Vision House Part 3

"Is that his room?" breathed the girl.

"I thought that was the window, but I must be mistaken, of course.

Probably it's the next one--on my side or yours."

Marise let the question drop. She wasn't pining to confide the contents of her mind. Besides, her conjectures were too vague for words. In striving to frame them she would surely laugh, and Mums would think her a callous wretch.

Mrs. Sorel, anxious to be overheard saying the right thing, if she were overheard at all, began to chat about friends who had sent flowers or telegrams on board. Each name she mentioned had a "handle." She liked Lord Severance to be reminded casually now and then that her girl had t.i.tled admirers outside the circle he had brought round them. But Marise was not listening. She was putting two and two together.

When she suggested that the V.C. had been billeted in Tony's cabin, Tony had said neither "yes" nor "no," now she came to think of it. He had caught at another branch of the subject which she elected to pursue. He hadn't wanted her to know that the loathed Major Garth was his room-mate. Why? Oh, he would feel it humiliating to his _amour propre_.

He had wished to buy a cabin for himself alone, and had been told that it was too late: "the company would do their best, but could not promise." Then, fate and the company's good intentions had picked out the one companion he would least have chosen.

It was almost too queer, and too bad, to be true; yet the more she thought of it the truer it seemed. Her mother's impression about the window--and the lack of surprise Severance had shown after the "accident." Once recovered from the shock, he wore an air of having got what might have been expected. He hadn't even looked over his wet shoulder to glare at the sniper. Oh, Marise saw it all now! Tony had made his last remarks for the benefit of the _bete noire_, believing he had gone to the mutual cabin, but not dreaming how far a bounder, in bounding, might bound for revenge. She would have given a good deal to know whether Severance had now joined his room-mate in their quarters, and if so, what was going on.

In a hand-to-hand fight Severance would be apt to get second best with Samson, unless skill should master strength. Was that why he had flung back no challenge? But, of course, it couldn't be; Tony was not a coward. He had merely kept his temper to save a scene. Nevertheless, she wished that Garth hadn't shut the window!

CHAPTER IV

REPRISALS--ET CETERA

Jorn Garth considered himself completely justified in shooting Severance with a pint of iced ginger-beer, and even had his conscience squirmed he would have committed the act. Knowing that Severance thought of, and denounced, him as "a bounder," he didn't see why, when worst came to worst, he shouldn't live up to the reputation.

Worst had come to worst on board the _Britannia_. Things had been bad enough before, but the climax was reached when the two men found themselves caged in the same room, neither one willing to play lamb to the other's lion. Garth hated the proximity as hotly as Severance hated it; but there was no cabin of any cla.s.s with a free berth, save one occupied by a coloured colonel in charge of negro troops going home.

Garth had a deep respect for the dark soldiers, who had distinguished themselves in the war; but men of white and men of black skin were not quartered together; and he had never boiled to throttle Severance as he boiled at the cool proposal that he should join Colonel Dookey.

"Join him yourself," he said.

"I'm not an American," shrugged Severance.

"That's why you and he would get along better than you and me, or he and me," retorted Garth, careless of grammar.

"I shall remain where I am," Severance gave his ultimatum.

"Same here. You ought to be thankful your earlship has got the lower berth."

This statement required no answer; and the conversation lapsed.

Garth had not taken his allotted seat at the Captain's table, because he understood that ladies would be there, friends of Lord Severance. He could not trust his temper if it were strained by continued public snubbing in the presence of women. Besides, secretly shy of the dangerous s.e.x, the man who had won the V.C. shrank like a coward from the prospect of being "turned down" by aristocratic females. He preferred to s.n.a.t.c.h picnic meals in the hot smoke-room or to munch a sandwich on the wind-swept deck, having this one advantage of the enemy: he was a good sailor.

Seeing Severance seasick had "given him back a bit of his own," and made up for a good deal, including close quarters. Because a man can't hit a foe when he's down, however, Garth had let slip a heaven-sent chance for revenge. He refrained from jeering aloud at his brother officer's qualms. But was the said officer grateful for the superhuman sacrifice?

On the contrary! To-day's work on deck was the climax. Garth had heard and seen Severance sneering at him, as he had sneered before. Sneering to men was one thing, however; sneering to the most beautiful girl Garth had ever seen was another.

Severance's attempt to drive Garth from the regiment by rendering the mess impossible, and by other methods which in contrast made schoolboy ragging kind, had only stiffened the American's resolve to "stick it."

Failing the stings and pin-p.r.i.c.ks inflicted by Severance as ringleader, and two or three of his followers, Garth would not have desired to stay in the British Army after the war, although his father had been an officer in it. As it was, though he hadn't yet settled the future, he inclined to hold his commission for awhile, if only to "show those chaps they couldn't phaze him." He had felt bulldoggy rather than wild bullish. But catching a word or two blown to his ears by the wind on deck to-day, he had at the same time caught fire. Here was the limit, and down the other side! He burned to prove this to Severance in some way slightly more delicate than murder. In such a mood he slammed into their cabin, and heard a little more. Still flaming, he saw the ginger-beer bottle (by an irony of fate, Severance's bottle), and then, almost before he knew what he was doing, the thing was done. A caddish but a luscious thing! He gloried in it. As he stood at the stateroom window, the emptied weapon fizzing in his hand, it struck Garth that he had hit the nail on the head.

