Parrot & Co. Part 12

"Better go."

"All right." Craig returned to his mattress. "Now, what made him curl up like that because I called him Paul? Bah!" He dug a hole in his pillow and tried to sleep.

"Paul!" murmured Warrington.

He stared down at the flashes of phosph.o.r.escence, blindly. The man had called him Paul. After ten years to learn the d.a.m.nable treachery of it! Suddenly he clenched his hand and struck the rail. He would go back. All his loyalty, all his chivalry, had gone for naught. This low rascal had called him Paul.

IX

TWO SHORT WEEKS

When Elsa stepped out of the companionway the next morning she winced and shut her eyes. The whole arc of heaven seemed hung with fire-opals; east, west, north and south, whichever way she looked, there was dazzling iridescence. The long flowing swells ran into the very sky, for there was visible no horizon. Gold-leaf and opals, thought Elsa. What a wonderful world! What a versatile mistress was nature! Never two days alike, never two human beings; animate and inanimate, all things were singular. She paused at the rail and glanced down the rusty black side of the ship and watched the thread of frothing water that clutched futilely at the red water-line. Never two living things alike, in all the millions and millions swarming the globe. What a marvel! Even though this man Warrington and Arthur looked alike, they were not so. In heart and mind they were as different as two days.

She began her usual walk, and in pa.s.sing the smoke-room door on the port side she met Warrington coming out. How deep-set his eyes were!

He was about to go on, but she looked straight into his eyes, and he stopped. She laughed, and held out her hand.

"I really believe you were going to snub me."

"Then you haven't given me up?"

"Never mind what I have or have not done. Walk with me. I am going to talk plainly to you. If what I say is distasteful, don't hesitate to interrupt me. You interest me, partly because you act like a boy, partly because you are a man."

"I haven't any manners."

"They need shaking up and readjusting. I have just been musing over a remarkable thing, that no two objects are alike. Even the most accurate machinery can not produce two nails without variation. So it is with humans. You look so like the man I know back home that it is impossible not to ponder over you." She smiled into his face. "Why should nature produce two persons who are mistaken for each other, and yet give them two souls, two intellects, totally different?"

"I have often wondered."

"Is nature experimenting, or is she slyly playing a trick on humanity?"

"Let us call it a trick; by all means, let us call it that."

"Your tone . . ."

"Yes, yes," impatiently; "you are going to say that it sounds bitter.

But why should another man have a face like mine, when we have nothing in common? What right has he to look like me?"

"It is a puzzle," Elsa admitted.

"This man who looks like me--I have no doubt it affects you oddly--probably lives in ease; never knew what a buffet meant, never knew what a care was, has everything he wants; in fact, a gentleman of your own cla.s.s, whose likes and dislikes are cut from the same pattern as your own. Well, that is as it should be. A woman such as you are ought to marry an equal, a man whose mind and manners are fitted to the high place he holds in your affection and in your world. How many worlds there are, man-made and heaven-made, and each as deadly as the other, as cold and implacable! To you, who have been kind to me, I have acted like a fool. The truth is, I've been skulking. My vanity was hurt. I had the idea that it was myself and not my resemblance that appealed to your interest. What makes you trust me?" bluntly; and he stopped as he asked the question.

"Why, I don't know," blankly. Instantly she recovered herself. "But I do trust you." She walked on, and perforce he fell into her stride.

"It is because you trust the other man."

"Thanks. That is it precisely; and for nearly two weeks I've been trying to solve that very thing."

After a pause he asked: "Have you ever read Reade's _Singleheart and Doubleface_?"

"Yes. But what bearing has it upon our discussion?"

"None that you would understand," evasively. His tongue had nearly tripped him.

"Are you sure?"

"Of this, that I shall never understand women."

"Do not try to," she advised. "All those men who knew most about women were the unhappiest."

They made a round in silence. Pa.s.sengers were beginning to get into their deck-chairs; and Elsa noted the backs of the many novels that ranged from the pure chill alt.i.tudes of cla.s.sic and demi-cla.s.sics down to the latest popular yarn. Many an eye peered over the tops of the books; and envy and admiration and curiosity brought their shafts to bear upon her. It was something to create these variant expressions of interest. She was oblivious.

"We stop at Penang?" she asked.

"Five or six hours, long enough to see the town."

"We went directly from Singapore to Colombo, so we missed the town coming out. I should like to see that cocoanut plantation of yours."

"It is too far inland. Besides, I am a _persona non grata_ there."

As, indeed, he was. His heart burned with shame and rage at the recollection of the last day there. Three or four times, during the decade, the misfortune of being found out had fallen to his lot, and always when he was employed at something worth while.

Elsa discreetly veered into another channel. "You will go back to Italy, I suppose. How cheaply and delightfully one may live there, when one knows something of the people! I had the Villa Julia one spring. You know it; Sorrento. Is there anything more stunning than oranges in the rain?" irrelevantly.

"Yes, I shall go to Italy once more. But first I am going home." He was not aware of the grimness that entered his voice as he made this statement.

"I am glad," she said. "After all, that is the one place."

"If you are happy enough to find a welcome."

"And you will see your mother again?"

He winced. "Yes. Do you know, it does not seem possible that I met you but two short weeks ago? I have never given much thought to this so-called reincarnation; but somewhere in the past ages I knew you; only . . ."

"Only what?"

"Only, you weren't going home to marry the other fellow."

She stopped at the rail. "Who knows?" she replied ruminatingly.

"Perhaps I am not going to marry him."

"Don't you love him? . . . I beg your pardon, Miss Chetwood!"

"You're excused."

"I still need some training. I have been alone so much that I haven't got over the trick of speaking my thoughts aloud."

"No harm has been done. The fault lay with me."