The next day he found Cassie in a more cheerful humour and excited
about the dance. The house was all upset and she was busy with a
dozen of her girl friends in decorating the hall and drawing-room,
taking up the carpets, arranging for the supper and the
cloakrooms, and immersed generally in the thousand and one tasks
that fall on a hostess-to-be. Frank put himself at her orders and
spent the better part of the afternoon in running errands and
tacking up flags and branches; and after an hilarious tea, in the
midst of all the litter and confusion, he went back to the ship
somewhat after five o'clock. As he was pulled out in a shore boat
he was surprised to pass a couple of coal lighters coming from the
Minnehaha, and to see her winches busily hoisting in stores from a
large launch alongside. He ran up the ladder, and seeing the
captain asked him what was up.
"Sailing orders, Chief," said Captain Landry, enjoying his
amazement. "We'll be off the ground in half an hour, eastward
bound!" "But I wasn't told anything," cried Frank. "I never got
any orders."
"The little lady said you wasn't to be disturbed," said the
captain, "and she took it on herself to order your staff to go
ahead. I guess you'll find a pretty good head of steam already!"
Frank ran to the side and called back his boat, giving the man
five shillings to take a note at once to Cassie. He had no time
for more than a few lines, but he could not go to sea without at
least one word of farewell. They were cutting the anchor and were
already under steerage way when Cassie came off herself in a
launch and passed up a letter directed to the chief engineer. It
reached him in the engine-room, where he, not knowing that she was
but a few feet distant, was spared the sight of her pale and
despairing face.
The letter itself was almost incoherent. She knew, she said, whom
she had to thank for his departure. That vixen, that hussy, that
stuck-up minx, who treated him like a dog and yet grudged him to
another, who, God help her, loved him too well for her own good--
it was her ladyship she had to thank for spoiling everything and
carrying him away. Was he not man enough to assert himself and
leave a ship where he was put upon so awful? Let him ask her
mightiness in two words, yes or no; and then when he had come down
from the clouds and had learned the truth, poor silly fool--then
let him come back to his Cassie, who loved him so dear, and who
(if she did say it herself) had a heart worth fifty of his
mistress and didn't need no powder to set off her complexion. It
ended with a piteous appeal to his compassion and besought him to
write to her from the nearest port.
Frank sighed as he read it. Everything in the world seemed wrong
and at cross-purposes. Those who had one thing invariably longed
for something else, and there was no content or happiness or
satisfaction anywhere. The better off were the acquiescent, who
took the good and the bad with the same composure and found their
only pleasure in their work. Best off of all were the dead whose
sufferings were over. But after all it was sweet to be loved, even
if one did not love back, and Frank was very tender with the
little letter and put it carefully in his pocket-book. Yes, it was
sweet to be loved. He said this over and over to himself, and
wondered whether Florence felt the same to him as he did to
Cassie. It seemed to explain so much. It seemed the key to her
strange regard for him. He asked himself whether it could be true
that she had wilfully ordered the ship to sea in order to prevent
him going to the dance. The thought stirred him inexpressibly.
What other explanation was there if this was not the one? And she
had deserted the count, who was away in London on a day's
business; deserted the Paquita at anchor in the roads! He was
frightened at his own exultation. Suppose he were wrong in this
surmise! Suppose it were just another of her unaccountable
caprices!
They ran down Channel at full speed and at night were abreast of
the Scilly lights, driving towards the Bay of Biscay in the teeth
of an Equinoctial gale. At the behest of one girl eighty men had
to endure the discomfort of a storm at sea, and a great steel
ship, straining and quivering, was flung into the perilous night.
It seemed a misuse of power that, at a woman's whim, so many lives
and so noble and costly a fabric could be risked--and risked for
nothing. From the captain on the bridge, dripping in his oil-
skins, to the coal-passers and firemen below who fed the mighty
furnaces, to the cooks in the galley, the engineers, the
electrician on duty, the lookout man in the bow clinging to the
life-line when the Minnehaha buried her nose out of sight--all
these perforce had to endure and suffer at Florence's bidding
without question or revolt.
