Sheila of Big Wreck Cove Part 8

"There's the Barquette," said Miss Bostwick, with the air of one used daily to the grandeur of such hostelries.

But Tunis had seen her lodgings! However, her airs amused him, and Tunis Latham was no penny-squeezer. He headed straight in for the dining room, where a gloriously appareled negro head waiter appraised him as being "all right," and Ida May got by, without knowing it, upon the captain's substantial appearance.

While the waiter was away, Tunis bluntly put his errand before her.

He felt it his duty to make the offer as attractive as possible. But he did not make small the fact that the b.a.l.l.s were old and needed her services.

"Goodness! What do they want me for--a nurse?" she demanded tartly.

The question put Tunis on his mettle. He explained that Cap'n Ira and his wife were comfortably "fixed," as Cape people considered comfort, with a home free and clear of all enc.u.mbrances, and investments that yielded a sufficient support. Ida May, as he understood it, would share their home and their means.

"And you want I should go down to that place and live on pollack and potatoes till them folks die, for the sake of just a _home_?" she demanded, her brown eyes snapping.

"_I_ don't want you to do anything," he pointed out coolly enough.

"I am merely repeating their offer. They are your folks."

"And I know all about what it is down there," the girl said quickly.

"My mother came from there. She was glad enough to get away, too, I warrant. Why should I give up a good job and the city to live in such a dead-and-alive hole?"

"That is for you to decide," Tunis replied, not without secret relief.

He could not understand her att.i.tude. He remembered that South End lodging house with secret horror. But evidently Ida May Bostwick was wedded to the tawdry conveniences and gayeties of city life. Tunis could not wholly understand why any sane person should a.s.sume this att.i.tude; in fact, he suspected a good deal of it was put on. How could a girl, even one as inconsequential and flighty as Ida May evidently was, hold in contempt the offer he had brought her from Cap'n Ira and his wife?

But he had done all that could be expected of him. All, indeed, that he thought wise. Disappointed as the old couple would be by Ida May's refusal, Tunis felt that to urge her to reconsider the matter would not be in the best interests of her elderly relatives. They needed a young companion there on Wreckers' Head, needed one very sorely, but not such a person as Ida May Bostwick.

"Then, that will be your final answer, Miss Bostwick?" he said slowly, as Ida May played with her ice.

"Say! I wouldn't go down to that hole for a million," scoffed the girl. "I guess you wouldn't stand it yourself, only you're off on your ship most of the time."

"I like the Cape," he said briefly.

"Never lived in the city, did you?"

"I never did."

"Then you don't know any better," she told him confidently. "And you don't really look like such a dead one, at that."

"Thank you."

She smiled saucily into his rather grim face. Then she opened her bag and deliberately powdered her nose before rising from the table.

"Thanks for a pleasant hour," she drawled. "You tell Auntie and Uncle Josh to get a girl from the poor farm or somewhere to do their ch.o.r.es and tuck 'em in nights. _Me_, I don't mean to live out of sight of movie signs and electric lights. I'd like to see myself!"

She was both rude and common. Tunis was glad to get out of the dining room. Ida May attracted altogether too much attention. And she had quite openly eyed his well-lined wallet when he paid the waiter. To a girl like Ida May, all was fish that swam into her net.

Crude as she considered him, Tunis Latham was a man with some money.

And he evidently knew how to spend it.

"When you're in town I'd be glad to see you any time, Mr. Latham. Or do I say captain?"

She smiled up at the big, broad-shouldered fellow bravely as she trotted along in the skirt that made her hobble like a cripple. The captain of the _Seamew_ did not respond very cordially, and quite overlooked her personal question.

"I don't expect to spend much time in Boston," he said. "Thank you.

Then I shall report to Aunt Prue and Cap'n Ira that you will not consider their offer at all?"

"I should say not!" She laughed lightly. "You don't know, I guess, what we girls expect nowadays, if we give up our independence."

"Independence!" snorted Tunis.

"That's what I said," rejoined Ida May tartly. "When the store closes my time's my own. I can do as I please. And I've got n.o.body to please but myself. Oh, you don't understand at all, Captain Latham!"

He said no more. Nor did he escort her farther than the corner.

There he lifted his cap and took her offered hand. Although it was beringed and the nails were stained and polished, Tunis could not help noticing that Ida May's hand was not altogether clean.

"Well, au revoir, captain!" she said lightly. "I hope I see you again."

He bowed silently and watched her depart. The sunshine glinted gloriously upon her fluffy hair.

"Fool's gold," he muttered.

CHAPTER VII

AT THE RESTAURANT

The captain of the _Seamew_ found himself facing an unpleasant problem. How could he make the b.a.l.l.s, either Cap'n Ira or Prudence, understand the kind of girl Ida May was? How could he even bring them to understand that nothing he could have said would have ever made Ida May Bostwick see the situation in its true light?

Why, the old couple could never be made to believe that a girl in her sane senses would turn down cold such a proposition as they had made. They would suspect that he had failed to put it to her in the proper light. His "errand of mercy," as Cap'n Ira had called it, had seemed so reasonable for both sides!

Tunis realized that he had not overurged the matter to the girl. But there was a reason for that. The difficulty would be in explaining to the b.a.l.l.s just how unsuitable Ida May was. They would never believe that the daughter of Sarah Honey could be such a cheap and inconsequential person as she had actually proved to be.

"It's going to hit 'em 'twixt wind and water, and hit 'em hard,"

muttered the captain of the _Seamew_. "One thing that girl said was right, I guess. They'd better get somebody from the poor farm, rather than take her into their house. Such a creature would be happier with the b.a.l.l.s, and make them happier. But it's pretty tough when those of your own blood go back on you."

The experience had left a bad taste in Tunis Latham's mouth. He hoped heartily that he would never see Ida May Bostwick again. He never intended to if he could help it. To take his mind off the fiasco entirely, he hopped on to a car and rode out to the art museum and spent the afternoon in the quiet galleries where the masters, little and great, are hung.

He came downtown at nightfall, threading the paths of the public gardens and the common malls of Charles and Beacon Streets, with a feeling of immense calm in his soul. Tunis Latham possessed keenly contrasting attributes of character. On the one hand he was of a rather practical mind and thought; on the other, his love of beauty and appreciation of nature's greater forces might have made of him an artist under more liberal conditions of birth and breeding.

Ida May Bostwick had rasped all the finer feelings of the captain of the _Seamew_. He was happy to be able to get her out of his mind.

In fact, he had put aside thought of any girl. Romance no longer enmeshed his cogitations. He was utterly calm, unruffled, serene, as he descended by the twists and turns of certain streets beyond the State House and came out finally upon the now lighted and bustling square.

He halted, like a pointer dog, before the eating place where he had had breakfast.

Tunis Latham felt a certain shock. That girl with the violet eyes had been farthest from his thought at the moment, and for some hours now. He had lumped together the whole girl question and had relegated it to the back of his mind.

And perhaps he was cured. He looked at it more sensibly after the first moment. It was not thought of the girl that had brought him here. Habit is strong in most of us. The urge of a healthy appet.i.te was more likely what had caused him to halt before the restaurant door.