Running Sands Part 31

"But why not?"

"I don't know. I suppose because you like him too well. I hardly see you any more."

Stainton a.s.sured his wife that no man or woman in the world was worth her little finger. He clambered into the upper berth and watched her for some time as her bared arm rose and fell, wielding the brush. At last the sight of that regular motion, added to the gentle rocking of the ship, closed his eyes. He had had a full day and was tired. He was soundly asleep when he was wakened by her embrace.

She was standing on the ladder and pressing his face to hers.

"Love me!" she was whispering. "O, Jim, love me!"

Stainton was still half-asleep,

"I do love you, Muriel," he said.

"Yes, but--_Love_ me, Jim!" she whispered.

She clutched him suddenly.

"Ouch, my hair!" said Stainton. "You're pulling my hair!"

"Oh!" Muriel's tone was all self-reproach. "I'm sorry. Did I hurt you, dear?"

"No," he smiled. "No. There, there!" He patted her head. "It's all right. Good-night, dearest."

"Good-night?" There was a question in the words as she repeated them, but she retreated, albeit slowly, down the ladder. "Good-night, Jim."

"Good-night, dear," he responded cheerily, "and--I do love you, you know."

She answered from below:

"Yes, Jim."

"You do know it, don't you, dear heart?"

"Yes, Jim."

He heard her draw the bedclothes about her. When he awoke in the morning, she slept, but he would not breakfast until she was ready to breakfast with him, and so he sat, hungry, and waited for the hour that she devoted to her toilette. Then they went to the saloon, and afterwards to the deck, together.

Neither on that day nor on the day following was Muriel alone with von Klausen. Indeed, she was not alone with him again until they touched, at ten o'clock of a bright morning, at Plymouth, where the grateful green and yellow hills rose from the blue water, and the town nestled in a long white belt behind a chain of grim, grey men-of-war. The tender had stood by, and, now that some of the high stacks of mail-bags, which had been filling the stern decks since dawn, were transferred, an endless procession of slouching porters out of uniform carried, one brick to each man for each trip, large bricks of silver down the gangways and deposited them in piles of five, well forward on the tender. Jim had gone to the writing-room to scribble a note that might catch a fast boat from England to his agent at the mine, and Muriel was left beside the rail to talk with the Austrian.

"It has been a delightful voyage, has it not?" he asked, in that precise English to which she had now grown accustomed.

"I dare say," answered Muriel. "I don't know. You forget that I have had no others with which to compare it."

"But you have not been bored?"

"No."

"It has surely been pleasant, for I have by it had the opportunity to meet you and your brave husband."

"My husband, I know, would say as much of it because he has met you."

The Austrian bowed.

"Nor have I failed," he said, "to tell him how much the entire company aboard seem to admire his charming wife."

Muriel was resting her elbows on the rail; her glance was fixed upon the distant town.

"He told me," she responded, "that you thought my eyes about the second best within your experience. I hope your experience has been wide."

Von Klausen flushed.

"My experience," he said, gravely, "has, I regret to tell you, been that of most young men."

"Oh!" said Muriel. Her tone showed dislike of all that this implied, but she recalled that Jim had had no such experiences as those to which von Klausen plainly referred, and she suddenly felt, somehow, that this difference between the men did not altogether advance Stainton.

"Nevertheless, dear lady," the Austrian was going on, "the eyes that I thought as beautiful as yours--I did not say more beautiful--were eyes that have long since been shut."

Muriel was now more piqued than before. Had the man been comparing her to a dead fiancee to whom he, living, remained faithful?

"Were they Austrian eyes?" she asked, her own eyes full of obtrusive indifference.

"No; they were Italian. Had you come to Europe three years ago, you would have seen them when you went to the Louvre. They were the eyes that have been given to the Mona Lisa."

Muriel and he were standing apart from the crowd of pa.s.sengers that watched the unloading of the silver. The girl turned to her companion.

Her glance was interested enough now, and she saw at once that his was serious.

"There is something that I have been wanting to tell you," she began, before she was well aware that she spoke--"something that I don't know exactly how to say, or whether I ought to say it at all."

Von Klausen was openly concerned.

"If you are in doubt," he replied, "perhaps it would be better if you first thought more about it."

But his opposition, though totally the reverse to what she had expected, clinched her resolve.

"No," she said. "I ought to tell you about it. Now that I have started I know I ought. It's--it's about that time in the fog."

Von Klausen's colour mounted. Then, politely, he pretended to forget the incident.

"Yes, don't you remember? You must remember."

"I remember. It was a very sudden fog."

"Well," she said, "it was about what happened then. I must speak to you--I must explain about that." She was holding tightly to the rail.

Von Klausen saw her wrists tremble. He made little of the subject.

"When you were frightened, and I took your hand to rea.s.sure you? Dear lady, I trust that you have not supposed that I acted on my presumption----"

"You're kind to put it that way," she interrupted. "You're generous. But I want to be honest. I have to be honest, because I want you to understand--because you must understand--just why I behaved as I did, and you wouldn't understand--you couldn't--if I weren't honest with you.