Part 64 (1/2)
This information threw Davidge into a complex dismay. Here was another of Mamise's long-kept secrets. The success of her plan meant the loss of her, or her indefinite postponement. It meant more yet. He groaned.
”Good Lord! everybody in the United States is going to France except me. Even the women are all emigrating. I think I'll just turn the s.h.i.+pyard over to the other officers of the corporation and go with you. Let Easton blow it up then, if he wants to, so long as I get into the uniform and into the fighting.”
This new commotion was ended by a shocking and unforeseen occurrence.
The State Department refused to grant Mamise a pa.s.sport, and dazed Widdicombe by letting him know confidentially that Mamise was on the red list of suspects because of her Germanized past. This was news to Widdicombe, and he went to Polly in a state of bewilderment.
Polly had never told him what Mamise had told her, but she had to let out a few of the skeletons in Mamise's closet now. Widdicombe felt compromised in his own loyalty, but Polly browbeat him into submission. She wrote to Mamise and broke the news to her as gently as she could, but the rebuff was cruel. Mamise took her sorrow to Davidge.
He was furious and proposed to ”go to the mat” with the State Department. Mamise, however, shook her head; she saw that her only hope of rehabilitation lay in a positive proof of her fidelity.
”I got my name stained in England because I didn't have the pluck to do something positive. I was irresolution personified, and I'm paying for it. But for once in my life I learned a lesson, and when I learned what Nicky planned I ran right to you with it. Now if we catch Nicky red-handed, and I turn over my own brother-in-law to justice, that ought to redeem me, oughtn't it?”
Davidge had a better idea for her protection. ”Marry me, and then they can't say anything.”
”Then they'll suspect you,” she said. ”Too many good Americans have been dragged into hot water by pro-German wives, and I'm not going to marry you till I can bring you some other dower than a spotted reputation.”
”I'd take you and be glad to get you if you were as polka-dotted as a leopardess,” said Davidge.
”Just as much obliged; but no, thank you,” said Mamise. ”Furthermore, if we were married, the news would reach Nicky Easton through Jake Nuddle, and then Nicky would lose all trust in me, and come down on us without warning.”
”This makes about the fifteenth rejection I've had,” said Davidge.
”And I'd sworn never to ask you again.”
”I promised to ask you when the time was ripe,” said Mamise.
”Don't forget. Barkis is always willin' and waitin'.”
”While we're both waiting,” Mamise went on, ”there's one thing you've got to do for me, or I'll never propose to you.”
”Granted, to the half my s.h.i.+pyard.”
”It's only a job in your s.h.i.+pyard. I can't stand this typewriter-tapping any longer. I'm going mad. I want to swing a hammer or something. You told me that women could build a whole s.h.i.+p if they wanted to, and I want to build my part of one.”
”But--”
”If you speak of my hands, I'll prove to you how strong they are.
Besides, if I were out in the yard at work, I could keep a better watch for Nicky, and I could keep you better informed as to the troubles always brewing among the workmen.”
”But--”
”I'm strong enough for it, too. I've been taking a lot of exercise recently to get in trim. If you don't believe me, feel that muscle.”
She flexed her biceps, and he took hold of it timidly in its silken sleeve. It amazed him, for it was like marble. Still, he hated to lose her from the neighborliness of the office; he hated to send her out among the workmen with their rough language and their undoubted readiness to haze her and teach her her place. But she was stubborn and he saw that her threat was in earnest when she said:
”If you don't give me a job, I'll go to some other company.”
Then he yielded and wrote her a note to the superintendent of the yard, and said:
”You can begin to-morrow.”