There was a more assured light in Major Withers' eyes when he next
came as a visitor into the prison quarters, and the heartiness of his
hand clasp was in itself a congratulation.
"The thing was carried up to the president himself," he declared.
"Washington is sick of you, Spurrier. Because of you miles of red tape
have been snarled up. Departments have worked overtime until the
single hope of the United States government is that it may never hear
of you again. You don't go to prison, after all, my boy."
"You mean I am pardoned?"
Then, remembering that the rose of his bringing carried a sharp thorn
the senior proceeded with a note of concern sobering his voice.
"The red tape has not only been tangled because of you--but it has
tangled you in its meshes, too, Spurrier. Yes, you are pardoned. You
are as free as I am--but 'in view of the gravely convincing evidence,
et cetera, et cetera'--it seems that some sort of compromise was
deemed necessary."
Spurrier stood where he had risen from his seat and his eyes held
those of his informant with a blending of inquiry and suspense.
"What sort of compromise, major?"
"You leave the army with a dishonorable discharge. The world is open
to you and you've got an equipment for success--but you might as
well recognize from the start that you're riding with a heavy
impost in your saddle clothes, my boy." He paused a moment and then,
dropping his race-track metaphor, went hurriedly on: "For myself, I
think you're guilty or innocent and you ought to be hanged or
clean-shriven. I don't get this dubious middle ground of freedom with
a tarnished name. It's going to crop up to crab things for you just
when they hang in the balance, and I'm damned if I can see its
fairness! It will cause men to look askance and to say 'he was saved
from rope-stretching only by wire-pulling.'"
The major ended somewhat savagely and Spurrier made no answer. He was
gazing out at the patch of blue that blazed hotly through the high,
barred window and, seeing there reminders of the bars sinister that
would henceforth stand between himself and the sky.
The battalion chief interrupted the long pause to suggest:
"The _Empress_ sails on Tuesday. If I were you I'd take passage on
her. I suppose you will, won't you?"
"That depends," answered the liberated man hesitantly. "I've got to
thank the senator--and, though she hasn't sent me any message, there's
a question to ask a girl."
"It's none of my business, of course, Spurrier," came the advising
voice quietly. "But the Beverlys have engaged passage on the
_Empress_. If I were you, I'd drop a formal note of gratitude and
leave the rest until you meet them aboard."
After a moment's thought the other nodded. "I'll follow that
suggestion. It may be less embarrassing for--them."
"The other fellows are going to send a sort of a hamper down to the
boat. There won't be any cards, but you'll know that a spirit of
Godspeed goes with the stirrup cup."
For an instant Spurrier looked puzzled and the major, whose note of
embarrassment had been growing until it seemed to choke him, now
spluttered and sought to bury his confusion under a forced paroxysm of
coughing.
Then impulsively he thrust out his hand and gripped that of the man of
whom just now he could remember only gallant things; soldierly
qualities and gently bred charm.
"In a fashion, Jack, you must shake hands with all of them through me.
I come as their proxy. They can't give you a blowout, you know. They
can't even come to see you off. I can say what I like now. The papers
aren't signed up yet, but afterward--well, you know! Damn it, I forget
the exact words that the Articles of War employ--about an officer who
goes out--this way."
"Don't bother, major. I get your meaning." Spurrier took the proffered
hand in both his own. "No officer can give me social recognition. I
believe the official words are that I shall be 'deemed ignominious.'
Tell the boys I understand."
On the sailing day John Spurrier, whose engagingly bold eyes had not
yet learned to evade the challenge of any glance, timed his arrival on
board almost as surreptitiously as a stowaway. It was from behind the
closed door of his own stateroom that he listened to the deck
commotion of laughter and leave-taking and heard, when the whistle had
shrieked its warning to shore-going visitors, the grind of anchor
chain on winch and windlass.
That evening he dined in an inconspicuous corner by arrangement with
the dining-saloon steward, and bolted his meal with nervous haste.
