The _Lapland_ was two days out from Tilbury before Pamela appeared on
deck, followed by her maid with an armful of cushions, and the deck
steward with her rugs. She had scarcely made herself comfortable in a
sunny corner when she was aware of the approach of a large, familiar
figure. Her astonishment was entirely genuine.
"Mr. Fischer!" she exclaimed. "Why, how on earth did you catch this
steamer? I thought you were coming on the Thursday boat?"
"Some inducement to change my mind," Mr. Fischer replied, drawing a
chair up to her side.
"Meaning me?"
"I guess that's so!"
"Of course, I'm exceedingly flattered," Pamela observed, "or rather I
should be if I believed you, but I don't see how you could leave a
supper-party at Henry's and go straight to Tilbury."
"Say, how did you know I was supping at Henry's?" he inquired.
"Because I was there for luncheon myself, as you know," she answered
carelessly, "and I heard you order your table for supper."
Mr. Fischer nodded reminiscently.
"I always wind up with a little supper at Henry's, on my last night in
London," he remarked. "It left me two hours to get down to Tilbury, but
it don't take me long to start for anywhere when I once make up my
mind. That's the American of us, I suppose. Besides, I never need much
in the way of luggage. I keep clothes over on the other side and
clothes in New York, and a grip always ready packed for a journey."
"You're so typical," she murmured, smiling.
"I don't know about that," he replied. "My business makes it necessary
for me to be always on the go. Have you heard from your brother
lately?"
Pamela shook her head.
"Jimmy is the most terrible correspondent," she complained. "I don't
think I've had any mail from him for two months."
"You didn't know that he and I were sharing rooms together, then, in
the Plaza Hotel, I suppose?"
Pamela turned her head a little and gazed at her companion in genuine
surprise.
"Sharing rooms in the Plaza Hotel?" she repeated.... "You and Jimmy?"
"I guess that's so," Mr. Fischer assented. "We were doing business
together one day, and the subject cropped up somehow or other. Your
brother was thinking of making a move, and I'd just been shown these
rooms, which were a trifle on the large side for me. I made him an
offer and he jumped at it."
"I hope you're not leading James into extravagant ways," she remarked
anxiously. "I loved his little apartment in Forty-Second Street and it
was so inexpensive."
"Your brother's share of these rooms isn't anything more than he can
afford," Mr. Fischer assured her. "That I can promise you. I guess his
firm is doing well just now. If they've many more clients like me they
are."
"It is very nice of you to put business in his way," Pamela said
thoughtfully. "I wonder why you do it, Mr. Fischer?"
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Well," Pamela went on, her eyes travelling out seaward for a moment,
"you seem to be one of those sort of men, Mr. Fischer, who never do
anything without an object."
"_Some_ powers of observation," he admitted blithely.
"You have an object in being kind to Jimmy, then?"
Mr. Fischer produced a cigar case and selected a cheroot.
"Mind my smoking?"
"Not in the least. The only time I mind things is when people don't
answer my questions."
"I was only kind of hesitating," Mr. Fischer went on, leaning back once
more in his chair. "You want the truth, don't you?"
"I never think anything else is worth while."
"In the first place, then," her companion began, "your brother belongs
to what I suppose is known as the exclusive set in New York. I am a
Westerner with few friends there. Through him I have obtained
introductions to several people whom it was interesting to me, from a
business point of view, to know."
"I see," Pamela murmured. "You are at least frank, Mr. Fischer."
"I am going to be more frank still," he promised her. "Then another
reason, of course, was because I liked him, and a third, which I am not
sure wasn't the chief of all, because he was your brother."
Pamela laughed gaily.
"Is that necessary?"
"Necessary or not, it's the truth," he assured her. "I am a man of
quick impressions and lasting ones."
"But we've never met except on a steamer," Pamela reminded him.
"I know it's the fashion," Mr. Fischer said, "to turn up one's nose at
steamer acquaintances. It isn't like that with me. You see, I don't
have as much opportunity of meeting folk as some others, perhaps. The
most interesting people I've known socially I've met on steamers. I sat
at your table, side by side with you, Miss Van Teyl, for seven days a
few months ago. I guess I'll remember those seven days as long as I
live."
Pamela turned her head and looked at him. The faintly derisive smile
died away from her lips. The man was in earnest. A certain curiosity
stole into her eyes as the seconds passed. She studied his hard, strong
face, with its great jaw and prominent forehead; the mouth, a little
too full, and belying the rest of his physiognomy, yet with its own
peculiar strength. He had taken off his spectacles, and it seemed to
her that the cold, flinty light of his eyes had caught for a moment
some touch of the softer blue of the sea or the sky. Seated, he lost
some of the awkwardness of his too great and ill-carried height. It
seemed to her that he was at least a person to be reckoned with, either
in friendship or enmity.
"Are you an American born, Mr. Fischer," she asked him.
He shook his head.
"I was born at Offenbach," he told her, "near Frankfurt. My father
brought me out to America when I was eleven years old."
"You must find the present condition of things a little trying for
you," she observed.
Oscar Fischer put on his glasses again. He did not answer for several
moments.
"That opens up a subject, Miss Van Teyl," he said, "which some day I
should like to discuss with you."
"Why not now?" she invited. "I feel much more inclined for conversation
than reading."
