Part 66 (1/2)

”They expect us to be a little silly, don't they? They'll think it stranger if we aren't than if we are, won't they? Even those Scandinavian sailors are human.”

And so--for the sake of the Scandinavians--she accepted his caresses.

It was such a sarcastic parody of her own code that she laughed aloud.

She was good sport enough to laugh at herself when the joke was on her.

But it was bitter laughter; and it ended on the margin of hysteria. She conquered that--for the sake of the Scandinavians. But she felt altogether forlorn, miserably cheap, fooled.

That bitterness of hers embittered Enslee. He felt that he was being made ridiculous in the sight of man and G.o.d and himself. He remembered proverbs about masters.h.i.+p, about women's love of brutality, their fondness for being overpowered.

He grew fiercely petulant, sardonic, ugly. He whined and swore and muttered. And, finally, to that mood she yielded, feeling herself degraded beneath her own contempt.

And now Persis was married and not married. Strange fires were kindled and left to smolder sullenly. Unsuspected desires were stirred to mutiny and not quelled. Latent ferocities of pa.s.sion were wakened to terrify and torment her. And only now she understood who and what it was she had married. Only now she realized what it meant to marry without love and to marry for keeps. The vision of her future was unspeakably hideous.

Her life was already a failure, her career a disaster.

Persis had always loved crowds and the excitement they make. It was only with Forbes that she had found contentment in dual solitude, in hours of quiet converse, or in mute communion. Next best to being with him was being alone, for then she had thoughts of him for company.

Now Forbes was banished from her existence by her own decree. Willie was to be her life-fellow for all her days and nights, while her youth perished loveless.

And now once more she pined for crowds. Solitude with Willie was an alkaline Death Valley without oasis. She grew frantic to be rid of him, or, at least, to mitigate him with other companions.h.i.+ps. And he who had been restlessly unhappy without her found that he could not be happy with her, because of the one mad regret that he could not make her love him as he loved her.

Mismated and incompatible in every degree, they glared at each other like sick wretches in the same hospital ward. The next evening as they sat at table in the dining-saloon it came over her that for the rest of her days she must see that unbeautiful face opposite her. She felt an impulse to scream, to run to the railing and leap overboard, to thwart that life-sentence in any possible way. But she kept her frenzy hidden in her breast and said, with all the inconsequence she could a.s.sume:

”To-morrow they'll be playing the first international polo game.”

Even Willie heard the s.h.i.+ver of longing in the tone. It meant that the honeymoon was already boring her. His heart broke, but all he said was:

”Er--yes--I believe it is to-morrow. Like to go?”

”Oh no,” she murmured. ”I was just thinking what a splendid sight it will be. Everybody will be there, I suppose.”

”Er--yes--I suppose so.”

She lighted her third cigarette since the soup, and, rising from the table, drifted to the piano clamped to the walls of the drawing-room.

Her mind was far off, and her fingers, left to themselves, stumbled through a disjointed chaos of melodies from nocturnes to tangos and back.

Willie stood it as long as he could, then his torment broke out in a cry more tragic than its words:

”For G.o.d's sake play something or quit.”

She quit.

She walked to a porthole and stared out at the dark waves shuffling past like stampeding cattle.

He apologized at once. ”I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I apologize.”

”Oh, that's all right,” she sighed, with doleful graciousness. But when he knelt by her and put his arm around her she slipped from his clasp and went out on the deck. He followed her. But neither of them spoke.