From afar, as he had stood in a companionway, he had glimpsed a
panama-hatted girl--a girl who did not see him, and who had shown only
between the shifting heads and shoulders of the crowd. He could not
have told even had he been closer whether her gloved left hand still
wore upon its third finger the ring that he had put there--before
things had happened.
He must face the issue of questioning her and being questioned, and he
hoped that he might have his first meeting with her alone--free from
the gaze of other eyes that would torture him, and perhaps mortify
her.
So when the moon had risen and the band had begun its evening concert
he slipped out on deck and took up his station alone at the stern
rail. It was not entirely dark even here, but the light was mercifully
tempered, and upon the promenaders he turned his back, remaining in a
seclusion from which, with sidewise glances, he appraised each figure
that drifted by.
Once his eyes encountered those of a tall and elderly gentleman in
uniform upon whose shoulder straps glittered the brigadier's single
star.
For an instant Spurrier forgot the sadly altered color of his status
and his hand, answering to instinct, rose in salute, while his lips
parted in a smile.
But the older man, who fortunately was alone, after an embarrassed
instant went on, pretending an absent-mindedness that ignored the
salutation. Spurrier could feel that the general was scarcely more
comfortable than himself.
Slowly, at length, he left his outlook over the phosphorescent wake
and drifted isolatedly about the decks, giving preference to the spots
where the shadows lay heaviest. But when his wandering brought him
again to the place he had abandoned at the stern, he found that it had
been preempted by another. A figure stood there alone and so quiet
that at first he hardly distinguished it as separate from the black
contour of a capstan.
But with the realization he recognized a panama hat, from under whose
brim escaped a breeze-stirred strand of dark hair, and promptly he
stepped to the rail, his rubber-soled shoes making no sound.
The girl did not hear him, nor did she, as he found himself
reflecting, feel his presence as lovers do in romances, and turn to
greet him before he announced himself. But as she stood there in the
shadow, with moonlight and starlight around her, his pulses quickened
with an insupportable commotion of mingled hope and fear.
Her beauty was that of the aristocrat. It was this patrician quality
which had first challenged his interest in her and answered to his own
inordinate pride of self-confidence.
He had liked the lightness with which her small feet trod the earth
and the prideful tilt of her exquisitely modeled chin.
After all, he had known her only a short time--and now he realized
that he did not know her well: certainly not well enough to estimate
with any surety how they would meet again, after an interval which had
tarnished the name that had come to him from two generations of
accrued distinction.
He bent forward, and, in a low voice, spoke her name, and she turned
without a start so that she stood looking into his eyes.
"I suppose you know," he began, and for once he spoke without
self-assurance, "that I didn't hunt you out sooner because I wanted to
spare you embarrassment. I knew you were sailing by this boat--and so
I took it, too."
She nodded her head, but remained silent. Her eyes met his and
lingered, but they were like curtained windows and told him nothing.
It was as if she wished to let him pitch the plane of their meeting
without interference, and he was grateful.
"I don't suppose," he began, forcing himself to speak with forthright
directness, "I need protest my innocence to you--and I don't suppose I
need confess that the stigma will stick to me--that in--some
quarters--it will mean ostracism. I wanted to meet you the first time
alone as much for your sake as my own."
"I know----" she agreed faintly, but there was no rush of confidence,
of sympathy that thought only of the black situation in which he
stood.
"I know, too," he went on with the same steadiness, "that but for your
father's efforts I should have had to spend the rest of my life in
prison. Above all, I know that your father made those efforts because
you ordained it."
"It was too horrible," she whispered with a little shudder. "It was
inconceivable."
"It still is," he reminded her. "There is a question, then, to be
asked--a question for you to answer."
The girl's hands dropped on the rail and her fingers tightened as her
eyes, deeply pained, went off across the wake. She seemed unable to
help him, unable to do more than give back monosyllabic responses to
the things he said.
"Of course, I can't assume that the promise you gave me--before all
this--still stands, unless you can ratify it. I'm the same man, yet
quite a different man."
At last she turned, and he saw that her lashes were wet with tears.
"Some day," she suggested almost pleadingly, "some day surely you will
be able to clear your name--now that you're free to give yourself to
it."
