The Harbor of Doubt Part 29

Again Elsa blushed, but this time the color came from a different source. Little did he know that her philanthropy was all a part of the same plan--to win his favor.

"And the things I know you must have done for my mother," he went on.

"Those are the things that I appreciate more than any. It is not every woman who would even think of them, let alone do them."

Why would he force her into this att.i.tude of perpetual lying?

she thought. It was becoming worse and worse. Why was he so straightforward and so blind? Could he not see that she loved him? Was he one of those cold and pa.s.sionless men upon whom no woman ever exerts an intense influence?

Though she did not know it, she expressed the whole fault in her system. A man reared in a more complex community than a fishing village would have divined her scheme, and the result would have been a prolonged but most delightful duel of wits and hearts.

But Code, by the very directness of his honesty, and simplicity of his nature, cut through the gauzy wrappings of this delectable package and went straight to its heart. And there he found nothing, because what little of the deeply genuine there lay in this woman's restless nature was disguised and shifted at the will of her caprice.

When Code had experienced the pleasure of lighting a genuine clear Havana cigar after many months of abstinence, she leaned across the table to him, her hands clasped before her.

"Code, what does loneliness represent to you?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know," he temporized, taken aback. "I don't go in for loneliness much; but when I do, why all I want is--well, let me see, a good game of quoits with the boys in front of the church, or a talk with my mother about how rich we are going to be some day when I get that partnership in the fishstand. I'm too busy to be lonely."

"And I'm too lonely to be busy!" He looked at her unbelievingly.

"You!" he cried. "Why, you have everything in the world; you can go anywhere, do anything, have the people about you that you want. You, lonely? I don't understand you."

"Well, I'll put it another way. Did you ever want something so hard that it hurt, and couldn't get it?"

"Yes, I wanted my father back after he died," said Code simply.

"And I wanted Jim after he died," added Elsa. "Those things are bad enough; but one gets used to them. What I mean especially is something we see about us all the time and have no chance of getting. Did you ever want something like that, so that it nearly killed you, and couldn't get it?"

Code was silent. The one rankling hurt of his whole life, after seemingly being healed, broke out afresh--the engagement of Nat Burns and Nellie Tanner.

He suddenly realized that, since seeing Elsa, he had not as much as remembered Nellie's existence, when usually her mental presence was not far from him. Elsa, with all her luxury and alluring feminine charms, seemed to cast a spell that bound him helpless like the music in the fairy stories. He liked the spell, and, after all she had done, he confessed to an extraordinary feeling for the enchantress.

Now had come the memory of Nellie--dear, frank-eyed, open-hearted Nellie Tanner--and the thought that her fresh wholesomeness was pledged to make glad the life of Nat Burns seared his heart. A cloud settled down on his brow. But in a moment he recalled himself. His hostess had asked him a question; he must answer it.

"Yes, I have wanted something--and couldn't get it."

"Yes," said Elsa slowly, "a thing is bad enough; but it seems to me that the most hopeless thing in the world is to want a person in that way." Her voice was dreamy and retrospective. Its peculiar, vibrant timbre thrilled him with the thought that perhaps there was some hidden tragedy in her life that he had never suspected. Any unpleasant sense that she was curious was overcome by the manner in which she spoke.

"Yes, it is," he answered solemnly.

She looked up in astonishment at the sincerity of his tone, her heart tingling with a new emotion of delicious uncertainty. What if, after all, he had wanted some one in the way she wanted him? What if the some one were herself and he had been afraid to aspire to a woman of her wealth and position? She asked this without any feeling of conceit, for one who loves always dreams he sees signs of favor in the one beloved.

"Then you have wanted some one?" All her manner, her voice, her eyes expressed sympathy. She was the soul of tact and no mean actress at the same time.

Code, still in the depth of reminiscence and averted happiness, scarcely heard her, but he answered

"Yes, I have." Then, coming to full realization of the confession, he colored and laughed uneasily. "But let's not talk of such personal things any more," he added. "You must think me very foolish to be mooning about like this."

"Can I help you?" she asked, half suffocated by the question. "Perhaps there might be something I could do that would bring the one you want to you."

It was the crucial point in the conversation. She held her breath as she awaited his answer. She knew he was no adept at the half-meanings and near-confessions of flirtation, and that she could depend upon his words and actions to be genuine.

He looked at her calmly without the additional beat of a pulse. His color had died down and left him pale. He was considering.

"You have done much for me," he said at last, "and I shall never forget it, but in this matter even _you_ could not help me. Only the Almighty could do it by direct intervention, and I don't believe He works that way in this century," Code smiled faintly.

As for Elsa, she felt the grip as of an icy hand upon her heart. It was some one else that he meant. Was it possible that all her carefully planned campaign had come to this miserable failure? Had she come this far only to lose all?

The expression of her features did not change, and she sought desperately to control her emotion, but she could not prevent two great tears from welling up in her eyes and slowly rolling down her cheeks.

Code sat startled and nonplused. Only once before in his life had he seen a woman cry, and that was when Nellie broke down in his mother's house after the fire. But the cause for that was evident, and the very fact of her tears had been a relief to him. Now, apparently without rime or reason, Elsa Mallaby was weeping.

The sight went to his heart as might the scream of a child in pain. He wondered with a panicky feeling whether he had hurt her in any way.

"I say, Elsa," he cried, "what's the matter? Don't do that. If I've done anything--" He was on his feet and around the little table in an instant. He took her left hand in his left and put his right on her shoulder, speaking to her in broken, incoherent sentences.

But his words, gentle and almost endearing, emphasized the feeling of miserable self-pity that had taken hold of her and she suddenly sobbed aloud.

"Elsa, dear," he cried, beside himself with uncertainty, "what is it?

Tell me. You've done so much for me, please let me do something for you if I can."

"You can't, Code," she said, "unless it's in your heart," and then she bowed her beautiful head forward upon her bare arms and wept. After awhile the storm pa.s.sed and she leaned back.

He kissed her suddenly. Then he abruptly turned to the door and went out.

Schofield had suddenly come to his senses and disengaged himself from Elsa's embrace.

CHAPTER XXV

THE GUILT FIXED

It was the following afternoon before Code Schofield ventured on deck.

When he did so it was to find that all naval uniforms had been laid aside, the imitation bra.s.s guns forward had been removed, and the schooner so altered that she would scarcely have been recognized as the _Albatross_.

The wireless had been erected again, and now the apparatus was spitting forth an almost constant series of messages. The crew, spotless in dungarees and without a vestige of a weapon, maneuvered the schooner as Code had never in his life seen a vessel handled. At a word from the officer of the watch they jumped as one man. Every order was executed on the run, and all sails were swayed as flat and taut as boards.

Code found Elsa ensconced with a book under the awning amidships. Big, comfortable wicker chairs were about and the deck so lately cleared for action had an almost homelike look.

"Did you sleep well?" asked the girl with an entire lack of self-consciousness, as though the episode of the night before had never occurred. Code was very thankful for her tact and much relieved.

It was evident that their relations for the remainder of the four days' journey north were to be impersonal unless he chose to make them otherwise. This he had no intention of doing--after his morning's battle with himself.

"Like a top, when I got started," he replied. "And you?"

"Splendidly, thanks. And you should have seen the breakfast I ate. I am a shameful gourmand when I am at sea."