Part 31 (1/2)
”Yes. Have you finally decided what to do?”
”I shall see the British Consul, lay before him my father's papers, and ask him to advance me sufficient money to----”
”There's no need to ask him that,” interrupted Calamity. ”I could let you have whatever you wanted, even if there wasn't----”
”Still, if you don't mind, I should prefer to borrow it from the Consul,” she broke in without looking at him.
”As you please. Then I take it that you have made up your mind to go to California?”
”Yes; I will take your advice and try fruit-farming.”
”H'm,” grunted Calamity.
”You told me it was the best--in fact, the only thing I could do,” she said with a faint touch of sarcasm in her voice.
”Yes--yes, I suppose I did.”
”The profession I know best and which I love best--that of the sea--I cannot follow, being a woman. You pointed that out yourself.”
”It is self-evident!”
Calamity turned away as if to leave the bridge, hesitated on the top step of the companion-ladder, and then came back again. Seemingly he did so only to glance at the compa.s.s, but, having done this, he came up to the bridge-rail and leant over it.
”You are a strange young woman,” he said abruptly.
”Am I?”
He lapsed into silence again and Dora Fletcher, looking at him surrept.i.tiously out of the corner of her eye, marvelled exceedingly.
Once more this extraordinary man was revealing himself to her in a new light. Usually so self-confident and determined in manner and speech, he exhibited a curious hesitancy this evening that puzzled the girl. He was like a man who wished to say something yet, for some reason or other, feared to say it. This so impressed her that she grew uneasy, and, moving a little farther away from him, leant against the starboard rail and gazed fixedly across the darkening waters.
Presently the Captain straightened his back, walked to the port rail, and, after standing there a moment or two, crossed to where the girl was standing. He did not speak, and, although her back was towards him, she knew that he was very close. Involuntarily she clutched the rail tightly as if to support herself, her heart began to beat faster and her breath came in little catches. And yet, she told herself, there was no reason for this; it made her angry, angry with herself for being unreasonably agitated, and angry with him for being the cause of it. He remained standing close behind her, saying nothing, till at last she could bear it no longer.
”Won't you miss your watch below, sir?” she asked.
”That is my affair,” he answered in his old curt way, and she felt a sense of relief at the familiar tone.
He remained where he was, however, regarding her intently and with an expression that would have startled the girl had she seen it. There was every excuse for that look on the Captain's face, for she made as comely a picture as any man might wish to gaze upon, with her slim, supple figure and the great braid of red-brown hair coiled round her shapely head. Masculine as she was in her fearlessness, her strength, and her power of command, she was withal intensely feminine, possessing besides all the lure of blossoming womanhood.
All this Calamity recognised clearly enough now, if he had never done so before. He was very far from being a sentimentalist, but, as he stood so near to her, the memory of that day when she had frankly avowed her love for him came back with poignant vividness. He knew now that he had been a blind fool and a brutal fool as well. The greatest treasure that life can give had been his for the taking, and he had spurned it. But now he had awakened to a sense of what he had lost.
Such were the thoughts which pa.s.sed through Calamity's mind as he lingered irresolutely on the bridge. It was an altogether new sensation to him, this self-condemnation and timid hesitancy. For the first time in his life, perhaps, Calamity was afraid. It was, if nothing else, a chastening experience.
As for Dora Fletcher, her whole being was in a tumult of warring emotions. Instinctively she felt something of what was pa.s.sing through the Captain's mind. She could not but guess that this sudden and remarkable change in his manner was due to herself, that it meant the beginning of a new relations.h.i.+p between them--at least, so far as he was concerned. Already their relations had pa.s.sed through several different phases: first she had been a mere nonent.i.ty in his eyes; then an individual to be tolerated, a nurse later on, then a trusted and efficient officer, and finally--finally, she supposed, a memory ever growing more indistinct as the years pa.s.sed.
Just as his near presence was becoming intolerable to the girl because of the complex emotions it occasioned, he moved away and strolled towards the other end of the bridge. She wished fervently that he would go below, for while he remained near her she was in a fever of apprehension.
Presently, however, he turned again and walked slowly back to where she was standing on the lee side of the bridge.
”Miss Fletcher,” he said abruptly.
”Yes, sir,” she answered, turning and facing him.