"Tell me, then, to begin with," he asked thoughtfully, "on which side
are your sympathies?"
"I try to do my duty as an American citizen," she replied promptly,
"and that is to have no sympathies. Our dear country has set the world
an example of what neutrality should be. I think it is the duty of us
Americans to try and bring ourselves into exactly the same line of
feeling."
He changed his position a little uneasily. His attitude became less of
a sprawl. His eyes were fixed upon her face.
"I fear," he said, "that we are going to begin by a disagreement. I do
not consider that America has realised in the least the duties of a
neutral nation."
"You must explain that at once, if you please, before we go any
further," Pamela insisted.
"Is this neutrality?" Fischer demanded, his rather harsh voice almost
raucous now with a touch of real feeling. "America ships daily millions
of dollars' worth of those things that make war possible, to France, to
Italy, above all to England. She keeps them supplied with ammunition,
clothing, scientific instruments, food--a dozen things which make war
easier. To Germany she sends nothing. Is that neutrality?"
"But America is perfectly willing to deal in the same way with
Germany," Pamela pointed out. "German agents can come and place their
orders and take away whatever they want. The market is as much open to
her as to the Allies."
Fischer was sitting bolt upright in his chair now. There was a little
spot of colour in his cheeks and his eyes flashed behind his
spectacles. He struck the side of the chair. He was very angry.
"That is Jesuitical," he declared. "It is perfectly well-known that
Germany is not in a position to fetch munitions from America.
Therefore, I say that there is no neutrality in supplying one side in
the war with goods which the other is unable to procure."
"Then you place upon America the onus of Germany's naval inferiority,"
Pamela remarked drily.
"Germany's maritime inferiority does not exist," Mr. Fischer protested.
"When the moment arrives that the High Seas fleet comes out for action
the world will know the truth."
"Then hadn't it better come," Pamela suggested, "and clear the ocean
for your commerce?"
"That isn't the point," Fischer insisted. "We have wandered from the
main issue. I say that America abandons its neutrality when it helps
the Allies to continue the war."
"I don't think you will find," Pamela replied, "that international law
prevents any neutral country from supplying either combatant with
munitions. If one country can fetch the things and the other can't,
that is the misfortune of the country that can't. For one moment look
at the matter from England's point of view. She has built up a mighty
navy to keep the seas clear for exactly this purpose--to continue her
commerce from abroad. Germany instead has built up a mighty army, with
which she has overrun Europe. Germany has had the advantage from her
army. Why shouldn't England have the advantage from her navy?"
"Let me ask you the question you asked me a few minutes ago," her
companion begged. "Were you born in America--or England?"
"I was born in America," Pamela told him; "so were my parents and my
grandparents. I claim to be American to the backbone. I claim even to
treat any sympathies I might have in this affair as prejudices, and not
even to allow them a single corner in my brain."
Mr. Fischer sat quite still for several moments. He was struggling very
hard to keep his temper. In the end he succeeded.
"We will not, then, pursue the subject of America's neutrality," he
said, "because it is obvious that we disagree fundamentally. But tell
me this, now, as an American and a patriot. Which do you think would be
better for America--That Germany and Austria won this war, or the
Allies?"
"Upon that question I have not altogether made up my mind," Pamela
confessed.
"Then there is room there for a discussion," Mr. Fischer pointed out
eagerly. "I should like to put my views before you on this matter."
"And I should love to hear them," Pamela replied, "but I feel just now
as though we had talked enough politics. Do you know that I came up on
deck in a state of great agitation?"
"Submarine alarms from the stewardess?" Mr. Fischer suggested.
"I am not afraid of submarines, but I have a most profound dislike for
thieves," Pamela declared.
"You have not had anything stolen?" he asked quickly.
"I have not," Pamela replied, "but the only reason seems to be that I
have nothing worth stealing. When I got back from luncheon this
afternoon I found that my stateroom had been systematically searched."
She turned her head a little lazily and looked at her neighbour. His
expression was entirely sympathetic.
"Your jewellery?"
"Deposited with the purser."
"I congratulate you," he said.
"Nothing has been stolen," she observed, "but one hates the feeling of
insecurity, all the same. Both my steward and stewardess are old
friends. It must have been a very clever person who found his way into
my room."
"A very clever person," Mr. Fischer objected, "would have known that
you had deposited your jewels with the purser."
"If it was my jewels of which they were in search," Pamela murmured.
"By the bye, do you remember all that fuss about the disappearance of a
young soldier that morning at Henry's?"
Fischer nodded.
"I heard something about it," he confessed. "They were talking about it
at dinner-time."
"I had an idea that you might be interested," Pamela went on. "He was
rather a foolish young man. He came into the restaurant telling every
one at the top of his voice that he had made a great discovery! Even in
London, which is, I should think, the most prosaic city in the world,
there must be people who are on the lookout to pick up war secrets."
"Even in London, as you remark," Fischer assented.
"You didn't hear the end of the affair, I suppose?" she asked him.
The steward had arrived with afternoon tea. Fischer threw into the sea
the cigar which he had been smoking.
"I do not think," he said, "that the end has been reached yet."
Pamela sighed.
"Les oreilles ennemies!" she quoted. "I suppose one has to be careful
everywhere."