Part 10 (1/2)
I looked for Jasper above that same evening, but circ.u.mstances didn't favour my quest. I found him--that is I gathered he was again ensconced behind the lifeboat with Miss Mavis; but there was a needless violence in breaking into their communion, and I put off our interview till the next day. Then I took the first opportunity, at breakfast, to make sure of it. He was in the saloon when I went in and was preparing to leave the table; but I stopped him and asked if he would give me a quarter of an hour on deck a little later--there was something particular I wanted to say to him. He said ”Oh yes, if you like”--with just a visible surprise, but I thought with plenty of a.s.surance. When I had finished my breakfast I found him smoking on the forward-deck and I immediately began: ”I'm going to say something you won't at all like; to ask you a question you'll probably denounce for impertinent.”
”I certainly shall if I find it so,” said Jasper Nettlepoint.
”Well, of course my warning has meant that I don't care if you do. I'm a good deal older than you and I'm a friend--of many years--of your mother.
There's nothing I like less than to be meddlesome, but I think these things give me a certain right--a sort of privilege. Besides which my inquiry will speak for itself.”
”Why so many d.a.m.ned preliminaries?” my young man asked through his smoke.
We looked into each other's eyes a moment. What indeed was his mother's manner--her best manner--compared with his? ”Are you prepared to be responsible?”
”To you?”
”Dear no--to the young lady herself. I'm speaking of course of Miss Mavis.”
”Ah yes, my mother tells me you have her greatly on your mind.”
”So has your mother herself--now.”
”She's so good as to say so--to oblige you.”
”She'd oblige me a great deal more by rea.s.suring me. I know perfectly of your knowing I've told her that Miss Mavis is greatly talked about.”
”Yes, but what on earth does it matter?”
”It matters as a sign.”
”A sign of what?”
”That she's in a false position.”
Jasper puffed his cigar with his eyes on the horizon, and I had, a little unexpectedly, the sense of producing a certain effect on him. ”I don't know whether it's _your_ business, what you're attempting to discuss but it really strikes me it's none of mine. What have I to do with the tattle with which a pack of old women console themselves for not being sea-sick?”
”Do you call it tattle that Miss Mavis is in love with you?”
”Drivelling.”
”Then,” I retorted, ”you're very ungrateful. The tattle of a pack of old women has this importance, that she suspects, or she knows, it exists, and that decent girls are for the most part very sensitive to that sort of thing. To be prepared not to heed it in this case she must have a reason, and the reason must be the one I've taken the liberty to call your attention to.”
”In love with me in six days, just like that?”--and he still looked away through narrowed eyelids.
”There's no accounting for tastes, and six days at sea are equivalent to sixty on land. I don't want to make you too proud. Of course if you recognise your responsibility it's all right and I've nothing to say.”
”I don't see what you mean,” he presently returned.
”Surely you ought to have thought of that by this time. She's engaged to be married, and the gentleman she's engaged to is to meet her at Liverpool. The whole s.h.i.+p knows it--though _I_ didn't tell them!--and the whole s.h.i.+p's watching her. It's impertinent if you like, just as I am myself, but we make a little world here together and we can't blink its conditions. What I ask you is whether you're prepared to allow her to give up the gentleman I've just mentioned for your sake.”
Jasper spoke in a moment as if he didn't understand. ”For my sake?”
”To marry her if she breaks with him.”