An Unknown Lover Part 20

"I am!"

The terse affirmative had a disturbing effect on Mr Murray's composure.

He had evidently not expected it, and had the grace to look confused.

"I say, you know, I didn't know... 'Pologise! Didn't really mean it like that!" He pondered, and pondering was struck with a brilliant inspiration. "I _say_! The couple who came on board with you yesterday! You don't mean to say--"

"I didn't mean to say," corrected Katrine calmly, "but yes! you have guessed correctly. That was my brother and his wife!"

"_Brother_!" Mr Murray whistled softly, but made no attempt to apologise a second time. Katrine diagnosed him as being little in the habit of eating humble pie.

"I _say_," he exclaimed once more, "if a girl like that gave up all that for _me_, I should be ruined for life! Bowled over! Eaten up with conceit. She's a corker! _Isn't_ she a corker, now?"

"She is generally considered to be excessively--corking!" agreed Katrine demurely, and then suddenly she laughed; a gay, light-hearted laugh.

What a change it was! To sit on this wide shining deck among a crowd of strangers, to exchange frivolities with one of the handsomest of men, also a stranger, to feel the sun beat on her neck, on her outstretched feet, to have nothing to do, and nothing to care for, but her own ease and enjoyment! She laughed, leaning her head against the back of her chair; the sun flecked her hair with gold, the clear healthy tints of her skin seemed to gain in colour in the dancing light. Mr Murray hitched his chair a degree nearer, and spoke in a lower voice:

"I say... You don't know any one on board?"

"Not yet. No."

"How would it be if--what would you say to fixing up a steamship flirtation?"

Katrine straightened herself with a jerk.

"I _beg_ your pardon! I don't quite understand--"

"Oh, it's simple enough. Always do it myself on a long voyage. Much more satisfactory and amusin' than just trustin' to luck... Spot some one you like, and agree to sit together on deck, be partners at sports, moon about,--_under_ the moon!--confide your woes, comfort and soothe, sentimentalise a bit--especially towards the end--"

Katrine threw him a glance, beneath lids haughtily dropped.

"Tha-anks. It sounds very interesting. And then--?"

"Oh, then?" Mr Murray twisted his moustache. "Then--you're there, you know, and er--you say good-bye!"

"Very interesting!" commented Katrine once more, "but I'm afraid I can't play. The idea doesn't thrill me, and besides I have a--friend coming on board at Port Said, who will naturally expect some attention."

"Rotten luck!" sighed Mr Murray, and for sixty seconds on end looked seriously downcast. "But of course," he added thoughtfully, "if it were only to Port Said--"

"Just so. It would be a pity to break the continuity of your scheme.

You have had quite a long voyage already. How is it that you have not already--" Katrine stopped short, as an expression of discomfiture flitted over the handsome face, and altered the character of her enquiry. "May I ask how _many_ others you have asked before me?"

"Not--many!" stammered Mr Murray ingenuously. His gaze wandered uneasily round the deck, and Katrine's following his, met a pair of mischievous brown eyes set in a plump girlish face. The eyes were fixed upon herself with an expression of such interest and curiosity as told its own tale, and Katrine hastily lowered her white umbrella.

Simultaneously the plump girl lowered her own, but it shook! Austin Murray, looking from one wobbling frame to the other, chewed his moustache in disgust.

"Perhaps," he explained stiffly, "I am too ambitious. One needs must love the highest... There are, of course, a dozen girls who would be only too glad--"

"Then," said Katrine hastily, "pray lose no time in securing one of the number. If you don't, they may be snapped up. Don't let me detain--"

Mr Murray leaped from his seat, bowed deeply, and walked rapidly away.

To the end of the voyage he kept sedulously out of Katrine's way.

Katrine lay contentedly in her chair luxuriating in the sun and the breeze, and lazily studying the pa.s.sers-by. As usual under the circ.u.mstances she dubbed the pa.s.sengers dull and uninteresting. Further acquaintance might reveal hidden fascinations, but for the present she failed to discover any of the types for which she looked. The fascinating gra.s.s widow playing havoc with other hearts, while keeping her own serenely untouched; the beauteous maids sailing forth to conquer new worlds, the purple-faced and choleric colonels; the flock of interesting, unattached males!--where had they all disappeared? She saw before her a company for the most part staid and middle-aged, bearing the chastened air of the outward bound; the sprinkling of youngsters were of very ordinary attractions, the flock of children, fascinating for an hour, but becoming painfully in evidence as the day wore on.

Only one figure arrested her attention, and that from a reason more painful than pleasant. He was a man approaching middle-age, with a finely-hewn face, on which consumption had deeply hewn its mark. He paced the deck wrapped in an old Inverness cape, and at intervals leaned coughing over the rail. So far as Katrine's observation went, he spoke to n.o.body, and n.o.body spoke to him. Her heart softened at his air of suffering, and she determined that if fate threw him in her way, she would open an acquaintance.

