Chapter 21

“If you please, Grant,” she said, “I want my clothes.”

His words, even to himself, sounded pitifully inadequate.

“How on earth did you get here?” he demanded.

“It was rather difficult,” she admitted. “I had a lot of luck. Can I have some coffee or something? I haven’t had anything since I came on board.”

“When was that?” he asked.

“Four o’clock yesterday morning. I’m starving. I was afraid you’d hear me crying in the night.”

“Good God!” he groaned. “Come down to my room. You mustn’t let them see you like that.”

She followed him down to his own quarters. He shut the door, watched her sink into a chair, and stood over her.

“Tell me about it,” he said simply.

“After we got home,” she began, “—and they made me play roulette until two o’clock—Otto was simply brutal. I couldn’t bear it any longer, and the thought of your going. I gambled once before in life, you see. I gambled again. I gave Ottilie, my maid, all the money I had. She packed a trunk for me and addressed it to you. It came on board with a lot of other things. It must be somewhere about. That was easy enough. The difficulty was to get here myself. I borrowed a chauffeur’s overcoat, put it on over all my things and a cap that hid my face. I walked up and down the docks for an hour, until I saw a chance. Then I came down the gangway, slipped along the empty side of the deck, got down the companionway—I had to hide twice behind doors—but eventually I got to the door of the stateroom which you said you kept for any special guest, and which I knew wasn’t to be used this voyage. I crawled in, locked the door, and lay down. I hid there and waited. It must have been about four or five o’clock yesterday morning. I heard all the people come on with Stores. I heard Lord Yeovil come on board. I heard your voices as you walked up and down with him. All the time I lay there in terror. Then I heard the rush of the water and the anchor come up. I heard the engines and knew we were out at sea. Still I dared not show myself. I was afraid.”

“Afraid,” he repeated mechanically.

“I was afraid you’d send me back. I knew there was only one chance—to stay on board long enough. I hid all day, terrified lest some one should look in the stateroom. At night I felt so ill that I almost gave up, but somehow or other I dropped off to sleep. When I woke I felt faint, and I found myself crying. I went to sleep again, though. This morning, as soon as I heard your voice on deck, I crept up the stairs and here I am. I am here, Grant. You are not going to be cruel?”

He rang the bell.

“Some coffee, an omelette, quickly,” he ordered from the astonished steward. “Serve it here. Let me have the coffee at once.”

“Don’t keep me alive unless you are going to be kind to me,” she begged hysterically. “I couldn’t bear it, Grant. Tell me you are not going to land me anywhere. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I was thinking,” he answered.

“Grant, you cared for me once,” she went on. “I know I must look perfectly hateful now, but I’m not hateful. I’m really rather wonderful. I could be. Otto was killing me, and all the horrible things he made me do. Grant, say something to me. Feel my hands, how cold they are. Be kind to me.”

“My dear, who could be anything but kind to you?” he exclaimed. “But you must realise—you must know—this is a terrible thing you have done.”

He took her hands and held them in his for a minute. The steward brought in the coffee. The boy followed behind, a moment or two later, with an omelette and cold meats. Grant felt suddenly stifled. He turned towards the door.

“I’m going to leave you for a short time,” he announced. “You must drink your coffee and you must eat something. I’m going to try and find out where your things are. I will have them put in a room for you and a bath got ready. We can’t talk until you are yourself again.”

She looked at him wistfully.

“I’ll do just as you tell me. Grant,” she promised.

“Then first of all drink your coffee while it is hot,” he insisted.

He made his way on deck. For a moment he could scarcely realise that this was the same cruise, the same ship, the same deck he had walked a few moments ago. He tried to face the matter calmly. She had been on board since the night after Blunn’s party, the remainder of that early morning, and all the next night. By this time every one in Monte Carlo probably knew,—probably she knew. No one would ever believe the truth. No one could ever be told the truth. There was no explanation, no defence. She was there alone on the yacht with him. Before they could land anywhere, two nights would have passed. A sudden storm of anger seized him! Then he remembered her, as she had almost crouched in her chair, her gorgeous clothes bedraggled, her eyes searching his like the haunted eyes of a dumb animal in fear. What way was there out of it? He had faced problems before, difficult problems. How could he deal with this one?

Presently he returned to his quarters and sent for his own servant.

“Brookes,” he asked, “did you know anything about a lady being on board?”

“Nothing, sir, until a few minutes ago when I saw her coming up the companionway,” the man assured him.

“Have you heard any one else allude to it in any way?”

“No one, sir.”

