrade you."
"Hullo!" cried Mr. Wayne. "Where do you come in?"
"I am Mr. Smith's counsel."
"The devil you are!"
"Therefore my presence is strictly professional."
Now, Mr. Henry Clay Wayne was a tolerably shrewd judge of humankind. To
be sure, the Tyro was of a species new to him. Hence he had gone
cautiously, testing him for temper and poise. At this point he
determined upon what he would have described as "rough-neck work."
"How much will he take, Enderby?"
"For what?"
"To quit."
With admirable agility for one of his age, Judge Enderby jumped in front
of the Tyro. He had seen, underneath the rebellious side-curl which
came down across the youth's temple, a small vein swell suddenly and
purply.
"Wayne," said he over his shoulder, "you'd better apologize."
"What for?"
"To save your life. I think my client is about to drop you over the
rail, and I can't conscientiously advise him not to."
"No, I'm not," said the Tyro, with an effort. "But I want to hear that
again."
"What?" inquired Mr. Wayne.
"That--that offer of a bribe."
"No bribe at all. A straightforward business proposition."
"So that's your notion of business," said the Tyro slowly.
"Well, why not?" Bland innocence overspread the magnate's features as if
in a layer. "I ask you to name your price for quitting your pretended
claim--"
"I don't pretend any claim!"
"--to a house, which--"
"A house?"
"Certainly. On Battery Place."
"That isn't what you meant," bluntly accused the lawyer.
"Of course it isn't." There was an abrupt and complete change of voice
and expression. "My boy, I suppose you think you're in love with my
daughter."
The Tyro found this man suddenly a very likable person.
"Think!" he exclaimed.
"Well, if you think so hard enough, you are. And I suppose you want to
marry her?"
"I'd give the heart out of my body for her."
"Do you know anything about the kind of girl she is? The life she leads?
The things and people that make life for her? The sort of world she
lives in?"
"Not very much."
"I suppose not. Well, son, I make up my mind quickly about people. You
strike me as something of a man. But I'm afraid you haven't got the
backing to carry out this contract."
"We are prepared to show a reasonable income," declared Judge Enderby,
"with a juster prospect of permanence than--well, for example, than Wall
Street affords, at present."
"Possibly. Of course I could find our young friend here an ornamental
and useless position in my office--"
"No, thank you," said the Tyro.
"No. I'd supposed not. Well, Mr. Smith, to keep that amiable young lady
running at the rate of speed which she considers legal, trims fifty
thousand a year down so fine that I could put the remainder in the plate
on New Year's Sunday without a pang."
"Fifty thousand!" gasped the Tyro.
"Oh, the modern American girl is a high-priced luxury. Are you worth a
million dollars?"
"No."
"See any prospect of getting a million?"
"Not the slightest."
"Well, do you think it would be fair to a girl like Cecily, with an
upbringing which--"
"Which imbecility and snobbery have combined to make the worst
imaginable," cut in Judge Enderby.
"I don't say you're wrong. But it's what she's had. That kind of life is
no longer a luxury to her. It's a necessity."
"Twaddle!" observed the judge.
"Have it your own way," allowed the father patiently. "But there's the
situation," he added to the Tyro. "What are you going to do with it?"
The Tyro looked him between the eyes. "The best I can," said he, and
walked away.
"Now, Enderby," said the great financier, following him with his glance,
"it's up to the boy and the girl."
"You've killed him off."
"Not if I know Cecily. She's got a good deal of her mother in her. I've
always known it would be once and forever with her. And I'm afraid this
boy is the once."
"It might be worse," suggested the lawyer dryly.
"Yes. I've made inquiries. But what can a man know about things?" The
great man's regard drifted out into the gray distance of the open sea.
"Ah, if I had her mother back again!"
"The boy is fine and honorable and manful, Wayne," said the old lawyer.
"To be sure, you'll never make a Wall Street dollar-hound out of him--"
"Heaven knows I don't want to."
"But he'll play his part in the world and play it well. I've come to
think a good deal of that boy. I wish I were as sure of the girl."
"Cecily? Don't you worry about her." The father chuckled pridefully.
"She's got stuff in her. I'd trust her to start the world with as I did
with her mother."
What of Little Miss Grouch, while all these momentous happenings were in
progress? Events had piled up on her sturdy little nerves rather too
fast even for their youthful strength. The emotional turmoil of which
the Tyro was the cause, the tension of meeting her father again, and, on
top of these, the startling occurrences on the deck of the tender had
stretched her endurance a little beyond its limit, and it was with a
sense of grateful refuge that she had betaken herself to the hospitality
of Lady Guenn's cabin. What transpired between the two women is no
matter for the pen of a masculine chronicler. Suffice it to note that
Lord Guenn, surcharged with instructions to be casual, set out to find
the Tyro, and, having found him, blurted out:--
"I say, Smith, Cecily's in our cabin. If I were you I'd lose no time
getting there. It's the only one on the port side aft."
No time was lost by the Tyro. He found Cecily alone. At sight of her
face, his heart gave one painful thump, and shriveled up.
