In Secret Part 22

"Eve--I--thought--"

"What?"

"I thought your name--was Eve--" he stammered. "I've been--dreaming."

Then was a silence as he fumbled stupidly with his clothing and life-suit. The sounds of the guns, rapid, distinct, echoed through the unsteady obscurity.

She helped him as a nurse helps a convalescent, her swift, cold little fingers moving lightly and unerringly. And at last he was equipped, and his mind had cleared darkly of the golden vision of love and spring.

Icy seas, monstrous and menacing, went smashing past the sealed and blinded port; but there was no wind and the thudding of the guns came distinctly to their ears.

A shape in uniform loomed at the cabin door for an instant and a calm, unhurried voice summoned them.

Corridors were full of dark figures. The main saloon was thronged as they climbed the companion-way. There appeared to be no panic, no haste, no confusion. Voices were moderately low, the tone casually conversational.

Miss Erith's arm remained linked in McKay's where they stood together amid the crowd.

"U-boats, I fancy," she said.

"Probably."

After a moment: "What were you dreaming about, Mr. McKay?" she asked lightly. In the dull bluish dusk of the saloon his boyish face grew hot.

"What was it you called me?" she insisted. "Was it Eve?"

At that his cheeks burnt crimson.

"What do you mean?" he muttered.

"Didn't you call me Eve?"

"I--when a man is dreaming--asleep--"

"My name is Evelyn, you know. n.o.body ever called me Eve....

Yet--it's odd, isn't it, Mr. McKay? I've always wished that somebody would call me Eve.... But perhaps you were not dreaming of me?"

"I--was."

"Really. How interesting!" He remained silent.

"And did you call me Eve--in that dream?... That is curious, isn't it, after what I've just told you?... So I've had my wish--in a dream." She laughed a little. "In a dream--YOUR dream," she repeated. "We must have been good friends in your dream--that you called me Eve."

But the faint thrill of the dream was in him again, and it troubled him and made him shy, and he found no word to utter--no defence to her low-voiced banter.

Then, not far away on the port quarter, a deck-gun spoke with a sharper explosion, and intense stillness reigned in the saloon.

"If there's any necessity," he whispered, "you recollect your boat, don't you?"

"Yes.... I don't want to go--without you." He said, in a pleasant firm voice which was new to her: "I know what you mean. But you are not to worry. I am absolutely well."

The girl turned toward him, the echoes of the guns filling her ears, and strove to read his face in the ghastly, dreary light.

"I'm really cured, Miss Erith," he said. "If there's any emergency I'll fight to live. Do you believe me?"

"If you tell me so."

"I tell you so."

The girl drew a deep, unsteady breath, and her arm tightened a trifle within his.

"I am--so glad," she said in a voice that sounded suddenly tired.

There came an ear-splitting detonation from the after-deck, silencing every murmur.

"Something is sh.e.l.ling us," whispered McKay. "When orders come, go instantly to your boat and your station."

"I don't want to go alone."

"The nurses of the unit to which you--"

The crash of a sh.e.l.l drowned his voice. Then came a deathly silence, then the sound of the deck-guns in action once more.

Miss Erith was leaning rather heavily on his arm. He bent it, drawing her closer.

"I don't want to leave you," she said again.

"I told you--"

"It isn't that.... Don't you understand that I have become--your friend?"

"Such a brute as I am?"

"I like you."

In the silence he could hear his heart drumming between the detonations of the deck-guns. He said: "It's because you are you. No other woman on earth but would have loathed me... beastly rotter that I was--"

"Oh-h, don't," she breathed.... "I don't know--we may be very close to death.... I want to live. I'd like to. But I don't really mind death. ... But I can't bear to have things end for you just as you've begun to live again--"

Crash! Something was badly smashed on deck that time, for the brazen jar of falling wreckage seemed continuous.

Through the metallic echo she heard her voice:

"Kay! I'm afraid--a little."

"I think it's all right so far. Listen, there go our guns again.

It's quite all right, Eve dear."

"I didn't know I was so cowardly. But of course I'll never show it when the time comes."