The Lamp of Fate Part 47

"But it's true! No public woman gets a fair chance."

"_You_ will--when you're my wife," he said between his teeth. "I'll see to that."

Magda glanced at him swiftly.

"Then you don't want me to--to give up dancing after we're married?"

"Certainly I don't. I shall want you to do just as you like. I've no place for the man who asks his wife to 'give up' things in order to marry him. I've no more right to ask you to give up dancing than you have to ask me to stop painting."

Magda smiled at him radiantly.

"Saint Michel, you're really rather nice," she observed impertinently.

"So few men are as sensible as that. I shall call you the 'Wise Man,' I think."

"In spite of to-day?" he queried whimsically, with a rueful glance at the debris of mast and canvas huddled on the deck.

"_Because_ of to-day," she amended softly. "It's--it's very wise to be in love, Michael."

He drew her into his arms and his lips found hers.

"I think it is," he agreed.

Another hour went by, and still there came no sign of any pa.s.sing vessel.

"Why the devil isn't there a single tug pa.s.sing up and down just when we happen to want one?" demanded Quarrington irately of the unresponsive universe. He swung round on Magda. "I suppose you're starving?" he went on, in his voice a species of savage discontent--that unreasonable fury to which masculine temperament is p.r.o.ne when confronted with an obstacle which declines to yield either to force or persuasion.

Magda laughed outright.

"I'll admit to being hungry. Aren't you? . . . It's horribly unromantic of us, Michael," she added regretfully.

Quarrington grinned.

"It is," he a.s.sented. "All the same, I believe I could consume a tin of bully beef and feel humbly grateful for it at the present moment!"

Magda had a sudden inspiration.

"Michael! Let's forage in the locker! There's almost sure to be some biscuits or chocolate there. Marraine nearly always has things like that put on board. And there may be something left from the last supply."

A brief search brought to light a half-tin of biscuits and some plain chocolate, and off these, with the addition of a bottle of soda-water, also discovered, they proceeded to make an impromptu meal. It was a somewhat thin subst.i.tute for the perfectly appointed little dinner of which they would have partaken in the ordinary course of events at the Hermitage, but when you have been a good many hours without food of any description, and spent the greater part of the time in "saving your own life at sea," as Michael put it, even biscuits and chocolate have their uses.

When the improvised feast was over, Quarrington explored the recesses of the tiny hold and unearthed a lantern, which he proceeded to light and attach to the broken mast. It burned with a flickering, uncertain light, momentarily threatening to go out altogether.

"We're not precisely well-equipped with lights," he remarked grimly.

"But at least that's a precaution--as long as it lasts! It may--or may not--save us from being run down."

Twilight deepened slowly into dark. The lights of Yarmouth sprang into being, a cl.u.s.ter of lambent orange points studding the dim coast of the Island. One by one the stars twinkled out in the dusky sky, and a waning moon, thin and frail like a worn sickle, flung a quivering ribbon of silver across the sea.

It was strangely still and quiet. Now and again the idle rudder creaked as the boat swung to the current. Once there came the long-drawn hoot of a distant siren. Beyond these fitful sounds only the gurgle of water lapping the sides of the boat broke the silence.

"We're here till morning," said Quarrington at last. "You may as well go to bed."

"To bed?"

"Well, there's a cabin, isn't there?"--smiling. "And a more or less uncomfortable bunk. Come down and see what you can make of it as an abiding-place for the night."

"And--and you? Can't we rig up anything for you?" Magda looked round her vaguely.

"I shan't sleep. I'll do sentry-go on deck"--laughing. "It wouldn't do for us both to go comfortably asleep and get run down without even having a shot at making our presence known!"

"Then I'll keep watch with you," said Magda.

"You'll do nothing of the sort. You'll go down to the cabin and sleep."

"Let me stay, Michael. I couldn't bear to think of your watching all through the night while I slept comfortably below."

"You won't sleep _comfortably_--if my estimate of the look of that bunk is correct. But you'll be out of the cold. Come, be sensible, Magda.

You're not suitably attired for a night watch. You'd be perished with cold before morning."

"Well, let us take it in turns, then," she suggested. "I'll sleep four hours and then I'll keep a look-out while you have a rest."

"No," he said quietly.

"Then we'll both watch," she a.s.serted. Through the starlit dark he could just discern her small head turned defiantly away from him.

"Has it occurred to you," he asked incisively, "what a night spent in the open might mean to you? Rheumatism is not precisely the kind of thing a dancer wants to cultivate."

"Well, I'm not going below, anyway."

She sat down firmly and Quarrington regarded her a moment in silence.

"You baby!" he said at last in an amused voice.

And the next moment she felt herself picked up as easily as though she were in very truth the baby he had called her and carried swiftly down the few steps into the cabin. The recollection of that day of her accident in the fog, when he had carried her from the wrenched and twisted car into his own house, rushed over her. Now, as then, she could feel the strength of his arms clasped about her, the masterful purpose of the man that bore her whither he wished regardless of whether she wanted to go or not.

He laid her down on the bunk and, bending over her, kept his hands on her shoulders.

"Now," he demanded, "are you going to stay there?"

A faint rebellion still stirred within her.

"Supposing I say 'no'!"--irresolutely.

"I'm not supposing anything so unlikely," he a.s.sured her. "I'm merely waiting to hear you say 'yes.'"

She recognised the utter futility of trying to pit her will against the indomitable will of the man beside her.

"Michael, you are a bully!" she protested indignantly, half angry with him.

"Then you'll stay there?" he persisted.