Dan Merrithew Part 22

"I thank you. . . . Do you remember that night at the dinner when I told you that if our friendship was to continue it was to be one of limitations? How long ago that seems now--and how absurd!"

"Does it seem absurd?"

"Doesn't it?" She laughed. "It seems to me you were inclined to regard it so that night."

"Much to your indignation."

"Is it so? If you had asked me, I might have admitted that the fact I ever could be indignant with you was the princ.i.p.al reason why that night of the dinner seemed so long ago." She hastened to qualify.

"For, you see, I count you now among my very closest friends."

"That is saying a great deal," smiled Dan. "When we get ash.o.r.e and you are comfortably installed as queen of your father's drawing-room and Dan Merrithew is--"

An exclamation from the girl interrupted him.

"Dan Merrithew, don't you dare!"

"And Dan Merrithew is just a--" She had risen, and before he could complete the sentence her hands were pressed tightly over his mouth.

"Will you be good?" she cried. She released her hands and regarded him with mock severity.

"But--" laughed Dan.

Again the hands flew to his face.

"Will you?"

"I will," said Dan.

"And you'll promise not to say or think such nonsense again?"

"I promise," said Dan.

And then for a while both fell silent, thinking of the future which lay before them. The girl smiled as her day-dreams opened and expanded.

Dan frowned, and the fingers of his well-shaped hands locked and unlocked across his knees.

Suddenly Virginia sprang to her feet with an exclamation.

"Oh, I forgot," she said, and ran, laughing, to the galley, whence she returned with a large plate of fudge. At Dan's look of surprise she tossed her head in mock disdain of what he might say or think.

"I unearthed two great cakes of chocolate last night," she said, "and as I was simply dying for some candy I made fudge while preparing breakfast. I had to use condensed milk, watered; and as there was no marble slab I had to stir it in the pan. I don't know how good it is; it's awfully grainy"; and thus, rattling on, she took a square of the confection and placed it gingerly between her lips.

"Why, it's not so bad," she said. "Here! Open your mouth and shut your eyes!" Which Dan did, declaring that he had never eaten anything half so delicious.

"Really!" she exclaimed, with falling inflection. "Then I must say I feel sorry for you. . . . Now, why have you that little amused twinkle in your eyes? I used to see it sometimes at the table on the _Tampico_ when Reggie was boasting, and--and sometimes when I was trying to be very brilliant. Do you know, sometimes I felt like boxing your ears, you seemed so superior."

"It was not superiority in your case," laughed Dan, "it was appreciation."

"Thank you," said Virginia; "and now?"

"Oh," smiled Dan, "the thought of fudge on a derelict was and is responsible for this twinkle."

"I don't care," she frowned. "It is the person that rises superior to conditions who triumphs in this world. Anyway, you seem to be disposing of your share, despite your notions of incongruity."

"Have you thought," said Dan, "that it might pay to be very economical with your chocolate? If we stay here two or three months and all our food runs out we can live on ever so little chocolate each day."

"Two or three months!" echoed Virginia. "Now, you are tactful, aren't you? And just as I was sitting here chattering away, with no thought that we were not on a yacht ready to turn home the minute I wished to!"

Dan smiled.

"If we were on a yacht, how soon would you--wish to?" he said.

The girl met his eyes undauntedly.

"If I answered you in one way I should not be at all polite," she said; "and if in another, I should not be--be--"

"Honest?" suggested Dan.

"That would depend upon what I said," she answered with a non-committal shrug. "Now I am going. I've a lot to do in my cabin, and a luncheon menu to make out. _Au revoir_!" She paused at the entrance to the cabins, smiled brightly at Dan, and then disappeared.

Long he sat, gazing out over the serene waters, filled with a great inward thrill. The wonder of all the fast-crowding events of the past fortnight was a.s.serting itself potently in his mind, and it was difficult to realize he was not now living some wild, improbable dream.

But, after all, he found the sense of responsibility dominant. To his care was committed a beautiful life,--a life that must be saved, cherished, and ultimately restored to its proper environment. Of late, it seemed, an evil star had pursued him; everything he had commanded or had anything to do with had either sunk or burned--an extraordinary train of misfortune not lacking in the lives of many able masters of craft. What next? He pa.s.sed over that thought with a frown. He was living in a beautiful present; the future would be met as the past had been, bravely and with no cry for quarter.

The present! He was immediately to learn how dearly he prized it; for as he gazed seaward, the smoke of a steamship, below the horizon, appeared. He sprang to his feet and watched it eagerly; and yet when that faint column grew more dim and finally faded, he sat back constrained to confess that he was almost glad the course of the steamship was as it was. He fought against it, thinking of the girl in the cabin and her interests. And yet--and yet? He shrugged his shoulders and walked toward the door, lured by the song which he remembered so clearly.

"If I had you! If I had you! You!"

"Will _I_ do?" he laughed, peering in at her open door.

"For the present, yes," she bowed, "because I want you to admire. See, I have been decorating my room with unbleached muslin. Aren't those curtains dear? And those silesia bunk tapestries, aren't they fascinating?"

"They are, indeed. How much would you charge to beautify my cabin?"

Virginia blushed.

"You had better ask how much you owe me," she said. Then, "You haven't looked in your cabin! And after all my labor, too!"

With an exclamation Dan darted across the corridor and beheld, with kindling eyes, many evidences of that feminine touch without which hardened bachelors may fancy their quarters complete. She had followed him to the door and was gazing over his shoulder. Something caught in Dan's throat. Always a man's man, as the saying is, the full force of the realization of his strange situation seemed rushing from the interior of that cabin to overpower him. A girl, a beautiful girl, one whom he had looked upon as he had looked upon the beautiful unattainable things of this life, planning and executing for his pleasure, and blushing joyously to find that which she had done for him pleasing in his sight, left him bereft of words.

He turned to her and strove to speak, and then suddenly he faced about and walked hurriedly to the deck. She came up behind him and placed her hand upon his shoulder and smiled, understanding. His eyes met hers, and then, with an involuntary movement, his arm was about her waist. For a full minute they stood thus, neither moving, she regarding him with wondering eyes, but still smiling slightly.

Suddenly he started; his arm swiftly dropped, and he glanced with a jerk of his head towards the sail.

"Are we getting out of our course?" she asked.

"I was," he said, scowling, "but I won't again. Can you forgive one who is no better than a--than a blamed pirate?"

"I can forgive you everything but calling yourself names," she said gently.