He shook his head, "That is going to be the purpose of my life," he
answered. "But God only knows----"
"When you have done that," she impetuously exclaimed, "come back to
me. I'll wait."
But Spurrier shook his head and stiffened a little, not indignantly,
but painfully, and his face grew paler than it had yet been.
"That is generous of you," he said slowly. "That is the best I had the
right to hope for--but it's not enough. It would be a false position
for you--with a mortgage of doubt on your future. I've got to face
this thing nakedly. I've got to depend only on those people who don't
need proof--who simply know that I must be innocent of--of _this_
because it would be impossible for me to be guilty of it--people," he
added, his voice rising with just a moment's betrayal of boyish
passion, "who will take the seeming facts, just as they are, and still
say, 'Damn the facts!'"
"Can I do that?" She asked the question honestly, with eyes in which
sincere tears glistened, and at last words came in freshet volume.
"Can I ignore the fact that father is in public life, where his
affairs and those of his family are public property? You know he is
talked of as presidential timber. Can I ask him to move heaven and
earth to give you back your liberty--and then have his critics say
that it was all for a member of his own family--a private use of
public power?"
"Then you want your promise back?" he demanded quietly.
Suddenly the girl carried her hands to her face, a face all the
lovelier for its distress. "I don't--know what--I want," she gasped.
Her lover stood looking down at her, and his temples grew coldly moist
where the veins stood out.
"If you don't know what you want, dear, I know one thing that you
can't do," he said. "Under these circumstances, your only chance of
happiness would lie in your wanting one thing so much that the rest
wouldn't count." He paused, and then he, too, moved aside and stood
with her, leaning on the rail while in the phosphorescent play of the
water and the broken reflections of the low-hung stars he seemed to
find a sort of anodyne.
"I said that what you offered was the most I had the right to hope
for. That was true. Your father's objections are legitimate. I owe you
both more than I can ever pay--but I won't add to that debt."
"I thought," said the girl miserably, "that I loved you--enough for
anything. The shock of all this--has made my mind swirl so that
now--I'm not sure of anything."
"Yes," he said dully, "I understand."
Yet perhaps what he understood, or thought he understood, just then
was either more or less than implied in the deferential compliance of
his voice. This girl had given her promise to an officer and a
gentleman with two generations of gallant army record behind him and a
promising future ahead. She was talking now to one who, in the words
of the Articles of War was neither an officer nor a gentleman and who
had been saved from life imprisonment only by influence of her own
importuning.
Her own distress of mind and incertitude were so palpable and pathetic
that the man had spoken with apology in his voice, because through him
she had been forced into her dilemma. Yet, until now, he had been
young enough and naive enough to believe in certain tenets of
romance--and, in romance, a woman who really loved a man would not be
weighing at such a time her father's aspirations toward the White
House. In romance, even had he been as guilty as perdition, he would
have stood in her eyes, incapable of crime. Palpably life and romance
followed variant laws and, for a bitter moment, Spurrier wished that
the senator had kept hands off, and left him to his fate.
He had heard the senator himself characterized as a man cold-bloodedly
ambitious and contemptuous of others and, having seen only the genial
side of that prominent gentleman, he had resentfully denied such
statements and made mental comment of the calumny that attaches to
celebrity.
Yet, Spurrier argued to himself, the girl was right. Quite probably if
he had a sister similarly placed, he would be seeking to show her the
need of curbing impulse with common sense.
From a steamer chair off somewhere at their backs came a low peal of
laughter, and the orchestra was busy with a fox trot. For perhaps five
minutes neither of them spoke again, but at last the girl twisted the
ring from her finger. At least her loyalty had kept it there until she
could remove it in his presence. She handed it to him and he turned it
this way and that. The moonlight teased from its setting a jet of cold
radiance.
Then Spurrier tossed it outward and watched the white arc of its
bright vanishing. He heard a muffled sob and saw the girl turn and
start toward the companionway door. Instinctively he took a step
forward following, then halted and stood where he was.