“It appears that she sent a trunk here, or a package addressed to me, containing her clothes,” Grant continued after a moment’s pause. “Kindly search for it and have it taken to the Empire suite aft. Prepare a bath there and everything that is necessary. Find the lady and let her know. She will lunch with me in the saloon.”

“Very good, sir,” the man replied.

And after that! He busied himself for an hour or so in the minor affairs of the ship. The captain found him studying the chart.

“When should we make Gibraltar, Martin?” he enquired.

“Sunday morning, sir, as early as you like. I’ll guarantee the coal, though.”

Grant nodded.

“I may decide to put in,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”

Gibraltar! A hopeless place. How could he possibly leave her there amongst strangers? And yet, if not, it must be Madeira, worse still, or New York. Eight days alone with the woman with whom he had once been in love,—the memory of whose kisses had never altogether passed. It all seemed very hopeless. His own marked attentions to Gertrude during the last week or so—attentions persisted in partly to lull her suspicions and partly to keep her away from Arthur Lymane—came back to his mind. There was probably not a soul in the world who would hold him blameless for what had happened. A diabolical trick of fate!

He came down the deck a few minutes before lunch time and found Gertrude established in a long chair,—a very changed and resuscitated Gertrude. She was wearing a white serge costume; her hair—she wore no hat—shone in the warm light with the colour of cowslips in a sun-soaked meadow. She was herself again, soignée, as perfect in the small details of her toilette as though her maid had spent the morning by her side. Brookes appeared with two cocktails on a tray, just as Grant arrived. She took one readily and smiled at her distracted host.

“This is wonderful,” she murmured. “I never wanted anything so much in my life. The epoch to which my reputation belongs is finished,” she went on, a moment or two later. “You can put me off somewhere if you want to and make me appear ridiculous. I do not think that you will be so cruel as that, though.”

“No,” he admitted. “I do not think I shall. But, in the name of God, what made you do it?”

“I have tried to explain,” she answered. “Perhaps presently I may be more coherent. Am I allowed to lunch with you?”

“By all means. The bugle has just gone. Let me help you out.”

Her fingers clung to his, and she took his arm as they passed down the companionway and entered the beautiful little saloon. She looked round her almost affectionately.

“I didn’t think I should be here again so soon,” she murmured.

“Neither did I,” he answered.

“I missed most of the fun the other night,” she went on rumi-natingly. “If I had known what was going to happen, I shouldn’t have been so careful. Your little friend, Lady Susan, really won the trick, didn’t she?”

“She did,” Grant assented. “She brought that youthful navigator of mine to his senses. I think if it hadn’t been for her, your husband and Blunn would have got Funderstrom back and that invitation to America would never have been sent.”

“In which case, I suppose you would not have been on your way to America now?”

“I certainly should not,” he acknowledged.

“And you would have been spared this terrible thing which has come upon you!”

“The voyage would never have taken place,” he remarked stonily.

The service of luncheon proceeded amidst flickers of conversation of a general character, chiefly prompted by Gertrude. Afterwards they took their coffee on deck.

“To leave our unimportant selves for a moment or two,” she said sadly, yet with an effort at lightness, “What are you going to do in America?”

“I shall find work there,” he answered.

“You certainly will,” she agreed. “I believe you are going back with the right idea. If not, you can hear it from me. All that speech of Blunn’s was sheer and unadulterated bluff. Germany will do its very utmost in the States to get the Senate to refuse the invitation from the Pact. They have more power than you would imagine.”

“You have reason to believe this?” Grant asked.

“I know it,” she assured him. “They talked before me freely enough—Blunn, Lutrecht, Otto. I was only Otto’s wife, his chattel. I didn’t count. I shouldn’t be likely to dare to breathe a word of which my lord and master did not approve. Oh, they are fools, those men, the way they treat their womankind.”

“Have you any idea as to the means they intend to use?” Grant enquired.

“Propaganda, first and foremost,” she declared. “They are all prepared. Whom they cannot convince, they will buy. They reckon that the bill for assenting to the invitation will be fought inch by inch in the Senate. They will go any lengths to stop it.”

Grant’s face darkened.

“I know what that means,” he muttered. “I know what a political fight in my country means, alas!”

“I might be able to help,” she suggested a little timidly. “I have seen something of life in Berlin.”