After tea the grey-haired Mrs Mannering joined her room-mate for a promenade round the deck, and treated her to staccato items of information.

"Sticky lot! Always are on these boats. Thank goodness there are very few soldiers on board. When there are, it's worse than ever. Cavalry cuts Infantry, Infantry snubs civilians. Civil servants bar trade. So you go on! Don't trouble _me_. I know too much about 'em!" She gave a quick, keen glance. "Like scandal?"

"Thank you, no! I hate it."

"Quite right, too. At your age. I don't mind telling you that it's the breath of my nostrils. No pretence about me. What I think I _say_!

Give me a good, spicy divorce..."

Katrine quickened her pace, eyelids drooped, corners of lips turned down. Never in all her twenty-six years had she listened to such a sentiment. Horror seized her at the idea of being shut up in close quarters with a woman of degraded tastes. Would it be possible to change cabins?

"Bless you, my lamb. _I_ won't sully your little mind!"

The kind, motherly voice spoke in such apt response to the inner thought, that Katrine jumped in her skin. She turned, rosy and shy, half-angry, half-ashamed, and saw a wrinkled hand held out towards her.

"There! That's agreed--I like you. Right sort of girl. Don't you worry! You might do a lot worse than have old Nance Mannering as a companion. I've lived east of Suez too long not to be able to adapt myself to my company. You'll get no contamination from me, and what's more, I'll protect you from getting it elsewhere. You have a word with me, my dear, before you take up with any of these boys, and I'll put you on your guard. Poor lot, most of them; drinking and gambling..."

"I don't think I shall 'take up' with any one, thank you. A fellow-officer of my host in India is to join the ship at Port Said, and will look after me for the rest of the voyage. He is not a very young man, but I'm told he is nice. I expect to enjoy his society. There's only one man I've seen on board who interests me at all. The one with the cape, who looks so ill."

"Vernon Keith. Artist. Rather a big wig in his way, or promised to be, a year or two since. Consumption of course,--_and_ his own folly!

Going this voyage for health, if it please you! The mad folly of doctors to allow a man in that condition to start out on such a crack-brained expedition, mewed up among hundreds of people, scattering poison wherever he goes! Sea air is all very well, but what about the smoke-room, eh? What about the bars? Temptation waiting on every hand, and no one to say him nay. The pa.s.sengers steer clear of him, and no wonder. By ten o'clock at night--"

"Perhaps," said Katrine quickly, "if people did _not_ steer clear, things might be different. _I_ shan't, if I get the chance. He is ill and weak, and I'm sure he is sad. He looked _miserable_ this morning, pacing up and down alone. Isn't it rather Pharisaical to stand aside because a man is ill, and--weak?"

The spectacled eyes twinkled humorously.

"Well, well, he'll be pleased enough, no doubt, but don't be too kind, and raise expectations which can't be fulfilled! Port Said's ahead--and the nice man!"

"And--Jim!" added Katrine softly to herself. When the dusk fell, she stood for an hour leaning over the rail, watching the phosph.o.r.escent glow on the darkened waves, sending out wistful, timorous thoughts toward that meeting which was growing momentarily nearer. "Jim!"

CHAPTER TWENTY.

During the second day at sea, chance arranged the introduction which Katrine had coveted with the consumptive artist, Vernon Keith. The breeze had freshened, and wrapped in a light cloak she was sitting on her chair in a sheltered corner, when a sudden gust lifted her scarf and magazine, and blew them along the deck. Involuntarily she groped in pursuit, and in so doing overbalanced and alighted in a heap, the chair, after the manner of its kind, doubling up, and following suit. It all happened with such startling unexpectedness, that for a moment Katrine sat panting and breathless, making no effort to rise. Flushed, bare-headed, white-robed, she made a charming picture, and more than one of the surrounding men dashed forward to her help, but before any one could reach her side, Vernon Keith had seized the chair, twisted it deftly into position, and held out a helping hand.

"I hope you are not hurt!"

"I--I really don't know," Katrine sat down, laid her head against the back of the chair, and smiled in vague, strained fashion. She stretched herself cautiously, and gradually regained composure. "No! I'm sure I am not. But it was startling..." She blushed a little beneath the watching eyes. "I--I had a book!"

"It is here," he said, and placed it on her knee. "Is there anything I can get for you? I am sure you have had a shock. Some wine?"

"Oh, no." The suggestion brought back the remembrance of Mrs Mannering's hint, and awoke a determination to take advantage of the present opportunity. "I shall be quite all right, if I talk about something else, and forget myself!"

The invitation was obvious, the diffidence of the accompanying smile delightfully naive and girl-like. Vernon Keith seated himself with obvious alacrity. Seen close at hand he looked older, more worn; there were lines about his mouth with which country-bred Katrine was unfamiliar, the irises of his eyes were faintly bloodshot. For all her inexperience she recognised that these symptoms were not the result of ill-health alone.