Little Miss Grouch Part 30

"And cross?"

"A regular virago."

"And ugly, and messy and an idiot--"

"Hold on! You're double-crossing the indictment. I'm the offended idiot," declared the Tyro, opening his eyes upon her.

She took advantage of his indiscretion.

"_Am_ I red-nosed?"

"You are. At least, you will be when you cry again."

"I'll cry straight off this minute, if you don't promise to take it all back."

"I'll promise--the instant we touch sh.o.r.e."

There was a gravity in his tone that banished her mischief.

"Perhaps I don't really want you to take it back," she said wistfully.

"Ah, but with firm earth under our feet once more, and realities all around us--"

"There's Guenn Oaks. That's on the very borders of Elfland. Don't you think Bertie looks like a Pixie?"

"I'm not going to Guenn Oaks."

"Not if I say my very prettiest 'please'?"

From those pleading lips and eyes the Tyro turned away. Instantly there was a piercing squeak of greeting from across the narrow strip of water.

"It's the Beatific Baby!" cried Little Miss Grouch. "How did he ever get there? Oh! Oh!! Get him, some one!"

Near an opening at the rail of the ship some of the third-cla.s.s luggage had been left. Upon this the Pride of the Steerage had clambered and was there perilously balancing, while he waved his hands at his departing friends. There was a deeper-toned answering cry to Little Miss Grouch's appeal, as the mother, leaping to the rail, ran swiftly along it, seized and hurled her child back, and, with the effort, plunged overboard herself.

By the time she had touched the water, the Tyro's overcoat and coat were on the deck and his hands on the rail.

"Take that life-preserver," he said, with swift quietness to Little Miss Grouch. "As soon as you see me get her, throw it as far beyond us as you can. You understand? Beyond. There she is. _d.a.m.n!!_"

For Little Miss Grouch's arms had closed desperately around his shoulders. With his wrestler's knowledge, he could have broken that hold in a second's fraction, but that would have been to fling her against the rail, possibly over it. He twisted until his face almost touched hers.

"Let me go!"

In all her pampered life Miss Cecily Wayne had never before been addressed in that tone or anything remotely resembling it, by man, woman, or child. Her grip relaxed. She shrank back, appalled.

For perhaps a second she had checked him, and in that second the huddle of blue had drifted almost abreast. It was an easy leap from where the Tyro stood. One foot was on the rail, when he staggered aside from an impact very different from the feminine a.s.sault. Mr. Henry Clay Wayne had turned from an absorbing conversation with Mrs. Denyse in time to see his daughter in hand-to-hand combat with a man. Observing the man now about to precipitate himself into the sea, he formulated the theory of an attempted robbery and escape, and acted with the prompt.i.tude which had made him famous in Wall Street. As he was a decidedly husky one hundred-and-seventy-pounds' worth, his arrival notably interfered with the Tyro's projects.

Now the Tyro's naturally equable temper had been disturbed by the other encounter, and this one loosed its bonds. Here was no softening consideration of s.e.x. Who the interferer was, the Tyro knew not, nor cared. He drove an elbow straight into the midsection of the enemy, lashed out with a heel which landed square on the most sensitive portion of the shin, broke the relaxed hold with one effort, and charged like a bull through the crowd now lining the rail at the stern curve,--and stopped dead, as a general shout, part cheers, part laughter, arose. The woman was ploughing through the water with great overhand strokes. In a few seconds she stood on the tender's deck, while the crowd congratulated and questioned.

"I'm a feesh," she explained, pointing to a crudely embroidered dolphin on her sleeve, which, as Dr. Alderson explained, meant that she had undergone the famous swimming test in her own German town of Dessau on the Mulde.

Meantime two dukes, a ship's pilot, a negro pugilist, a G.o.ddess of grand opera, a noted aviator, and some scores of lesser people looked on in amazement at the third richest man in America hopping on one foot like an inebriated and agonized crane, with his other shin clasped in his hands, and making faces which an amateur photographer hastened to snap, subsequently suppressing them for reasons of humanity and art.

Several people, including Mrs. Charlton Denyse with two red spots on her cheeks besides what she had put there herself, endeavored to explain to the Tyro just what species of high treason he had committed by his a.s.sault, but he was in no mood for gratuitous information, and removed himself determinedly from their vicinity. Presently Judge Enderby appeared upon his horizon.

"His leg isn't broken," he announced.

"Whose leg?"

"That of the gentleman you so brutally a.s.saulted. He wants to see you."

"Tell him to go to the devil."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," soothed the legal veteran, his face twinkling.

"All right. Bring him here and I'll tell him."

"Even though he is Little Miss Grouch's father?"

"What!"

"Precisely. Now, will you go to him?"

"No."

"When you employ one of the highest-priced counsel in America," observed the old man plaintively, "while it isn't essential that you should receive his advice with any degree of courtesy--"

"I really beg your pardon, Judge Enderby. The fact is, my temper has been a little ruffled--"

"Calm it down until you need it again and come with me." The judge tucked an arm under the Tyro's, who presently found himself being studied by a handsomely grim face, somewhat humanized by an occasional twinge of pain. The owner of the face acknowledged Judge Enderby's introduction and waited. The Tyro likewise acknowledged Judge Enderby's introduction and waited. Mr. Wayne was waiting for the Tyro to apologize. The Tyro hadn't the faintest notion of apologizing, and, had he known that it was expected, would have been more exasperated than before, since he considered himself the aggrieved party. Finding silence unproductive, the magnate presently broke it.

"You were going in after that woman?"

"Yes."

"Did you know her?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"On shipboard."

"Oh! She was the one you and my daughter used to pamper, in the steerage. Mrs. Denyse told me. So you thought you'd be a Young Hero, eh?"

The Tyro caught Judge Enderby's eye, and, reading therein an admonition, preserved his temper and his silence.

"Well, I rather spoiled your little game. And you pretty near ruined my digestion with your infernal elbow."