A QUESTION FROM KEATS
Breitmann and the admiral usually worked from ten till luncheon, unless
it was too stormy; and then the admiral took the day off. The business
under hand was of no great moment; it was rather an outlet for the
admiral's energy, and gave him something to look forward to as each day
came round. Many a morning he longed for the quarter-deck of his old
battle-ship; the trig crew and marines lined up for inspection; the
revelries of the foreign ports; the great manoeuvres; the target
practice. Never would his old heart swell again under the full-dress
uniform nor his eyes sparkle under the plume of his rank. He was
retired on half-pay. Only a few close friends knew how his half-pay
was invested. There remained perhaps ten of the old war-crew, and
among them every Christmas the admiral's half-pay was divided. This
and his daughter were the two unalloyed joys of his life.
Since his country had no further use for him, and as it was as
necessary as air to his lungs that he tread the deck of a ship, he had
purchased the _Laura_; and, when he was not stirring up the bones of
dead pirates, he was at Cowes or at Brest or at Keil or on the Hudson,
wherever the big fellows indulged in mimic warfare.
"That will be all this morning, Mr. Breitmann," he said, rising and
looking out of the port-hole.
"Very well, sir. I believe that by the time we make Corsica we shall
have the book ready for the printers. It is very interesting."
"Much obliged. You have been a good aid. As you know, I am writing
this rubbish only because it is play and passable mental exercise."
"I do not agree with you there," returned the secretary, with his
pleasant smile. "The book will be really a treasure of itself. It is
far more interesting than any romance."
The admiral shook his head dubiously.
"No, no," Breitmann averred. "There is no flattery in what I say.
Flattery was not in our agreement. And," with a slight lift of the
jaw, "I never say what I do not honestly mean. It will be a good book,
and I am proud to have had a hand, however light, in the making."
The admiral chuckled. "That is the kind of flattery no man may shut
his ears to. It has been a great pleasure to me; it has kept me
out-of-doors, in the open, where I belong. Come in, Laura, come in."
The girl stood framed in the low doorway, a charming picture to the old
man and a lovely one to the secretary. She balanced herself with a
hand on each side of the jam.
"Father, how can you work when the sun is so beautiful outside? Good
morning, Mr. Breitmann," cordially.
"Good morning."
"Work is over, Laura. Come in." The admiral reached forth an arm and
caught her, drawing her gently in and finally to his breast.
Breitmann would have given an eye for that right. The picture set his
nerves twitching.
"I am not in the way?"
"Not at all," answered the secretary. "I was just leaving." And with
good foresight he passed out.
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," murmured the admiral.
"Fudge!" and she laughed.
"We are having a fine voyage."
"Splendid! Why is it that I am always happy?"
"It is because you do not depend upon others for it, my dear. I am
happy, too. I am as happy as a boy with his first boat. But never has
a ship gone slower than this one of mine. I am simply crazy to drop
anchor in the Gulf of Ajaccio. I find it on the tip of my tongue,
every night at dinner, to tell the others where we are bound."
"Why not? Where's the harm now?"
"I don't know, but something keeps it back. Laura," looking into her
eyes, "did we ever cruise with brighter men on board?"
"What is it you wish to know, father?" merrily. "You dear old sailor,
don't you understand that these men are different? They are men who
accomplish things; they haven't time to bother about young women."
"You don't say!" pinching the ear nearest.
"This is the seventh day out, and not one of them has ceased to be
interesting yet."
"Would they cease to be interesting if they proposed?" quizzing.
These two had no unshared secrets. They were sure of each other. He
knew that when this child of his divided her affection with another
man, that man would be deserving.
"I would rather have them all as they are. They make fine comrades."
He sighed thankfully. "Arthur seems to be out of the race."
"Rather say I am!" with laughter. "Why, a child could read Arthur
Cathewe's face when he looks at her. Isn't she simply beautiful?"
"Very. But there are types and types."
"Am I really pretty?" Sometimes she grew shy under her father's open
admiration. She was afraid it was his love rather than his judgment
that made her beautiful in his eyes.
"My child, there's more than one man who will agree with me when I say
that there is no one to compare with you. You are the living quotation
from Keats."
"I shall kiss you for that." And straightway she did.
"What do you think of Mr. Breitmann?" soberly.
"He is charming sometimes; but he has a little too much reserve.
Doubtless he sees his position too keenly. He should not."
"Do you like him?"
"Yes," frankly.
"So do I; and yet there are moments when I do not." The admiral filled
his pipe carefully.
"But your reason?" surprised.
"That's just the trouble. I haven't any tangible reason. The doubt
exists, and I can't explain it. The sea often looks smooth and mild,
and the sky is cloudless; yet an old sailor will suddenly grow
suspicious; he will see a storm, a heavy blow. And why, he couldn't
say for the life of him. Flanagan will tell you."
The girl grew studious and grave. Had there not been an echo of this
doubt in her own mind? Immediately she smiled.
"We are talking nonsense and wasting the sunshine."
"How about Fitzgerald?"
"Oh, he's the most sensible of them all. He proposed to me the first
night out."
