Part 22 (1/2)

After a while Dunham asked, ”She's never said anything to you about your rescuing Hicks?”

”Rescuing? What rescuing? They'd have had him out in another minute, any way,” said Staniford, fretfully. Then he brooded angrily upon the subject: ”But I can tell you what: considering all the circ.u.mstances, she might very well have said something. It looks obtuse, or it looks hard. She must have known that it all came about through my trying to keep him away from her.”

”Oh, yes; she knew that,” said Dunham; ”she spoke of it at the time. But I thought--”

”Oh, she did! Then I think that it would be very little if she recognized the mere fact that something had happened.”

”Why, you said you hoped she wouldn't. You said it would be embarra.s.sing. You're hard to please, Staniford.”

”I shouldn't choose to have her speak for _my_ pleasure,” Staniford returned. ”But it argues a dullness and coldness in her--”

”I don't believe she's dull; I don't believe she's cold,” said Dunham, warmly.

”What _do_ you believe she is?”

”Afraid.”

”Pshaw!” said Staniford.

The eve of their arrival at Messina, he discharged one more duty by telling Hicks that he had better come on to Trieste with them. ”Captain Jenness asked me to speak to you about it,” he said. ”He feels a little awkward, and thought I could open the matter better.”

”The captain's all right,” answered Hicks, with unruffled humility, ”but I'd rather stop at Messina. I'm going to get home as soon as I can,--strike a bee-line.”

”Look here!” said Staniford, laying his hand on his shoulder. ”How are you going to manage for money?”

”Monte di Pieta,” replied Hicks. ”I've been there before. Used to have most of my things in the care of the state when I was studying medicine in Paris. I've got a lot of rings and trinkets that'll carry me through, with what's left of my watch.”

”Are you sure?”

”Sure.”

”Because you can draw on me, if you're going to be short.”

”Thanks,” said Hicks. ”There's something I should like to ask you,” he added, after a moment. ”I see as well as you do that Miss Blood isn't the same as she was before. I want to know--I can't always be sure afterwards--whether I did or said anything out of the way in her presence.”

”You were drunk,” said Staniford, frankly, ”but beyond that you were irreproachable, as regarded Miss Blood. You were even exemplary.”

”Yes, I know,” said Hicks, with a joyless laugh. ”Sometimes it takes that turn. I don't think I could stand it if I had shown her any disrespect. She's a lady,--a perfect lady; she's the best girl I ever saw.”

”Hicks,” said Staniford, presently, ”I haven't bored you in regard to that little foible of yours. Aren't you going to try to do something about it?”

”I'm going home to get them to shut me up somewhere,” answered Hicks.

”But I doubt if anything can be done. I've studied the thing; I am a doctor,--or I would be if I were not a drunkard,--and I've diagnosed the case pretty thoroughly. For three months or four months, now, I shall be all right. After that I shall go to the bad for a few weeks; and I'll have to scramble back the best way I can. n.o.body can help me. That was the mistake this last time. I shouldn't have wanted anything at Gibraltar if I could have had my spree out at Boston. But I let them take me before it was over, and s.h.i.+p me off. I thought I'd try it. Well, it was like a burning fire every minute, all the way. I thought I should die. I tried to get something from the sailors; I tried to steal Gabriel's cooking-wine. When I got that brandy in Gibraltar I was wild.

Talk about heroism! I tell you it was superhuman, keeping that canteen corked till night! I was in hopes I could get through it,--sleep it off,--and n.o.body be any the wiser. But it wouldn't work. O Lord, Lord, Lord!”

Hicks was as common a soul as could well be. His conception of life was vulgar, and his experience of it was probably vulgar. He had a good mind enough, with abundance of that humorous brightness which may hereafter be found the most national quality of the Americans; but his ideals were pitiful, and the language of his heart was a drolling slang. Yet his doom lifted him above his low conditions, and made him tragic; his despair gave him the dignity of a mysterious expiation, and set him apart with all those who suffer beyond human help. Without deceiving himself as to the quality of the man, Staniford felt awed by the darkness of his fate.

”Can't you try somehow to stand up against it, and fight it off? You're so young yet, it can't--”