Parrot & Co. Part 15

"This fellow Craig has complained about his treatment by you this morning. I fancy you were rather rough with him."

"Perhaps. He was very drunk and abusive, and he needed cold water more than anything else. I once knew the man."

"Ah! But it never pays to manhandle that particular brand of tippler.

They always retaliate in some way."

"I suppose he has given you an excerpt from my history?"

"He says you can not return to the States."

"I am returning on the very first boats I can find."

"Then he was lying?"

"Not entirely. I do not know what he has told you, and I really do not care. The fact is, Craig is a professional gambler, and I warned him not to try any of his tricks on board. It soured him."

"And knowing myself that he was a professional, I gave no weight to his accusations. Besides, it is none of my business. The worst scoundrel unhung has certain rights on my ship. If he behaves himself, that is sufficient for me. Now, what Craig told me doesn't matter; but it matters that I warned him. A word to any one else, and I'll drop him at Penang to-morrow, to get out the best way he can. Ships pa.s.sing there this time of year are generally full-up. Will you have a peg?"

"No, thanks. But I wish to say that it is very decent of you."

Warrington rose.

"I have traveled too long not to recognize a man when I see him. Do you play cricket?" asked the captain, his gaze critically covering the man before him.

"No; I regret I'm not familiar with the game."

"Ah! Well, drop in any night after ten, if you care to."

"I shall be glad to accept your hospitality."

Outside, Warrington mused on the general untruths of first impressions.

He had written down the captain as a pompous, self-centered individual.

One never could judge a man until he came to the scratch. It heartened him to find that there was a man on board who respected his misfortune, whether he believed it or not. He sought Elsa, and as they promenaded, lightly recounted the episode of the morning.

Elsa expressed her delight in laughter that was less hearty than malicious. How clearly she could see the picture! And then, the ever-recurring comparisons: Arthur would have gone by, Arthur would not have bothered himself, for he detested scenes and fisticuffs. How few real men she had met, men who walked through life naturally, unfettered by those self-applied manacles called "What will people say?"

"Let us go up to the bow," she invited. "I've a little story myself to tell."

They clambered down and up the ladders, over the windla.s.s and anchor-chains which a native was busily painting. A school of porpoise were frolicking under the cut.w.a.ter. _Plop_! _plop_! they went; and sometimes one would turn sidewise and look up roguishly with his twinkling seal-like eyes. _Plop_! _plop_! Finally all save one sank gracefully out of sight. The laggard crisscrossed the cut.w.a.ter a dozen times, just to show the watchers how extremely clever he was; and then, with a _plop_! that was louder than any previous one, he vanished into the deeps.

"I love these Oriental seas," said Elsa, with her arms on the rail and her chin resting upon them. She wore no hat, and her hair shimmered in the sun and shivered in the wind.

"And yet they are the most treacherous of all seas. There's not a cloud in sight; in two hours from now we may be in the heart of a winter storm. Happily, they are rarities along this coast; so you will not have the excitement of a shipwreck."

"I am grateful for that. Mercy! Think of being marooned on a desert island with the colonel and his three spinsters! Proprieties, from morning until night. And the chattering tourists! Heaven forfend!"

"You had a story to tell me," he suggested. His heart was hot within him. He wanted to sweep her up in his arms and hold her there forever.

But the barrier of wasted opportunities stood between. How delicately beautiful she was: Bernini's Daphne.

"Oh, yes; I had almost forgotten." She stood up and felt for wandering strands of hair. "I find the world more amusing day by day. I ought to feel hurt, but I am only amused. I spoke to the colonel this morning, merely to say howdy-do. He stared me in the eye and de-lib-erately turned his back to me."

"The doddering old---"

"There, there! It isn't worth getting angry about."

"But, don't you understand? It's all because of me. Simply because you have been kind to a poor devil, they start in to snub you, you!

I'll go back to my old seat at the table. You mustn't walk with me any more."

"Don't be silly. If you return to your chair, if you no longer walk with me, they'll find a thousand things to talk about. Since I do not care, why should you?"

"Can't I make it clear to you?" desperately.

"I see with reasonable eyes, if that is what you mean. The people I know, mine own people, understand Elsa Chetwood."

So her name was Elsa? He repeated it over and over in his mind.

She continued her exposition. "There are but few, gently born. They are generous and broad-minded. They could not be mine own people otherwise. They are all I care about. I shun mediocrity as I would the plague. I refuse to permit it to touch me, either with words or with deeds. The good opinion of those I love is dear to me; as for the rest of the world!" She snapped her fingers to ill.u.s.trate how little she cared.

"I am a man under a cloud, to be avoided."

"Perhaps that cloud has a silver lining," with a gentle smile. "I do not believe you did anything wrong, premeditatively. All of us, one time or another, surrender to wild impulse. Perhaps in the future there awaits for me such a moment. I cannot recollect the name of Warrington in a _cause celebre_," thoughtfully.

He could only gaze at her dumbly.

"Don't you suppose there is a vast difference between you and this man Craig? Could you commit the petty crime of cheating at cards, of taking advantage of a woman's kindness, of betraying a man's misfortune? I do not think you could. No, Mr. Warrington, I do not care what they say, on board here or elsewhere."

"My name is not Warrington," finding his voice. G.o.d in heaven, what would happen when she found out what his name was? "But my first name is Paul."

"Paul. I have had my suspicions that your name was not Warrington.

But tell me nothing more. What good would it do? I did not read that man's letter. I merely noted your name and his. You doubtless knew him somewhere in the past."

"Might there not be danger in your kindness to me?"

"In what way?"

"A man under a cloud is often reckless and desperate. There is always an invisible demon calling out to him: What's the use of being good?

You are the first woman of your station who has treated me as a human being; I do not say as an equal. You have given me back some of my self-respect. It throws my world upside down. It's a heady wine for an abstemious man. Don't you realize that you are a beautiful woman?"

She looked up into his eyes quickly, but she saw nothing there indicating flattery, only a somber gravity.

"I should be silly to deny it. I know that had I been a frump, the colonel would not have snubbed me. I wonder why it is that in life beauty in a woman is always looked upon with suspicion?"

"Envy provokes that."

She resumed her inclination against the rail again. "After Singapore it is probable that we shall not meet again. I admit, in my world, I could not walk upon this free and easy ground. I should have to ask about your antecedents, what you have done, all about you, in fact.

Then, we should sit in judgment."

"And condemn me, off-hand. That would be perfectly right."