Frank's elation passed and left him in a bitter humour towards
her. It was not right, he said to himself, not right at all. She
ought to show a little consideration for the men who had served
her so well and faithfully. Besides, it was unworthy of her to
betray such pettiness and spoil Cassie's dance. He felt for the
girl's humiliation, and, though not in love with her, he was
conscious of a sentiment that hated to see her hurt. He would not
accept Florence's invitation to dine in the saloon, sending word
that he had a headache and begged to be excused; and after dinner,
when she sought him out on deck and tried to make herself very
sweet to him, he was purposely reserved and distant, and look the
first opportunity to move away. He was angry, disheartened, and
resentful, all in one.
Towards eleven o'clock at night as Frank was in the engine-room,
moodily turning over these reflections in his mind and listening
to the race of the screws as again and again they were lifted out
of the water and strained the shafts and engines to the utmost, he
was surprised to see Florence herself descending the steel ladder
into that close atmosphere of oil and steam. He ran to help her
down, and taking her arm led her to one side, where they might be
out of the way. Here, in the glare of the lanterns, he looked down
into her face and thought again how beautiful she was. Her cheek
was wet with spray, and her hair was tangled and glistening
beneath her little yachting cap. She seemed to exhale a breath of
the storm above and bring down with her something of the gale
itself. She held fast to Frank as the ship laboured and plunged,
smiling as their eyes met.
"You are the last person I expected down here," said Frank.
"I was beginning to get afraid," she returned. "It's blowing
terribly, Frank--and I thought, if anything happened, I'd like to
be with you!"
"Oh, we are all right!" said Frank, his professional spirit
aroused. "With twin screws, twin engines, and plenty of sea-room--
why, let it blow."
His confidence reassured her. He never appeared to her so strong,
so self-reliant and calm as at that moment of her incipient fear.
Amongst his engines Frank always wore a masterful air, for he had
that instinct for machinery peculiarly American, and was competent
almost to the point of genius.
"Besides, I wanted to ask you a question," said Florence. "I had
to ask it. I couldn't sleep without asking it, Frank."
"I would have come, if you had sent for me," he said.
"I couldn't wait for that," she returned. "I knew it might be hard
for you to leave--or impossible."
"What is it, Florence?" he asked. The name slipped out in spite of
him.
She looked at him strangely, her lustrous eyes wide open and
bright with her unsaid thoughts.
"Are you very fond of her, Frank?" she asked.
"Her? Who?" he exclaimed. "You don't mean Cassie Derwent?"
"Yes," she said.
"Of course I'm fond of her," he said.
"More than you are of me, Frank?" she persisted.
"Oh, it isn't the same sort of thing, Florence," he said. "I never
even thought of comparing you and her together. Surely you know
that? Surely you understand that?"
"You used to--to love me once, Frank," she said, with a stifled
sob. "Has she made it any less? Has she robbed me, Frank? Have I
lost you without knowing it?"
"No," he said, "no, a thousand times, no!"
"Tell me that you love me, Frank," she burst out. "Tell me, tell
me!" Then, as he did not answer, she went on passionately: "That's
why I went to sea, Frank. I was mad with jealousy. I couldn't give
you up to her. I couldn't let her have you!"
She pressed closer against him, and tiptoeing so as to raise her
mouth to his ear, she whispered: "I always liked you better than
anybody else in the world, Frank. I love you! I love you!"
For the moment he could not realise his own good fortune. He could
do nothing but look into her eyes. It was her reproach for years
afterwards that she had to kiss him first.
"I suppose it had to come, Frank," she said. "I fought all I
could, but it didn't seem any use!"
"It was inevitable," he returned solemnly. "God made you for me,
and me for you!"
"Amen," she said, and in an ecstasy of abandonment whispered
again: "I love you, Frank. I love you!"