The Pagan Madonna Part 19

That first dinner would always remain vivid and clear-cut in Jane Norman's mind. It was fantastic. To begin with, there was that picturesque stone image at the head of the table--Cleigh--who appeared utterly oblivious of his surroundings, who ate with apparent relish, and who ignored both men, his son and his captor. Once or twice Jane caught his glance--a blue eye, sharp-pupiled, agate-hard. But what was it she saw--a twinkle or a sparkle? The breadth of his shoulders! He must be very powerful, like the son. Why, the two of them could have pulverized this pretty fellow opposite!

Father and son! For seven years they had not met. Their indifference seemed so inhuman! Still, she fancied that the son dared not make any approach, however much he may have longed to. A woman! They had quarrelled over a woman! Something reached down from the invisible and pinched her heart.

All this while Cunningham had been talking--banter. The blade would flash toward the father or whirl upon the son, or it would come toward her by the handle. She could not get away from the initial idea--that his eyes were like fire opals.

"Miss Norman, you have very beautiful hair."

"You think so?"

"It looks like Judith's. You remember, Cleigh, the one that hangs in the Pitti Galleria in Florence--Allori's?"

Cleigh reached for a piece of bread, which he broke and b.u.t.tered.

Cunningham turned to Jane again.

"Will you do me the favour of taking out the hairpins and loosing it?"

"No!" said Dennison.

"Why not?" said Jane, smiling bravely enough, though there ran over her spine a chill.

It wasn't Cunningham's request--it was Dennison's refusal. That syllable, though spoken moderately, was the essence of battle, murder, and sudden death. If they should clash it would mean that Denny--how easy it was to call him that!--Denny would be locked up and she would be all alone. For the father seemed as aloof and remote as the pole.

"You shall not do it!" declared Dennison. "Cunningham, if you force her I will break every bone in your body here and now!"

Cleigh selected an olive and began munching it.

"Nonsense!" cried Jane. "It's all awry anyhow." And she began to extract the hairpins. Presently she shook her head, and the ruddy ma.s.s of hair fell and rippled across and down her shoulders.

"Well?" she said, looking whimsically into Cunningham's eyes. "It wasn't there, was it?"

This tickled Cunningham.

"You're a woman in a million! You read my thought perfectly. I like ready wit in a woman. I had to find out. You see, I had promised those beads to Cleigh, and when I humanly can I keep my promises. Sit down, captain!" For Dennison had risen to his feet. "Sit down! Don't start anything you can't finish." To Jane there was in the tone a quality which made her compare it with the elder Cleigh's eyes--agate-hard. "You are younger and stronger, and no doubt you could break me. But the moment my hand is withdrawn from this business--the moment I am off the board--I could not vouch for the crew. They are more or less decent chaps, or they were before this d.a.m.ned war stood humanity on its head. We wear the same clothes, use the same phrases; but we've been thrust back a thousand years. And Miss Norman is a woman. You understand?"

Dennison sat down.

"You'd better kill me somewhere along this voyage."

"I may have to. Who knows? There's no real demarcation between comedy and tragedy; it's the angle of vision. It's rough medicine, this; but your father has agreed to take it sensibly, because he knows me tolerably well.

Still, it will not do him any good to plan bribery. Buy the crew, Cleigh, if you believe you can. You'll waste your time. I do not pretend to hold them by loyalty. I hold them by fear. Act sensibly, all of you, and this will be a happy family. For after all, it's a joke, a whale of a joke. And some day you'll smile over it--even you, Cleigh."

Cleigh pressed the steward's b.u.t.ton.

"The jam and the cheese, Togo," he said to the j.a.p.

"Yess, sair!"

A hysterical laugh welled into Jane's throat, but she did not permit it to escape her lips. She began to build up her hair clumsily, because her hands trembled.

Adventure! She thrilled! She had read somewhere that after seven thousand years of tortuous windings human beings had formed about themselves a thin sh.e.l.l which they called civilization. And always someone was breaking through and retracing those seven thousand years. Here was an example in Cunningham. Only a single step was necessary. It took seven thousand years to build your sh.e.l.l, and only a minute to destroy it. There was something fascinating in the thought. A reckless spirit pervaded Jane, a longing to burst through this sh.e.l.l of hers and ride the thunderbolt. Monotony--that had been her portion, and only her dreams had kept her from withering.

From the house to the hospital and back home again, days, weeks, years.

She had begun to hate white; her soul thirsted for colour, movement, thrill. The call that had been walled in, suppressed, broke through.

Piracy on high seas, and Jane Norman in the cast!

She was not in the least afraid of the whimsical rogue opposite. He was more like an uninvited dinner guest. Perhaps this lack of fear had its origin in the oily smoothness by which the yacht had changed hands. Beyond the subjugation of Dodge, there had not been a ripple of commotion. It was too early to touch the undercurrents. All this lulled and deceived her.

Piracy? Where were the cutla.s.ses, the fierce moustaches, the red bandannas, the rattle of dice, and the drunken songs?--the piracy of tradition? If she had any fear at all it was for the man at her left--Denny--who might run amuck on her account and spoil everything. All her life she would hear the father's voice--"The jam and the cheese, Togo." What men, all three of them!

Cunningham laid his napkin on the table and stood up.

"Absolute personal liberty, if you will accept the situation sensibly."

Dennison glowered at him, but Jane reached out and touched the soldier's sleeve.

"Please!"

"For your sake, then. But it's tough medicine for me to swallow."

"To be sure it is," agreed the rogue. "Look upon me as a supercargo for the next ten days. You'll see me only at lunch and dinner. I've a lot of work to do in the chart house. By the way, the wireless man is mine, Cleigh, so don't waste any time on him. Hope you're a good sailor, Miss Norman, for we are heading into rough weather, and we haven't much beam."

"I love the sea!"

"Hang it, you and I shan't have any trouble! Good-night."

Cunningham limped to the door, where he turned and eyed the elder Cleigh, who was stirring his coffee thoughtfully. Suddenly the rogue burst into a gale of laughter, and they could hear recurrent bursts as he wended his way to the companion.

When this sound died away Cleigh turned his glance levelly upon Jane. The stone-like mask dissolved into something that was pathetically human.

"Miss Norman," he said, "I don't know what we are heading into, but if we ever get clear I will make any reparation you may demand."

"Any kind of a reparation?"--an eager note in her voice.

Dennison stared at her, puzzled, but almost instantly he was conscious of the warmth of shame in his cheeks. This girl wasn't that sort--to ask for money as a balm for the indignity offered her. What was she after?

"Any kind of reparation," repeated Cleigh.

"I'll remember that--if we get through. And somehow I believe we shall."

"You trust that scoundrel?" asked Cleigh, astonishedly.

"Inexplicably--yes."

"Because he happens to be handsome?"--with frank irony.

"No." But she looked at the son as she spoke. "He said he never broke his word. No man can be a very great villain who can say that. Did he ever break his word to you?"

"Except in this instance."