Part 50 (1/2)
Elaine not only did not linger in her stateroom in the morning late enough to receive his note from the stewardess, but, when she hastened up to the topmost deck for her early morning exercise before the more lazy should appear, she literally ran into Fenton's arms at the head of the narrow stairs.
Her surprise could hardly have been greater. She recoiled from the contact automatically, before she had time to see who it was with whom she had collided. Then a note of astonishment broke from her lips as she halted, leadenly.
”Why--Gerald!” she managed to stammer, without the slightest hint of gladness in her tone. ”Here?”
”Well, little girl!” he answered, smilingly; and, coming to her in his quiet way, he took her hands to greet her with a kiss.
A note of uncertainty forced itself to audible expression as she slightly retreated from his proffered caress and received it on her cheek.
”Well! well!” Fenton continued, ”you're certainly fit--and brown! You couldn't have had the note I sent to break the news. I tried to give you warning.”
”No,” she said, constrainedly, ”I've had no word. How did you get here--come aboard? I don't see how---- It took me so by surprise.”
”I'm sorry,” he said, his smile losing something of its brightness. ”I boarded at midnight, when the steamer touched at Fargo. When I got Sid's wholly incredible wire that you were both safe and well and coming home---- But how is the good old rascal?”
Elaine's constraint increased.
”Quite well, I believe--as far as I know.”
”Isn't he with you, here on the boat, going home?”
”Oh, yes, he's on the steamer.”
Fenton was groping, without a woman's intuitions, through the something he felt in the air.
”Don't you like him, Elaine?” he asked her, bluntly. ”What's wrong?”
”Why--nothing's wrong,” she answered, unconvincingly. ”It's just the surprise of meeting you like this.”
”I'm sorry,” he said, as he had before, his eyes now entirely smileless. ”I might have managed it better, I suppose---- Aren't you a little bit glad to see me?”
Elaine attempted a smile and a manner more cordial. ”Of course--I'm delighted! But it takes me just a minute or so to realize it's really you.”
”Never mind. Take your time,” he told her, indulgently. ”Perfect miracle, you know, that you and old Sid should have come through the wreck of the 'Inca'--the sole survivors of the accident--and lived out there--somewhere--on an island, I hear--and now be nearing home. I'm eager to hear the story.”
”Yes,” she agreed, ”it doesn't seem real to me, now. It's more like a long, strange dream.”
”I have only heard a little from the captain,” he continued, forcing a conversation which he felt was wholly unspontaneous and hardly even congenial.
”Naturally, all his information----”
She saw his eyes quickly brighten as his gaze went past her to the stairs.
”Sid!” he cried, moving swiftly forward; and Grenville appeared on the deck.
His face was suddenly reddened, beneath the veneer of tan. But the boyish joy with which he rushed for Fenton was a heartening thing to see.
The two simply gripped, with might and main, and hammered each other with one free hand apiece, and laughed, and called one another astonis.h.i.+ng names till it seemed they might explode.
”You savage! You tough old Redskin!” Fenton finally managed to articulate, distinctly. ”If it isn't yourself as big as life! And I want you to know I haven't made your fortune--not exactly--yet--but it's certain at last. And how about your winning my little girl?