Three Men and a Maid Part 17

"I don't see what right you have to say you can't marry me and try to load me up with golliwogs," he retorted with equal heat.

"Oh, can't you understand?"

"No, I'm dashed if I can."

She looked at him despondently.

"When I said I would marry you, you were a hero to me. You stood to me for everything that was n.o.ble and brave and wonderful. I had only to shut my eyes to conjure up the picture of you as you dived off the rail that morning. Now"-her voice trembled-"if I shut my eyes now,-I can only see a man with a hideous black face making himself the laughing stock of the s.h.i.+p. How can I marry you, haunted by that picture?"

"But, good heavens, you talk as if I made a habit of blacking up! You talk as if you expected me to come to the altar smothered in burnt cork."

"I shall always think of you as I saw you to-night."

She looked at him sadly, "There's a bit of black still on your left ear."

He tried to take her hand. But she drew it away. He fell back as if struck.

"So this is the end," he muttered.

"Yes. It's partly on your ear and partly on your cheek."

"So this is the end," he repeated.

"You had better go below and ask your steward to give you some more b.u.t.ter."

He laughed bitterly.

"Well, I might have expected it, I might have known what would happen! Eustace warned me. Eustace was right. He knows women-as I do-now. Women! What mighty ills have not been done by women? Who was't betrayed the what's-its-name? A woman! Who lost ... lost ... who lost ... who-er-and so on? A woman ... So all is over! There is nothing to be said but good-bye?"

"No."

"Good-bye, then, Miss Bennett!"

"Good-bye," said Billie sadly. "I-I'm sorry."

"Don't mention it!"

"You do understand, don't you?"

"You have made everything perfectly clear."

"I hope-I hope you won't be unhappy."

"Unhappy!" Sam produced a strangled noise from his larynx, like the cry of a shrimp in pain. "Unhappy! I'm not unhappy! Whatever gave you that idea? I'm smiling! I'm laughing! I feel I've had a merciful escape."

"It's very unkind and rude of you to say that."

"It reminds me of a moving picture I saw in New York. It was called 'Saved from the Scaffold.'"

"Oh!"

"I'm not unhappy. What have I got to be unhappy about? What on earth does any man want to get married for? I don't ... Give me my gay bachelor life! My uncle Charlie used to say 'It's better luck to get married than it is to be kicked in the head by a mule.' But he was an optimist. Good-night, Miss Bennett. And good-bye-for ever."

He turned on his heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaven the moon still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spoken bravely: the most captious critic could not but have admitted that he had made a good exit. But already his heart was aching.

As he drew near to his stateroom, he was amazed and disgusted to hear a high tenor voice raised in song proceeding from behind the closed door.

"I fee-er naw faw in shee-ining arr-mor, Though his lance be sharrrp and-er keen; But I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour Therough thy der-rooping lashes seen: I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour...."

Sam flung open the door wrathfully. That Eustace Hignett should still be alive was bad-he had pictured him hurling himself overboard and bobbing about, a pleasing sight, in the wake of the vessel; that he should be singing was an outrage. Remorse, Sam thought should have stricken Eustace Hignett dumb. Instead of which, here he was comporting himself like a blasted linnet. It was all wrong. The man could have no conscience whatever.

"Well," he said sternly, "so there you are!"

Eustace Hignett looked up brightly, even beamingly. In the brief interval which had elapsed since Sam had seen him last, an extraordinary transformation had taken place in this young man. His wan look had disappeared. His eyes were bright. His face wore that beastly self-satisfied smirk which you see in pictures advertising certain makes of fine-mesh underwear. If Eustace Hignett had been a full-page drawing in a magazine with "My dear fellow, I always wear Sigsbee's Superfine Featherweight!" printed underneath him, he could not have looked more pleased with himself.

"Hullo!" he said. "I was wondering where you had got to."

"Never mind," said Sam coldly, "where I had got to! Where did you get to, and why? You poor, miserable worm," he went on in a burst of generous indignation, "what have you to say for yourself? What do you mean by das.h.i.+ng away like that and killing my little entertainment?"

"Awfully sorry, old man. I hadn't foreseen the cigar. I was bearing up tolerably well till I began to sniff the smoke. Then everything seemed to go black-I don't mean you, of course. You were black already-and I got the feeling that I simply must get on deck and drown myself."

"Well, why didn't you?" demanded Sam, with a strong sense of injury. "I might have forgiven you then. But to come down here and find you singing...."

A soft light came into Eustace Hignett's eyes.

"I want to tell you all about that," he said, "It's the most astonis.h.i.+ng story. A miracle, you might almost call it. Makes you believe in Fate and all that sort of thing. A week ago I was on the Subway in New York...."

He broke off while Sam cursed him, the Subway, and the city of New York, in the order named.

"My dear chap, what is the matter?"

"What is the matter? Ha!"

"Something is the matter," persisted Eustace Hignett, "I can tell it by your manner. Something has happened to disturb and upset you. I know you so well that I can pierce the mask. What is it? Tell me."

"Ha, ha!"

"You surely can't still be brooding on that concert business? Why, that's all over. I take it that after my departure you made the most colossal a.s.s of yourself, but why let that worry you? These things cannot affect one permanently."

"Can't they? Let me tell you that as a result of that concert my engagement is broken off."

Eustace sprang forward with outstretched hand.

"Not really? How splendid! Accept my congratulations! This is the finest thing that could possibly have happened. These are not idle words. As one who has been engaged to the girl himself, I speak feelingly. You are well out of it, Sam."

Sam thrust aside his hand. Had it been his neck he might have clutched it eagerly, but he drew the line at shaking hands with Eustace Hignett.

"My heart is broken," he said with dignity.

"That feeling will pa.s.s, giving way to one of devout thankfulness. I know! I've been there. After all ... Wilhelmina Bennett ... what is she? A rag and a bone and a hank of hair?"