"You've been crying," he said.
"I haven't!" she denied. "And if I have, there's enough to make me cry."
"What was it?" was his sufficiently lame rejoinder.
"I imagine if you'd seen your father beaten and kicked as I saw mine--"
"I didn't know who it was."
"But if you had been shaken and cursed, yourself--"
"Cursed? Who cursed you?"
"You did."
"I!"
"You said, 'D-d-damn you, let me go!'"
"I did _not_. I simply told you to let me go."
"Well you might as well have said 'Damn you!' You meant it," whimpered
Little Miss Grouch.
"She might have been drowned," said the Tyro.
"So might you. I saved your life by not letting you go in after her. And
you haven't a spark of gratitude."
"Well," began the Tyro, astounded at this sudden turn of strategy, "I
_am_--"
"Go on and curse some more," she advised. "I suppose you'd have kicked
_me_ if I hadn't let go."
He stared at her, speechless.
"Now you've made me cu-cu-cry again. And my nose is all red. _Isn't_ my
nose all red? Say 'Yes.'"
"Yes," said the bewildered young man, obediently.
"And I'm hoarse as a crow. _Am_ I? Say it!"
"Y-y-yes," he stammered.
"And I'm homely and frowsy, and dowdy and horrid and a perfect mess. Am
I a mess? Say--"
"_No!_" The rebel in the Tyro broke bonds. "You're the loveliest and
most adorable and sweetest thing on this earth, and I love you."
"I--I think you might have said it before," said Little Miss Grouch in a
very wee voice.
"I'd no business to say it at all. But I simply couldn't go without--"
"Go?" she cried, startled. "Where?"
"Away. It doesn't matter where."
"Away from me?"
"Yes."
She faced him with leveled eyes, tearless now, and infinitely pleading.
"You couldn't do that," she said.
"I must."
"After--after last night, on deck? And--and now--what you've just said?"
"I can't help it, dear," he said miserably. "I've been talking with your
father."
"Is it--is it our money?"
"Yes."
"Are you a coward?" she flashed. "Afraid of what people would say?"
"Afraid of what you yourself would feel when you found yourself missing
the things you've been used to so long."
"What do I care for those things? It's just a sort of snobbery in you.
Oh, I'd have married you when I thought your name was Daddleskink!" she
cried, with flaming face. "And now because we're different from what you
thought, you--you--"
"You're not making it very easy for me, dear," he said piteously.
There came into her face, like an inspiration, a radiance of the
tenderest fun. She put her hands one on each of his shoulders, and with
a little soft catch in her voice, sang:--
"Lady once loved a pig.
'Honey,' said she,
'Pig, will you marry me?'--
"_You_ grunt!" she bade him.
He strove to turn his face away.
"Grunt," she besought. "Grunt, Pig; Perfect Pig! Grunt now or forever
hold your peace."
Then the clinging hands slipped forward, the soft arms closed about his
neck, and she was sobbing with her cheek pressed close to his cheek.
"I won't _let_ you go. I won't! Never, never, never!"
"But I don't know what I'm to say to your father, darling," he said, as
the grinding of the tender against the wharf brought them back to
realities.
"Leave him to me," she bade him. "I'm going to send for him and Judge
Enderby now."
The two appeared promptly.
"Dad," she said, "you remember what you said about the house on Battery
Place?"
"I think I do."
"That you'd get it for me if you had to buy off the option for a
million?"
"Correct."
"And you're still Wayne of his Word?"
"Try me."
"Give your check to Mr. Smith. Our price is just a million. Then," she
added with an entrancing blush, "you can give us the house as a wedding
present."
"So that's the bargain, is it?" queried the financier.
"No. It isn't the bargain at all," replied the Tyro, with quiet
firmness. "The option isn't for sale."
"Not at a million?"
"Certainly not at a million. It isn't worth anything like that."
"A thing's worth what you can get for it."
"For value received. Not for charity, with however glossy a
sugar-coating. If Miss Wayne--Cecily--"
"Little Miss Grouch," corrected the girl with the smile of a
particularly pleased angel.
"If Little Miss Grouch marries me, she will have to marry me on what I'm
honestly worth."
"I'm content," said Little Miss Grouch.
"So am I," said Mr. Wayne heartily. "You've come through, my boy." He
set a friendly hand on the Tyro's shoulder. "As for Remsen Van Dam," he
added, scratching his head ruefully, "I might have known that Cecily's
pick would be better than mine. Look here, children," he added briskly,
"let's get this thing over and done with away from the American papers.
Enderby, how do Americans get married in England?"
"Give me five dol--I mean five hundred dollars," responded the Judge
promptly.
"What for?"
"Advice."
[Illustration: "YOU'VE COME THROUGH, MY BOY"]
"Done," said Mr. Wayne.
"And leave it to me. Let me see." He totaled up on his fingers. "Five
and five is ten, and five is fifteen, and five hundred is five fifteen;
a very fair profit on the voyage. It'll buy a wedding present for--"
"For the House of Smith on Battery Place," said Little Miss Grouch
demurely.