Once Aboard the Lugger Part 31

Bob staggered to the mirror; discovered the full horror of his marred beauty. "Curse it!" he groaned and gave an order.

Mrs. Chater flew to the telephone.

In the office of Mr. Samuel Hock, purveyor of meat, by appointment, to the Prince of Wales, the telephone bell sharply rang. Mr. Hock stepped to the receiver, listened, then bellowed an order into the shop:

"One of beefsteak to 14 Palace Gardens, sharp!"

CHAPTER VI.

A Cab For 14 Palace Gardens.

I.

With tremendous strides, with emotion roaring in and out his nostrils in gusty blasts of fury, my pa.s.sionate George encompa.s.sed the Park this way and that until he came at length upon his trembling Mary.

Save for that first blow where Bob's ring had marked his cheek he had suffered but little in the fight--sufficiently, notwithstanding, coupled with his colossal demeanour, for Mary's eyes to discover that something was amiss.

She came to him; cried at a little distance: "Oh, dearest, I--I could not meet you at the seat."

Then she saw more clearly. She asked: "What has happened?" and stood with quivering lip recording the flutters of her heart.

George took one hand; patted it between both his. For the moment his boiling anger cooled beneath grim relish of his news. "I've pretty well killed that Chater swine," he said.

"Mr. Chater?--you've met Mr. Chater?"

Now emotion boiled again in her turbulent George. He said: "I saw you run from him. I saw--what had he been doing?"

"Oh, Georgie!"

"Well, never mind. I'd rather not hear. I've paid him for it, whatever it was."

"You fought? Oh, and your face--and your hand bleeding too!"

Tears stood in this ridiculous Mary's eyes. Women so often cry at the wrong moment. They should more closely study their men in the tremendous mannish crises that come to some of us. This was no moment for tears; it was an hour to be Amazon. To be hard-eyed. To count the scalps brought home by the brave--in delight to squeal over them; in pride to clap the hands and jump for joy at such big behaviour.

My Mary erred in every way. Her moistening eyes annoyed George.

"Oh, don't make a fuss about that, Mary," he cried irritably. "It's nothing. Master Bob won't be able to see for a month."

"Oh, George, why did you do it?"

Then the tremendous young man flamed. "Why did I do it? 'Pon my soul, Mary, I simply don't understand you sometimes. You've made me stand by and see you insulted for a month, and then I see him catch hold of you, and you run, and I go and thrash him, and you say, 'Why did you do it?' _Do_ it? _Do_ it? Why, good Lord, what would you have had me do--apologise for you?"

She turned away, dropped his hand.

My unfortunate George groaned aloud: sprang to her. "Mary, darling, dearest, you know I didn't mean that."

She kept her face from him; her pretty shoulders heaved.

He cried in misery, striving to see her face: "What a brute I am! What a brute! Mary, Mary, you know I didn't mean that."

She gasped: "You ge-get angry so quick."

"I know, I know. I'm not fit--I couldn't help--Mary, do look up."

She swallowed a sob; gave him her little hand.

He squeezed it, squeezed it as it were between his love for her and the tremendous pa.s.sion that was consuming him. Contrition at his sharp words to her hammered the upper plate, wrath at the manner of her reception of his news was anvil beneath. The poor fingers horribly suffered.

There are conditions of the male mind--and this George was in the very heart of one--when softness in a woman positively goads to fury. The mind is in an itching fever, and--like a bull against a gate-post-- requires hard, sharp corners against which to rub and ease the irritation. Comes the lord and master home sulky or in fury, the wise wife will meet him with a demeanour so spiked that he may scratch his itching at every turn. To be soft and yielding is the most fatal conduct; it is to send the lumbering bull crashing through the gate- post into the lane to seek solace away from the home paddock.

Unversed in these homely recipes, this simple Mary had at least the wit not to cry "Oh!" in pain and move her hand. They found a seat, and for good five minutes this turbulent George sat and threshed in his wrath like a hooked shark--this little hand the rope that held him.

Soon its influence was felt. His tuggings and boundings grew weaker.

The venom oozed out of him.

He uncovered the crushed fingers; raising, pressed them to his lips.

He groaned. "Now you know me at last."

She patted those brown hands; did not speak.

"You know the awful temper I've got," he went on. "Uncontrollable-- angry even with you--foul brute--"

"But I annoyed you, Georgie."

He flung out an accusatory hand against himself. "How? By being sweet and loving! Why, what a brute I must be!"

She told him: "You shan't call yourself names. In fact, you mustn't.

Because that is calling me names too. We belong, Georgie."

The pretty sentiment tickled him. Gloom flew from his brow before sunshine that took its place. He laughed. "You're a dear, dear old thing."

She gave a whimsical look at him. "I ought to have said at once what I am going to say now: Did you hurt him much?"

"I bashed him!" George said, revelling in it. "I fairly bashed him!"

She snuggled against this tremendous fellow.

II.

It was a park-keeper who, from that opium drug of sweet silence with which lovers love to dull their senses, recalled them to the urgency for action.