Sonnie-Boy's People Part 31

"With the beautiful lady?"

"Nope--alone."

"Thank G.o.d! And where is she?"

"Oh, she's nicely enthroned, thank you, in an angle of the loungeroom with that sixty-millionaire coal baron, Drissler."

"It's bath-tubs, and he's only got twenty millions."

"The poor beggar! Well, Meade, if ever she gets within sh.e.l.ling distance of his little twenty millions they'll melt like a dobey house in the rain."

"No doubt of that, I guess. And yet--and yet up to late this afternoon, at least, she appeared to be delighting in the presence of Cadogan."

"She surely did. But"--Major Crupp eyed Meade quizzically--"what are you worrying about?"

"I'm afraid she hasn't really shook him. I know too much about her. The twenty millions would be nice to draw upon, but her one unquenchable pa.s.sion is man, and in build, looks, age, and temperament Cadogan is just one rich prize. But how do you account for Cadogan? He's certainly bright enough in other matters."

Crupp projected three smoke rings across the table at Meade. "I was stationed in the wilds of the Philippines one time. The native women where I was were unwashed, bow-legged, black creatures about four feet high. After three years of it I returned home in a government transport.

I landed in San Francisco. At first I thought it was a dream."

"Thought what was a dream, Major?"

"The women going by. I posted myself on the corner of two streets, and there I stood transfixed, except every ten minutes or so, when I'd run into the hotel bar behind me and have another drink. And I'd come out again, and I'd take another look at those big, beautiful, upstanding creatures floating by, hosts and hosts of 'em, and I'd whisper to myself: 'Cruppie, you're dead. You've been boloed on outpost and gone to heaven, and you don't know it.' And googoo-eyed I kept staring at 'em, investing every last one of 'em with a double halo, till a long, splayfooted, thin-necked hombre in a policeman's uniform came along and says: 'Here, you, I've been pipin' you off for about four hours now.

About time you moved on, ain't it?' Lord, and not one of 'em that couldn't have married me on the spot, I held 'em in such respect."

"Thick, wasn't he?"

"I thought so--then. But I wonder if Caddie would think we were thick, too, if we told him to move on? He's just back, remember, from two years in the jungle, and her eyes haven't changed color and her hair still shines like a new gold shoulder-knot at dress parade. She is still beautiful--and clever."

"Clever? She's surely that; but he's only a boy, Major."

"M-m--twenty-six!"

"What's twenty-six? He's still a dreaming boy. I'd like to say what I really thought of her."

"Don't. They'd be having a squad of stewards in here to police the place after you got through."

"Why don't you give him a hint?"

"Huh! No, no, Mister Meade--I'm still young and fair. You break it to him. Who knows, your age may save you from being projected through the nearest embrasure!" Crupp crushed the smoking end of his cigarette against the ash-tray. "I'll have to run along now."

"Back soon?"

"After I've said good night to two or three dear old ladies in the loungeroom before they go below."

"And two or three dear young ladies who won't be going below."

"Don't be saucy, Meade. You look out of uniform when you try to be saucy. Exactness as to fact and luminosity of language--that's you, if you please."

"Bring Vogel on your way back."

"If I can detach him from his beloved maps. Forty millions in railroads he's got now. And colored maps of 'em he's got. He gloats over 'em--- gloats, every night before he turns in."

"Hurry him up, anyway. And drive Cadogan in. I'll get him going on a few adventures, and make him forget his beautiful lady."

Lavis had been sitting on the transom. He always seemed to be sitting on the transom--a long, lean, huddled-up figure in the corner, looking out with half-closed eyes on the life of the smoking-room.

Cadogan came in. Meade revolved the chair next to him at the table, so that Cadogan had only to fall into it. Cadogan abstractedly nodded his thanks. Catching sight of Lavis, he nodded and smiled.

With eyes staring absently into s.p.a.ce Cadogan was drumming on the table with his fingers.

"Sounds like some tom-tom march you're trying to play," interrupted Meade, and proffered a cigar. Cadogan shook his head.

"No?" Meade dropped his cigar placidly back into its case. "But listen here, Cadogan. As a writer and newspaper man, my main business in life is to discover people who know more than other people about some particular thing, and then get it out of them. What about this ocean-liner travelling of to-day--is it perfectly safe?"

"The safest mode of travel ever devised--or should be."

"But lives are lost?"

"Surely. And probably will be. But they should not be--not on the high sea--except in a collision, and then probably one ship or the other is to blame. Even insh.o.r.e, if they keep their lead and foghorn going, and steam up to kick her off, nothing will happen either, unless"--he shrugged his shoulders--"they've gone foolish or something else on the bridge."

Meade questioned further. And Cadogan answered briefly, abstractedly, until--Meade growing more cunning and subtle--he was led into citing one experience after another from out of his own life in proof of this or that side of an argument.

Cadogan had begun in short, snappy sentences, and in a tense, rather high-keyed voice; but once warmed up he swung along in rounded, almost cla.s.sic periods; and his voice deepened and softened and, as he became yet more absorbed in his subject, grew rhythmical, musical almost, the while his words took on added color and glow.

Once in full swing it was not difficult for Meade to get him to run on; and he ran on for an hour, and would have gone on indefinitely only, suddenly coming to himself and looking around, he discovered that half the room had gathered in a semicircle behind his chair. He flushed, cut his story short, and said no more. The crowd dispersed to their various seats.

Presently Meade observed: "How did you ever find time in your young life for the half of it? And how you do suggest things--possibilities that try a man's spirit even to contemplate!"

Cadogan did not respond; but from Lavis, the man on the transom, came: "And now you are suggesting the really great adventuring!"

Meade turned in surprise. "What is that?"

"Isn't it in the spirit we have the really great adventures?"

Meade studied him curiously. "You mean that the most thrilling adventures are those we only dream about, but which never happen?"

"I didn't mean exactly that, for they do happen. What I meant was that to try your body was nothing, but to try your soul--try it to the utmost--there would be something."

"To risk it or try it?" asked Meade.

"Oh, to try it only. To risk it, would not that be sinful?"

Cadogan's instinctive liking for Lavis had led him from the beginning of the voyage to take a keen interest in whatever he might do or say; but until to-night he had found him a most un.o.btrusive and taciturn man.

He had a feeling that this man, who before to-night had barely said more than good morning and good night to him, understood him much better than did Meade, the professional observer, who was forever questioning him.

The answer to Meade's last question stirred him particularly, because he felt that it was meant, not for Meade, but for himself.