Later, Spurrier forced himself toward the smoke room where already
under cigar and cigarette smoke, poker and bridge games were in
progress, and where in little groups those men who were not playing
discussed the topics of East and West. He was following no urge of
personal fancy in entering that place, but rather obeying a resolution
he had made out there on deck. Now that he had asked his question and
had his answer there was nothing from which he could afford to hide.
He knew that he came heralded by the advance agency of gossip and that
it behooved him from the start to meet and give back glance for
glance: to declare by his bearing that he had no intention of
skulking, and no apologies to make.
Yet, having reached the entrance from the deck, he hesitated, and
while he still stood, with his back to the lighted door of the smoke
room, he reeled under a sudden impact and was thrown against the rail.
Recovering himself with an exclamation of anger, Spurrier found
himself confronting a man rising from his knees, whose awkwardness had
caused the collision.
But the stumbling person having regained his feet, stood seemingly
shaken by his fall, and after a moment, during which Spurrier eyed him
with hostile silence, exclaimed:
"Plunger Spurrier!"
"That is not my name, sir," retorted the ex-officer hotly. "And it's
not one that I care to have strangers employ."
The man drew back a step, and the light from the doorway fell across a
face a little beyond middle age; showing a broad forehead and strongly
chiseled features upon which sat an expression of directness and
force.
"My apology is, at least, as ready as was my exclamation," declared
the stranger in a pleasant voice that disarmed hostility. "The term
was not meant offensively. I saw you at Oakland one day when a race
was run, and I've heard certain qualities of yours yarned about at
mess tables in the East. I ask your pardon."
"It's granted," acceded Spurrier of necessity. "And since you've heard
of me, you doubtless know enough to make allowances for my short
temper and excuse it."
"I _have_ heard your story," admitted the other man frankly. "My name
is Snowdon. It's just possible you may have heard of me, too."
"You're not Snowdon the engineer: the Panama Canal man, the Chinese
railway builder, are you?"
"I had a hand in those enterprises," was the answer, and with a slight
bow the gentleman went his way.
The spot where the two men had stood talking was far enough aft to
look down on the space one deck lower and one degree farther astern,
where, as through a well space, showed the meaner life of the
steerage. There was a light third-class list on this voyage, and when
Spurrier moved out of the obscurity which had been thrown over him by
the life boat's shadow, he stood gazing idly down on an empty
prospect. He gazed with an interest too moodily self-centered for easy
inciting.
He himself stood now clear shown under the frosted globe of an
overhead light and, after a little, roused to a tepid curiosity, he
fancied he could make out what seemed to be a human figure that clung
to the blackest of the shadows below him.
He even fancied that in that lower darkness he caught the momentary
dull glint of metal reflecting some half light, and an impression of
furtive movement struck in upon him. But after a moment's scrutiny,
which failed to clarify the picture, he decided that his imagination
had invented the vague shape out of nothing more tangible than shadow.
If there had been a man there he seemed to have dissolved now.
So Spurrier turned away.
Had his eyes possessed a nearer kinship to those of the cat, which can
read the dark, he would have altered his course of action from that
instant forward. He would, first, have gone to the captain and
demanded permission to search the steerage for an ex-private of the
infantry company that had lately been his own; a private against whose
name on the muster roll stood the entry: "Dead or deserted."
Yet when he turned on his heel and passed from the lighted area he
unconsciously walked out of range of a revolver aimed at his
breast--thereby temporarily settling for the man who fingered the
trigger his question, "to shoot or not to shoot."
For Private Grant, a fleeing deserter, convalescent from fever and
lunacy, had been casting up the chances of his own life just then and
debating the dangers and advantages of letting Spurrier live.
Recognizing his former officer as he himself looked out of his hiding,
his first impulse had been one of panic terror and in Spurrier he had
seen a pursuer.
The finger had twitched nervously on the trigger--then while he
wavered in decision the other had calmly walked out of range. Now, if
he kept out of sight until they reached Frisco, the deserter told
himself, a larger territory would spread itself for his escape than
the confines of a steamer, and he belonged to a race that can bide its
time.