The Grey Lady Part 18

"I will become rich," he said, "somehow. I do not care how. I will, I will--Agatha!"

She did not dare to meet his eyes.

"Come," she said. "Come--let us go back."

They danced together again, but Agatha refused to sit anywhere but beneath the awning. While they were dancing they did not speak. He never took his eyes off her, and she never looked at him.

Then, just as he was, with a pilot jacket exchanged for his dress coat, Luke had to go on duty on the bridge. While he stood there, far above the lighted decks, alone at his post in the dark, keen and watchful, still as a statue, the sound of the dance music rose up and enveloped him like the echo of a happy dream.

Presently the music ceased, and the weary dancers went below, leaving Luke FitzHenry to his own thoughts.

All the world seemed to be asleep except these two men--one motionless on the bridge, the other alert in the dimly lighted wheelhouse. The Croonah herself seemed to slumber with the regular beating of a great restless heart far down in her iron being.

The dawn was now creeping up into the eastern sky, touching the face of the waters with a soft, pearly light. A few straight streaks of cloud became faintly outlined. The moon looked yellow and deathlike.

Luke stood watching the rise of a new day, and with it there seemed to be rising within him a new life.

Beneath his feet, in her dainty cabin, Agatha Ingham-Baker saw that dawn also. She was standing with her arms folded on the upper berth breast high. She had been standing there an hour. She was alone in the cabin, for Luke had secured separate rooms for the two ladies.

Agatha had not moved since she came down from the ball. She did not seem to be thinking of going to bed. The large square port-hole was open, and the cool breeze fluttered the lace of her dress, stirring the dead violets at her breast.

Her finely cut features were set with a look of strong determination. "I can't--I can't be poor," she was repeating to herself with a mechanical monotony.

CHAPTER XIII. A CHOICE.

'Tis better far to love and be poor, Than be rich with an empty heart.

Mrs. Harrington was sitting in the great drawing-room in Grosvenor Gardens, alone. The butler was fuming and cleaning plate in his pantry. The maid was weeping in the workroom. Mrs. Harrington had had a busy afternoon.

"'Tis always thus when she's alone in the house," the cook had said, with a grandiosity of style borrowed from the Family Herald. It is easy for the cook to be grandiose when the butler and the lady's- maid are in trouble. Thus philosophy walketh in at the back door.

Mrs. Harrington's sharp grey face twitched at times with a certain restlessness which was hers when she had no one at hand to bully.

She could not concentrate her attention on the newspaper she held in her hands, and at intervals her eyes wandered over the room in search of something to find fault with. She made the mistake common to persons under such circ.u.mstances--she forgot to look in the mirror. Mrs. Harrington was tired of herself. She wished someone would call. At the same time she felt a cordial dislike to all her friends.

It was a hopelessly grey afternoon early in December, and every one was out of London. Mrs. Harrington had a certain circle of friends- -middle-aged or elderly women, rich like herself, lonely like herself--whom she despised. They all rather disliked each other, these women, but they visited nevertheless. They dined together seriously; keeping in mind the cook, and watchful over the wine.

But the majority of these ladies had gone away for the winter. The Riviera was created for such.

Mrs. Harrington, however, never went abroad in the winter. She said that she had travelled too much when she was younger--in the lifetime of her husband--to care about it now. The Honourable George Henry Harrington had, in fact, lived abroad for financial reasons, and the name was not of sweet savour in the nostrils of hotel-keepers. The married life referred to occasionally in cold tones by the Honourable Mrs. Harrington had been of that order which is curtly called "cat and dog," and likewise "hand to mouth."

Therefore Mrs. Harrington avoided the Continent. She could easily, of her affluence, have paid certain large debts which she knew to be outstanding, but she held a theory that dead men owe nothing. And with this theory she lubricated an easy-going conscience.

The mistress of the large house in Grosvenor Gardens was wondering discontentedly what she was going to do with herself until tea-time, when she heard the sound of a bell ringing far down in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Despite the grand drawing-room, despite the rich rustle of her grey silk dress, this great lady peeped from behind the curtain, and saw a hansom cab.

A few minutes later the door was thrown open by the angry butler.

"Miss Challoner--Captain Bontnor."

Eve came in, and at her heels Captain Bontnor, who sheered off as it were from the butler, and gave him a wide berth.

Mrs. Harrington could be gracious when she liked. She liked now, and she would have kissed her visitor had that young lady shown any desire for such an honour. But there was a faint reflex of Spanish ceremony in Eve Challoner, of which she was probably unaware. A few years ago it would not have been noticeable, but to-day we are hail- fellow-well-met even with ladies--which is a mistake, on the part of the ladies.

"So you received my letter, my dear," said Mrs. Harrington.

"Yes," replied Eve. "This is my uncle--Captain Bontnor."

Mrs. Harrington had the bad taste to raise her eyebrows infinitesimally, and Captain Bontnor saw it.

"How do you do?" said Mrs. Harrington, with a stiff bow.

"I am quite well, thank you, marm," replied the sailor, with more aplomb than Eve had yet seen him display.

Without waiting to hear this satisfactory intelligence, Mrs.

Harrington turned to Eve again. She evidently intended to ignore Captain Bontnor systematically and completely.

"You know," she said, "I am related to your father--"

"By marriage," put in Captain Bontnor, with simple bluntness. He was brushing his hat with a large pocket-handkerchief.

"And I have pleasant recollections of his kindness in past years. I stayed with him at the Casa d'Erraha more than once. I was staying there when--well, some years ago. I think you had better come and live with me until your poor father's affairs have been put in order."

Captain Bontnor raised his head and ceased his operations on the dusty hat. His keen old eyes, full of opposition, were fixed on Eve's face. He was quite ready to be rude again, but women know how to avoid these shallow places better than men, with a policy which is not always expedient perhaps.

"Thank you," replied Eve. "Thank you very much, but my uncle has kindly offered me a home."

Mrs. Harrington's grey face suggested a scorn which she apparently did not think it worth while to conceal from a person who wiped the inside of his hat with his pocket-handkerchief in a lady's presence.

"But," she said coldly, "I should think that your uncle cannot fail to see the superior advantages of the offer I am now making you, from a social point of view, if from no other."

"I do see them advantages, marm," said the captain bluntly. He looked at Eve with something dog-like peering from beneath his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows.

"Of course," continued Mrs. Harrington, ignoring the confession, "you have been brought up as a lady, and are accustomed to refinement, and in some degree to luxury."

"You needn't make it any plainer, marm," blurted out Captain Bontnor. "I don't need you to tell me that my niece is above me. I don't set up for bein' anything nor what I am. There's not much of the gentleman about me. But--"

He paused, and half turned towards Eve.

"But, 'cording to my lights, I'm seeking to do my duty towards the orphan child of my sister Amelia Ann."

"Not overlooking the fact, I suppose, that the orphan child of your sister Amelia Ann has a very fair income of her own."

Captain Bontnor smiled blandly, and smoothed his hat with his sleeve.

"Not overlooking that fact, marm," he said, "if you choose to take it so."

Mrs. Harrington turned to Eve again with a faint reflex of her overbearing manner towards the Ingham-Bakers and other persons who found it expedient to submit.