The next morning they passed Gibraltar soon after noon and headed for the Straits. At one o’clock Grant, who had spent the morning on the bridge, descended and walked down the deck. The chair in Gertrude’s accustomed place was empty. Brookes came out from the little smoke room with a single cocktail upon a tray.
“Where is Madam?” Grant enquired.
“Her Highness sent word that she would remain in her rooms to-day,” Brookes answered. “She begged that you would not disturb yourself on her account. She is simply a little tired.”
Grant frowned. He was most unexpectedly disappointed.
“Who is looking after the Princess?” he asked.
“I thought of doing so myself, if you have no objection, sir,” the man replied. “If you can manage with Jackson in the saloon, sir, it would perhaps be better.”
Grant nodded and went to his solitary luncheon. It was certainly, to some extent, a relief to be spared the haunting question of her eyes, to be made to feel all the time that, in some way or another, he was unintentionally avenging himself for the great slight of his life. Yet the solitude oppressed him. He ate without his usual appetite and even forgot his whisky and soda until the meal was over. He spent the afternoon engaged upon some work. At six o’clock he sent her a little note:
My dear Gertrude, he wrote,
I am so sorry you are not well. Is there anything I can do? Shall I have the pleasure of seeing you at dinner time?
In a few minutes Brookes brought back an answer.
Dear Grant,
There is nothing the matter with me. If it is any pleasure to you, I will come to dinner.
In a sense he hated the satisfaction with which he read the few lines. He turned around and faced himself a little savagely as he realised the feeling. The wind, which had been freshening during the last few days, was now blowing almost a gale. He put on his oilskins, lit a pipe, and walked out on deck. Even he, a yachtsman from his boyhood, had to crawl along for some time, clutching at any support he could find, until he reached the railing. Linking his arm through it, he stood and looked down at the boiling cauldron of waters below. Grey clouds were rolling up all around them. White-capped waves rose one after another, as though to defy their progress. The first officer passed him on the way to the bridge.
“Heavy sea, sir, for the time of year,” he observed,
“Is it getting worse, do you think?”
The man shook his head.
“It will blow itself out by dusk, sir,” he prophesied. “It’s a pleasure to see the way she rides through it.”
Grant found his way presently on to the bridge and walked for an hour in the roar of the wind and with the spray dashing continually in his face. Towards the hour of twilight there was a faint yellow line of light westward,—the only parting in the ever-gathering clouds.
“What do you think of it. Captain?” Grant asked.
“I’m thinking she’s the grandest little weather boat I’ve ever been on,” the latter replied. “All the same, it’s as well we’re on the southern route. We might have lost a boat or two. It will be down before morning, sir.”
Grant, curiously excited by the storm, changed for dinner a little before his usual time and made his way to the tiny smoke room. Brookes was already there, mixing cocktails.
“We will have a bottle of the special Clicquot to-night,” Grant ordered.
“Her Highness is dining, I believe, sir,” the man told him. “She said that she felt much better.”
Grant nodded, furious with himself that the indifference with which he replied was only assumed. He stood in the swaying room, holding on to one of the fixed chairs, bitterly resenting the sudden access of weakness which made him half long for, half dread her coming. Then he heard an unexpected sound,—the sound of her laughter, silvery, almost gay, as she came cautiously in, holding on to the wall. He stepped forward to meet her and led her to a chair. She looked at him wonderingly.
“Whatever have you been doing. Grant?” she exclaimed. “What a colour you have! You look as though something marvellous had happened.”
He shook his head.
“Just the storm,” he answered. “It was wonderful this afternoon.”
She nodded.
“I watched it from my porthole. In a way it excited me too. I was glad you sent your little message. Grant.”
She looked at him and the fingers which held his glass shook. She was wearing a simpler dress even than the night before,—a gown of black and silver brocade, whose only fastening was a girdle around her waist. It was cut low at the throat and she was wearing no jewellery, not even her pearls, to conceal the white softness of her neck. When he looked at her arms he saw that the sleeves were wide and loose.
“I am afraid that I was a little churlish last night,” he confessed, “and I didn’t mean to be, Gertrude.”
She caught at his fingers and held them for a moment.
“You are a dear, Grant,” she said, “but you do carry the executioner’s knife with you. To-night let us forget. I think I too have the storm in my heart. Let us forget the pain that comes when one remembers—when one passes on to solitude. You shall be my agreeable companion at dinnertime, and we will imagine that afterwards—well, what shall I say?—Otto is waiting for me in the lounge, you are on your way up to solve bridge problems at Lord Yeovil’s. But, we dine together.”
“If we dine at all,” Grant laughed, as the spray suddenly beat against the porthole. “This may put the fires out.”
“The bugle has gone anyhow,” she answered.
She was forced to cling to him along the passage. He had, even, once to support her. In the saloon everything had been made fast as far as possible, and deep fiddles were upon the table. The service of the meal, however, was unimpaired. Gertrude had found her appetite. So also had Grant. Conversation became suddenly a pleasure. It was as though the whole awkwardness, the whole tragic significance of their presence alone in the middle of the Atlantic had been swept away. She began to talk of Berlin, the efforts of the aristocracy to reinstate themselves, the silent influence of Lutrecht, Blunn and his wonderful love of life and dark background of unscrupulous ambition.
Grant, who was usually so full of reserves, told her what only one or two people in the world knew,—of his visit to Berlin as a traveller in steel, told her how he had stayed at a commercial hotel and dodged the fashionable quarters of the city, of how he had seen her once in the distance, driving. He even told her what she wore. She laughed into his face, with glad eyes.
