Part 12 (1/2)

She looked up at the sky, which had a brightness, though the light of the sun had left it and that of the stars hadn't begun. ”It _is_ a lovely evening.”

”Oh yes, with this we shall do.”

She stood some moments more, while the growing dusk effaced the line of the land more rapidly than our progress made it distinct. She said nothing more, she only looked in front of her; but her very quietness prompted me to something suggestive of sympathy and service. It was difficult indeed to strike the right note--some things seemed too wide of the mark and others too importunate. At last, unexpectedly, she appeared to give me my chance. Irrelevantly, abruptly she broke out: ”Didn't you tell me you knew Mr. Porterfield?”

”Dear me, yes--I used to see him. I've often wanted to speak to you of him.”

She turned her face on me and in the deepened evening I imagined her more pale. ”What good would that do?”

”Why it would be a pleasure,” I replied rather foolishly.

”Do you mean for you?”

”Well, yes--call it that,” I smiled.

”Did you know him so well?”

My smile became a laugh and I lost a little my confidence. ”You're not easy to make speeches to.”

”I hate speeches!” The words came from her lips with a force that surprised me; they were loud and hard. But before I had time to wonder she went on a little differently. ”Shall you know him when you see him?”

”Perfectly, I think.” Her manner was so strange that I had to notice it in some way, and I judged the best way was jocularly; so I added: ”Shan't you?”

”Oh perhaps you'll point him out!” And she walked quickly away. As I looked after her there came to me a perverse, rather a provoking consciousness of having during the previous days, and especially in speaking to Jasper Nettlepoint, interfered with her situation in some degree to her loss. There was an odd pang for me in seeing her move about alone; I felt somehow responsible for it and asked myself why I couldn't have kept my hands off. I had seen Jasper in the smoking-room more than once that day, as I pa.s.sed it, and half an hour before this had observed, through the open door, that he was there. He had been with her so much that without him she now struck one as bereaved and forsaken.

This was really better, no doubt, but superficially it moved--and I admit with the last inconsequence--one's pity. Mrs. Peck would doubtless have a.s.sured me that their separation was gammon: they didn't show together on deck and in the saloon, but they made it up elsewhere. The secret places on s.h.i.+pboard are not numerous; Mrs. Peck's ”elsewhere” would have been vague, and I know not what licence her imagination took. It was distinct that Jasper had fallen off, but of course what had pa.s.sed between them on this score wasn't so and could never be. Later on, through his mother, I had _his_ version of that, but I may remark that I gave it no credit.

Poor Mrs. Nettlepoint, on the other hand, was of course to give it all. I was almost capable, after the girl had left me, of going to my young man and saying: ”After all, do return to her a little, just till we get in!

It won't make any difference after we land.” And I don't think it was the fear he would tell me I was an idiot that prevented me. At any rate the next time I pa.s.sed the door of the smoking-room I saw he had left it.

I paid my usual visit to Mrs. Nettlepoint that night, but I troubled her no further about Miss Mavis. She had made up her mind that everything was smooth and settled now, and it seemed to me I had worried her, and that she had worried herself, in sufficiency. I left her to enjoy the deepening foretaste of arrival, which had taken possession of her mind.

Before turning in I went above and found more pa.s.sengers on deck than I had ever seen so late. Jasper moved about among them alone, but I forbore to join him. The coast of Ireland had disappeared, but the night and the sea were perfect. On the way to my cabin, when I came down, I met the stewardess in one of the pa.s.sages, and the idea entered my head to say to her: ”Do you happen to know where Miss Mavis is?”

”Why she's in her room, sir, at this hour.”