"What?" The admiral dropped his pipe.
"Not so loud!" she warned. And then the clear music of her laughter
penetrated beyond the cabin; and Fitzgerald, wandering about without
purpose, heard it and paused.
"You minx!" growled the admiral; "to scare your old father like that!"
"Dearest, weren't you fishing to be scared?"
"Let's get out into the sunshine. I never could get the best of you.
But you really don't mean--"
"I really do not. He's too busy telling me the plot of this novel he
is going to write to make love to a girl who doesn't want more than one
man in the family, and that's her foolish old father."
And they went outside, arm in arm, laughing together like the good
comrades they were. M. Ferraud joined them.
"I wish," said he, "that I was a poet."
"What would you do?" she asked.
"I should write a sonnet to your eyebrows this morning, is it not?"
"Mercy, no! That kind of poetry has long been _passé_."
"_Helas_!" mournfully.
It was a beautiful morning, a sharp blue sky and a sea of running
silver; warm, too, for they were bearing away into the southern seas
now. Every one had sea-legs by this time, and the larder dwindled in a
respectable manner.
Fitzgerald viewed his case dispassionately. But what to do? A
thousand times he had argued out the question, with a single result,
that he was a fool for his pains. He became possessed with sudden
inexplicable longings for land. He could not get away from this yacht;
on land there would have been a hundred straight lines to the woods and
the fisherman's philosophy. Things were going directly to one end, and
presently he would have no more power to stem the words. At least one
thing was certain, the admiral could not drop him overboard.
"The villain?"
He was moved suddenly out of his dream, for the object of it stood
smiling at his side. A wisp of hair was blowing across her eyes and
she was endeavoring to adjust it under her cap.
"The villain?" making a fine effort to remarshal his thoughts.
"Yes. We were talking about him last night. Where did you leave him?"
"He was still pursuing, I believe."
"Why don't you make him a real villain, a man who never kills any one,
but who makes every one unhappy?"
"But that's a problem-villain; what we must have is a romance-villain,
the kind every one is sorry for. Look at that old Portuguese
man-o'-war," pointing to the crest of a near-by wave. "Funny little
codger!"
"When do you expect to begin the story on paper?"
"When I have _all_ the material," not afraid of her eyes at that moment.
She propped her elbows on the rail. It was a seductive pose, and came
very near being the young man's undoing.
"Does it seem impossible to you," she said, "that in these prosaic
times we are treasure hunting? Must we not wake up and find it a
dream?"
"Most dreams are perishable, but in this case we have the dream tightly
bound. But what are we going to do with all this money when we find
it?"
"Divide it or start a soldiers' home. I've never thought of it as
money."
"Heaven knows, I have!"
"Why?"
"Do you really wish to know?" in a voice new to her ear. "Do you wish
to know why I want money, lots and lots of it?"
She dropped her arms and turned. The tone agitated and alarmed her
strangely. "Why, yes. With plenty of money you could devote all your
time to writing; and I am sure you could write splendid stories."
"That was not my exact thought," he replied, resolutely pulling himself
together. "But it will serve." By George! he thought, that was close
enough.
She did not ask him what his exact thought was, but she suspected it.
There was a little shock of pleasure and disappointment; the one rising
from the fact that he had stopped where he did and the other that he
had not gone on. And she grew angry over this second expression. She
liked him; she had never met a young man whom she liked more. But
liking is never loving, and her heart was as free and unburdened as the
wind. As once remarked, many of the men with whom she had come into
contact had been bred in idleness, and her interest in them had never
gone above friendly tolerance. Her admiration was for men, young or
old, who cut their way roughly through the world's great obstacles, who
achieved things in pioneering, in history, in science; and she admired
them because they were rather difficult to draw out, being more
familiar with startling journeys, wildernesses, strange peoples, than
with the gilded metaphors of the drawing-room.
And here were three of them to meet daily, to study and to ponder over.
And types as far apart as the three points of a triangle; the man at
her side, young, witty, agreeable; Cathewe, grave, kindly, and
sometimes rather saturnine; Breitmann, proud and reserved; and each of
them having rung true in some great crisis. If ever she loved a
man . . . The thought remained unfinished and she glanced up and met
Fitzgerald's eyes. They were sad, with the line of a frown above them.
How was she to keep him under hand, and still erect an impassable
barrier! It was the first time she had given the matter serious
thought. The joy of the sea underfoot, the tang of the rushing air,
the journey's end, these had occupied her volatile young mind. But now!
"I am dull," said he gloomily.
"Thank you!"
"I mean that I am stupid, doubly stupid," he corrected.
"Cricket will be a cure for that."
"I doubt it," approaching dangerous ground once more.
"Let's go and talk to Captain Flanagan, then."
"There!" with sudden spirit, "the very thing I've been wanting!"'
It was of no importance that they both knew this to be a prevarication
about which St. Peter would not trouble his hoary head nor take the
pains to indite in his great book of demerits.
But all through that bright day the girl thought, and there were times
when the others had to speak to her twice; not at all a reassuring sign.