“You remember my ermines. You remember just what I wore. And yet you pretend that you don’t care.”
“I have never pretended quite so much as that,” he answered.
The wine danced in their glasses.
“Wonderful!” Gertrude declared. “No one ever has such wonderful wine as you, Grant. Or is it drinking with you that makes me think so, I wonder. When you can leave off being severe, when you can look like a human being, something like the dear Grant of only a few years ago—then you make life seem too thrilling. Oh, if only I had the power to soften your heart just a little, to awaken memories in your brain, to make your eyes soften and have you feel—well, you have felt things for me, Grant.”
“And you for me?” he ventured.
“As for no one else,” she answered; “then and, alas, now.”
He felt a sudden rebellious stirring of the pulses, and he set his teeth. She laughed at him, half provocatively, half insolently.
“Grant,” she begged, “just this one night may we have some more wine? Hearing the thunder of those seas breaking outside excites me. I had no lunch and I’m hungry and thirsty.”
Brookes hastened away. They were alone for a moment. She leaned towards him. He sat quite still. Her lips rested for a second delicately, yet tenderly, upon his, and passed away.
“The storm,” she whispered. “Put it down to that. All the strange things that one can’t see at normal times seem to be calling out inside one to-night. Grant dear, do you know you really have got better-looking during the last three years? I like the way you part your hair, and those tiny little bits of grey at the sides.”
“Are you trying to turn my head?” he replied uneasily.
“If I could, I would,” she confessed. “Why think of it? Why speak of it? I love the excitement of this great motion, the thrill of being here alone with you. We are somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, aren’t we. Grant? Oh, I wonder what Otto is thinking about?”
She leaned back and laughed, showing her perfect teeth, the faint colour once more back in her pale cheeks.
“I think I must have an evil nature,” she went on, “because I love to think of him now, tearing his hair and cursing—impotent. If there’s anything in the world really detestable, it’s a jealous man who takes no pains to keep what he has—a jealous man who thinks that what he has bought—bought at the altar—is his by divine right.”
Grant rose to his supreme effort. He braced himself and fought against the personal note which had crept into their conversation. He tried to discuss the future of the nations, but she would have none of that. He told stories, and she suffered herself to be amused. But all the time the atmosphere which she had created seemed to remain. Her eyes were continually seeking his, begging for that answering flash which bespoke a common understanding.
“Ah, Grant,” she said once, as they lingered for a moment over their last glass of wine, “how happy I am to-night. You were adorable to fetch me from my solitude. Do you know that, if you had sent me no word, I should have stayed on where I was? I think that I should have died.”
“I missed you,” he acknowledged simply.
“Dear man!” she murmured. “And yet you were trying all the time to look as though I were an intruder, as though I had committed some unforgivable sin. I suppose I have really,” she went on. “There are some who will never forgive me. An hour or two ago I thought that I should never forgive myself. The greatest shame of life seemed so near.”
He had the sudden feeling of a terrified animal. Every door of escape seemed closed, and with it all there was the hateful singing in his blood, the crude insistence of primitive passion. Susan seemed to be receding, to be watching him from afar off, a little sad,—just a dream. Again he swung himself into battle.
“A delightful dinner, and such a dinner as I never dreamed of alone with you,” he declared. “Now comes the difficult part. Can we get into the smokeroom?”
“Easily,” she scoffed.
They made their way, holding on to the tables. The yacht was plunging and rolling even more than ever.
“I ought to go on deck,” he told her, “and see how things are looking.”
“Presently,” she pleaded. “Come into the music room for a minute or two. That will leave me only a step across to my room. We can have our coffee there.”
They made their way into the little rose and white music room. Opposite, through the hooked door, was a glimpse of her own suite. The steward brought them in coffee and liqueurs. He steadied himself with difficulty. Suddenly one of the lights went out. Only the standard was left heavily shaded and obscured.
“The captain told me to say, sir,” Brookes reported, “that all was well on deck, but there has been a mishap to the batteries supplying the electric light, and we may be short for an hour or so. The electrician is already at work repairing.”
Grant nodded.
“I shall come on deck before I go to bed,” he said.
The roaring of the wind seemed louder, and the beating of the great waves over the portholes more insistent. She felt her way to the music stool.
“Now,” she announced, “I shall sing to you. You shall hear my singing above the storm, if I have enough voice left. Come near, Grant. Come where I can see you.”
Her fingers wandered over the keys, then struck a few familiar chords.
“Hackneyed,” she laughed up at him, “but so apposite. Listen, dear man of surpassing strength.”
She sang “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix,” sang with her voice sometimes drowned by the booming of the sea and wind, sometimes rising clear and insistent through the momentary silences, always with that faint note of an actual passion, which fired his blood. When she had stopped she held out her arms. He took her gently into his but he held her away.
“Don’t do this, Gertrude,” he begged.
Her head sank back. He saw a look of absolute terror in her eyes. She was like a limp burden in his arms.
“I am faint,” she whispered. “Carry me across.”
He staggered with her out of the room, across the passageway, unhooked her door, and bent over her, alarmed. Suddenly there was a shock greater than they had felt before. The light in the stateroom went out, the door slammed. He saw her eyes open, blaze up at his through the darkness. Her arms around his neck were suddenly like a vice. She clung to him madly.
“Grant,” she cried, “you have to kiss me now. This may be the end!”