He made her drink her coffee and afterwards lie down and rest. He himself spent a restless afternoon. The situation tormented him. A man of fixed and changeless purposes, as a rule, he found himself all the time looking at the matter from varying points of view. There were moments when his old tenderness for Gertrude seemed to some extent revived when, for the sake of bringing the happiness once more into her face, he felt a queer incoherent impulse to bid her close the gates of memory upon her past,—to assure her of his unchanged devotion. And then he shook with terror at the thought that such an idea could possibly have occurred to him. He was running a risk of ruining his own life and perhaps Susan’s for the sake of a sentimental impulse of pity. He kept to himself most of the afternoon. At dinner time the strain began again. She wore a simple but beautifully fitting black net gown, and the way her eyes sought his as though for his approval would have seemed pathetic to a harder-hearted man than Grant. She drank more champagne than usual at dinner time and regained some of her spirits. She seemed less timid, some of her constraint appeared to pass. Afterwards they sat out on deck in a sheltered place. A clear, windy night, a star-strewn sky and a moon in its last quarter. They smoked, drank coffee, and every moment conversation became more difficult. Suddenly she leaned towards him and caught at his hands.

“Grant,” she murmured, pleading, “can’t you pretend, even if you don’t feel anything any more? Don’t keep me at arms’ length like this. We’re alone. There isn’t any one in the world to interfere, and my heart is dry. Kiss me as though you cared just a little.”

Her arms were around his neck, her head falling back, her lips close to his. A sudden coldness came over him. He remembered how he had longed and fought against the desire to kiss Susan. It wasn’t fair, he had told himself. She must have her chance. She was so young. The sort of kiss he would have given her seemed somehow sacrilegious.

“Grant, kiss me.”

He obeyed coldly, and with no pretence of fervour.

“Gertrude,” he said, “it’s a horrible thing. You know I cared once. You know that once I was glad enough to kiss you.”

“Is it that girl?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

Her arms slid away from him—white, reluctant arms, beautiful in shape and texture—arms with their own peculiar expression of despair, as they fell upon her lap. The life for a moment seemed to go out of her.

“She is so young,” she murmured. “Such a child. Grant. She doesn’t understand life yet. You could leave her alone and she wouldn’t be hurt. And you—you don’t realise it, but you need more than that.”

“Gertrude,” he confessed, “I’m a fool about her. I can’t help it. She’s one of a type, I know—a very beautiful but not an unusual type. But she’s just herself. The way she looks, her voice, her laugh, her little mannerisms—they just sit in my heart, they make me feel tender and wonderful things, and there doesn’t seem to be room for anything else.”

She lay watching the lazy movements of the yacht as it rose and fell, watching the black tumult of waters, glittering, now and then, in the faint moonshine. For a time she seemed utterly inert. Then she rose suddenly to her feet.

“I have a fancy to walk. Grant,” she said. “No, don’t come, please. I would just like to walk alone. It is a fancy of mine.”

He helped her to her feet. She drew a fur wrap around her shoulders and turned hastily away. He leaned back in his chair, his eyes following her movements. She walked with rapid, unhesitating footsteps, sure-footed and graceful on the sloping deck, walked with her head a little uplifted, as though watching the rolling mast stab upward at the stars, as though she had passed into a world of her own thoughts, as though she were pursuing phantom ideas, seeking comfort in impotent essays of the imagination. The wind blew in her hair but brought no colour to her cheeks. Time after time she passed his chair without a glance, and each time it seemed to him that she was a little paler. At least he stopped her.

“You are tiring yourself, Gertrude,” he said kindly, “Take my arm if you want to walk any more.”

“You are right,” she assented. “I will go down. Good night. Grant.”

He kissed her fingers, horrified to find how cold they were. He insisted on taking her down the companionway to the door of her stateroom. She turned round there and smiled at him a little wanly. The suite consisted of a tiny sitting room as well as a bedroom and bathroom, the latter all black and white marble, and gleaming silver.

“You give me so much luxury. Grant,” she sighed. “If only you could find a little kindness in your heart for me.”

He felt suddenly brutal. He stooped and kissed her hands.

“Dear Gertrude,” he whispered, “my heart is full of kindness. So full—”

“So full. Grant?”

“So full that I don’t know how to offer it to you,” he answered. “You see I’m a clumsy brute, Gertrude, and I’ve never been able to forget the years when I thought you the most beautiful thing on earth.”

“But you don’t any longer!” she cried.

He turned away. She listened anxiously to his receding footsteps. Then she threw herself on the sofa with a little moan. Afterwards she prepared for bed, left her door on the latch, wrapped a dressing gown of wonderful, rose-coloured silk around her, lit a standard electric light, drew out a book at random, and made a pretence at reading. She waited until she heard him come down the gangway, heard him pass her door with unfaltering footsteps, on his way to his own quarters, heard him open and close the door of his own room. Then she dropped the book and turned over on her face amongst the pillows.