The Pagan Madonna Part 28

There are no guns on board this yacht--bare hands. Now go back to your master and say that I'd like to do the same to him."

Flint, his hands touching his throat with inquiring solicitude--Flint eyed Dennison with that mixture of pain and astonishment that marks the face of a man who has been grossly deceived. Slowly he revolved on his shaking legs and staggered forward, shortly to disappear round the deck house.

"Oh, Denny, you've done a foolish thing! You've shamed that man before me and put murder in his heart. It isn't as if we were running the yacht. We are prisoners of that man and his fellows. It would have been enough for you to have stepped in between."

"I haven't any parlour varnish left, Jane. His shoulder was almost touching yours. It was an intentional insult, and that was enough for me.

The dog! Still looking at the business romantically?"

His tone was bitter. Her reproach, no doubt justified, cut deeply.

"No, I'm beginning to become a little afraid--afraid that the men may get out of hand. I don't care what you and your father think, but I believe Cunningham honestly wishes us to reach the Catwick without any conflict."

"Ah, Cunningham!"

"There you go again--angry and bitter! Why can't you take it sensibly, like your father?"

"My father doesn't happen to be----"

He stopped with mystifying abruptness.

"Doesn't happen to be what?"

"The sort of fool I am!"

"You're not so good a comrade as you were."

"Can't you understand? I've been stood upon my head. The worry about you on one side and the contact with my father on the other would be sufficient. But Cunningham and this pirate crew as a tail to the kite!

But, thank G.o.d, I had the wit to come in search of you!"

"I thank G.o.d every minute, Denny! You are very strong," she added, shyly.

"Glad of that, too. But I repeat, I've lost the parlour varnish and the art of parlour talk. For seven years I've been wandering in strange places, most of them hard; so I say what I think and act on the spur. That dog had liquor on his breath. Is Cunningham secretly letting them into the dry-stores?"

"The man may have brought it aboard at Shanghai. What a horrible thing a great war is! In a week it knocks aside all the bars of restraint it took years to erect. Could a venture like this have happened in 1913? I doubt it. There comes your father. But who is the man with him? He's been hurt."

"Father's watchdog. They had to beat him up to get his gun away from him.

That was the racket we heard. Evidently Father expects you to read to him, so I'll take a const.i.tutional."

"Why, where's your uniform?" she cried.

"Laid it aside. From now on it will be stuffy. Those military boots were killing me. I borrowed the rig from one of the pirates, but I'll have to go barefoot."

"Will you come to your chair soon? I shall worry otherwise. You might run into that man again."

"I shan't go below," he promised, starting off.

Twenty thousand at compound interest for seven years, he thought, as he made the first turn. A tidy sum to start life with. Could he swallow his pride? And yet what hope was there of making a real living? He had never specialized in anything, and the world was calling for specialists and discarding the others. Another point to consider: Foot-loose for seven years, could he stand the shackles of office work, routine, the sameness day in and day out? He was returning to the States without the least idea what he wanted to do; that was the disturbing phase of it. If only he were keen for something! A typical son of the rich man. The only point in his favour was that he had not spent his allowances up and down Broadway. No, he would never touch a dollar of that money. That was final.

What lay back of this sudden desire to make good in the world? Love! There wasn't the slightest use in lying to himself. He wanted Jane Norman with all the blood in his body, with all the marrow in his bones; and he had nothing to offer her but empty hands.

He shot a glance toward the bridge. And because he had no right to speak--obligated to silence by two reasons--that easy-speaking scoundrel might trap her fancy. It could not be denied that he was handsome, but he was nevertheless a rogue. The two reasons why he must not speak were potent. In the first place, he had nothing to offer; in the second place, the terror she was no doubt hiding bravely would serve only to confuse her--that is, she might confuse a natural desire for protection with something deeper and tenderer, and then discover her mistake when it was too late.

What was she going to ask of his father when the time came for reparation?

That puzzled him.

He made the rounds steadily for an hour, and during this time Jane frequently looked over the top of the ma.n.u.script she was reading aloud. At length she laid the ma.n.u.script upon her knees.

"Mr. Cleigh, what is it that makes art treasures so priceless?"

"Generally the depth of the buyer's purse. That is what they say of me in the great auction rooms."

"But you don't buy them just because you are rich enough to outbid somebody else?"

"No, I am actually fond of all the treasures I possess. Aside from this, it is the most fascinating game there is. The original! A painting that Holbein laid his own brushes on, mixed his own paint for! I have then something of the man, tangible, visible; something of his beautiful dreams, his poverty, his success. There before me is the authentic labour of his hand, which was guided by the genius of his brain--before machinery spoiled mankind. Oh, yes, machinery has made me rich! It has given the proletariat the privilege of wearing yellow diamonds and riding about in flivvers. That must be admitted. But to have lived in those days when ambition thought only in beauty! To have been the boon companions of men like Da Vinci, Cellini, Michelangelo! Then there are the adventures of this concrete dream of the artist. I can trace it back to the bare studio in which it was conceived, follow its journeys, its abiding places, down to the hour it comes to me."

Jane stared at him astonishedly. All that had been crampedly hidden in his soul flowed into his face, warming and mellowing it, even beautifying it.

Cleigh went on:

"Where will it go when I have done my little span? What new adventures lie in store for it? Across the Ponte Vecchio in Florence runs a gallery of portraits: at the south end of this gallery there is or was a corner given over to a copyist. He strikes you dumb with the cleverness of his work, but he has only an eye and a hand--he hasn't a soul. A copy is to the original what a dummy is to a live man, no matter how amazingly well done the copy is. The original, the dream; nothing else satisfies the true collector."

"I didn't know," said Jane, "that you had so much romance in you."

"Romance?" It was almost a bark.

"Why, certainly. No human being could love beauty the way you do and not be romantic."

"Romantic!" Cleigh leaned back in his chair. "That's a new point of view for Tungsten Cleigh. That's what my enemies call me--the hardest metal on earth. Romantic!" He chuckled. "To hear a woman call me romantic!"

"It does not follow that to be romantic one must be sentimental. Romance is something heroic, imaginative, big; it isn't a young man and a girl spooning on a park bench. I myself am romantic, but n.o.body could possibly call me sentimental."

"No?"

"Why, if I knew that we'd come through this without anybody getting hurt I'd be gloriously happy. All my life I've been cooped up. For a little while to be free! But I don't like that."

She indicated Dodge, who sat in Dennison's chair, his head bandaged, his arm in a sling, thousands of miles from his native plains, at odds with his environment. His lean brown jaws were set and the pupils of his blue eyes were mere pin points. During the discussion of art, during the reading, he had not stirred.

"You mean," said Cleigh, gravely, "that Dodge may be only the beginning?"

"Yes. Your--Captain Dennison had an encounter with the man Flint before you came up. He is very strong and--and a bit intolerant."

"Ah!" Cleigh rubbed his jaw and smiled ruminatively. "He was always rather handy with his fists. Did he kill the ruffian?"

"No, held him at arm's length and threatened to kill him. I'm afraid Flint will not accept the situation with good grace."

"Flint? I never liked that rogue's face."

"He has found liquor somewhere, and I saw murder in his eyes. Denny isn't afraid, and that's why I am--afraid he'll run amuck uselessly. His very strength will react against him."

"I was like that thirty years ago." So she called him Denny? Cleigh laid his hand over hers. "Keep your chin up. There's a revolver handy should we need it. I dare not carry it for fear Cunningham might discover and confiscate it. Six bullets."