Part 4 (1/2)
”Then, I take it, you are the man who broke my water cask.”
”It was full of our water,” Nicholas replied in a thick voice.
”That,” said Woolfolk, ”I am not going to argue with you. I came ash.o.r.e to instruct you to let my man and my property alone.”
”Then leave our water be.”
John Woolfolk's temper, the instinctive arrogance of men living apart from the necessary submissions of communal life, in positions--however small--of supreme command, flared through his body.
”I told you,” he repeated shortly, ”that I would not discuss the question of the water. I have no intention of justifying myself to you. Remember--your hands off.”
The other said surprisingly: ”Don't get me started!” A spasm of emotion made a faint, pa.s.sing shade on his sodden countenance; his voice held almost a note of appeal.
”Whether you 'start' or not is without the slightest significance,”
Woolfolk coldly responded.
”Mind,” the man went on, ”I spoke first.”
A steady twitching commenced in a muscle at the f.l.a.n.g.e of his nose.
Woolfolk was aware of an increasing tension in the other, that gained a peculiar oppressiveness from the lack of any corresponding outward expression. His heavy, blunt hand fumbled under the maculate ap.r.o.n; his chest heaved with a sudden, tempestuous breathing. ”Don't start me,” he repeated in a voice so blurred that the words were hardly recognizable. He swallowed convulsively, his emotion mounting to an inchoate pa.s.sion, when suddenly a change was evident. He made a short, violent effort to regain his self-control, his gaze fastened on a point behind Woolfolk.
The latter turned and saw Millie Stope approaching, her countenance haggard with fear. ”What has happened?” she cried breathlessly while yet a little distance away. ”Tell me at once----”
”Nothing,” Woolfolk promptly replied, appalled by the agony in her voice. ”Nicholas and I had a small misunderstanding. A triviality,” he added, thinking of the other's hand groping beneath the ap.r.o.n.
VI
On the morning following the breaking of his water cask John Woolfolk saw the slender figure of Millie on the beach. She waved and called, her voice coming thin and clear across the water:
”Are visitors--encouraged?”
He sent Halvard in with the tender, and as they approached, dropped a gangway over the _Gar's_ side. She stepped lightly down into the c.o.c.kpit with a nave expression of surprise at the yacht's immaculate order. The sails lay precisely housed, the stays, freshly tarred, glistened in the sun, the bra.s.swork and newly varnished mahogany shone, the mathematically coiled ropes rested on a deck as spotless as wood could be sc.r.a.ped.
”Why,” she exclaimed, ”it couldn't be neater if you were two nice old ladies!”
”I warn you,” Woolfolk replied, ”Halvard will not regard that particularly as a compliment. He will a.s.sure you that the order of a proper yacht is beyond the most ambitious dream of a mere housekeeper.”
She laughed as Halvard placed a chair for her. She was, Woolfolk thought, lighter in spirit on the ketch than she had been on sh.o.r.e; there was the faintest imaginable stain on her petal-like cheeks; her eyes, like olive leaves, were almost gay. She sat with her slender knees crossed, her fine arms held with hands clasped behind her head, and clad in a crisply ironed, crude white dress, into the band of which she had thrust a spray of orange blossoms.
John Woolfolk was increasingly conscious of her peculiar charm. Millie Stope, he suddenly realized, was like the wild oranges in the neglected grove at her door. A man brought in contact with her magnetic being charged with appealing and mysterious emotions, in a setting of exotic night and black sea, would find other women, the ordinary concourse of society, insipid--like faintly sweetened water.
She was entirely at home on the ketch, sitting against the immaculate rim of deck and the sea. He resented that familiarity as an unwarranted intrusion of the world he had left. Other people, women among them, had unavoidably crossed his deck, but they had been patently alien, momentary; but Millie, with her still delight at the yacht's compact comfort, her intuitive comprehension of its various details--the lamps set in gimbals, the china racks and chart cases slung overhead--entered at once into the spirit of the craft that was John Woolfolk's sole place of being.
He was now disturbed by the ease with which she had established herself both in the yacht and in his imagination. He had thought, after so many years, to have destroyed all the bonds which ordinarily connect men with life; but now a mere curiosity had grown into a tangible interest, and the interest showed unmistakable signs of becoming sympathy.
She smiled at him from her position by the wheel; and he instinctively responded with such an unaccustomed, ready warmth that he said abruptly, seeking refuge in occupation:
”Why not reach out to sea? The conditions are perfect.”