"That's it," he said to himself, as he watched Severance furiously sop his hair. "I've hit the nail on the head!"

Never had he been more pleased with the precision of his aim, for not a drop had gone wide of the target. He had counted on his skill to make a bull's-eye or he would not have risked the coup. Of course, Severance's friends would loathe as well as despise him; but they must admit that the reprisal was pat, and above all neat. He shut the window and roared.

He hoped the trio outside would hear him, and he yearned to know what Severance's next step would be.

For this knowledge he had not long to wait; but when it came, it brought disillusion. Severance arrived promptly, still dripping, to find Garth at bay, a grin on his face.

"Your beer," said V.C. "I'll pay you for it."

He expected the other to shout "You shall!" and spring at him. Severance seemed to think, however, that the dignified course was cold silence.

"Registering" scorn too glacial for language or even action, he gazed at Garth as if the latter were a worm of some new and abominable species unknown to science and beneath cla.s.sification. This effect produced, he turned to the mirror and repaired ravages to his hair with "Honey and Flowers." The moment he was his well-groomed self again, he went out, having uttered not one word.

"Well, I'm d.a.m.ned!" remarked Garth aloud. He then laughed, also aloud.

But there was a flat sound in his mirth. He felt like a good hot fire quenched by a shovelful of snow, and was not sure whether he or Severance had scored. Vaguely at a loss, like a stray dog, he took a book to the smoking room, having no ambition to parade the deck c.o.c.k-o'-the-walk fashion. It turned out, however, that he could not read. He could do nothing but think of that girl--that beautiful, beautiful girl.

Every man grows up with some ideal, bright or dim, of the woman whose beauty might mean to him all romance: the woman of the horizon, of the sunrise, of the bright foam of sea-waves. The girl on A deck of the _Britannia_ was Garth's ideal, his "Princess of Paradise."

He didn't know who she was, but he meant to know. Not that it would do him any good to find out. She was a friend of Severance, which meant that there was a high wall round her so far as he, Garth, was concerned.

All the same, he wouldn't let much gra.s.s grow--or many waves break--under his feet before he was in possession of her name. This was about all he was ever likely to have of hers! But so much he would have, soon.

Presently a steward brought matches for his pipe. "Can you tell me,"

Garth inquired, "who are the ladies sitting amidships on the port side of this deck; a young lady in a blue hat, with a grey fur coat, and an older woman in brown? They look as they'd be someone in particular?"

"They are, sir," replied the man quite eagerly. "You must mean Miss Sorel and her mother; they're with the Earl of Severance."

"That's right," said Garth. "I wonder, are they the ones at the Captain's table."

"Certain to be, sir," the steward a.s.sured him.

Garth lit his pipe, and let the steward go without further questioning.

He yearned to ask who the Sorels were, and why it was so certain they would be in the place of honour at the Captain's table--where he might have been, and was not! But somehow, the thought of pumping a steward for intimate details about that girl repelled him. He supposed she was "some swell" in Severance's set. Not since he had enlisted in the Grenadier Guards, nearly five years ago, had he taken leave in London.

He had been eight times a "casualty," but by luck, or ill-luck, his wounds had not been "Blighty-wounds." His last leave he had spent in Paris, and the second--one summer--in Yorkshire and Scotland, because his father had been a Yorkshireman by birth.

If Garth had ever heard of Marise Sorel's success in New York and London, the story had gone in at one ear and out at the other. It did not occur to him that the Radiant Dream might be an actress. But her face haunted him, got between his eyes and his book and made his pipe go out, as sunlight is supposed to extinguish a fire.

He had rather prided himself on these old clothes of his, on shipboard.

They were full five years of age, had been bought ready-made at Albuquerque, Arizona, for twenty dollars, and were d.a.m.ned comfortable.

Now, to his shamed surprise, he found himself wishing he had kept to khaki, as he had a right to do. Severance had called him a "clod-hopper," and he knew the word fitted him in that suit, a blamed sight better than did the suit itself!

Well, it wasn't too late yet. He could doll up in his uniform any minute; he could even claim his place at the Captain's table, and meet the Girl. His heart beat at the thought. He made up his mind he would do just that; and then as quickly he changed it.

No, he might be a bounder, but he wouldn't be a cross between an a.s.s and a peac.o.c.k. He'd go on as he'd begun. If there were a laugh anywhere at present, it was against Severance. He would do nothing to turn it against Garth.

This resolution he clung to, despite occasional wobblings, for the rest of the voyage.

Garth had not a "blood relation" on earth, as far as he knew; but he had an adopted mother, and he had friends. These people lived mostly in the West. He meant to see a little life in New York before going out there, but he did not expect a soul in the east to notice his existence. It was a surprise for him when all the reporters who swarmed on board the _Britannia_ from the tender made a bee-line for Major Garth, V.C. Each wanted a "story," and Garth didn't know what to say. He was too glad to see the sh.o.r.es of his adopted land, and too good-natured to snub the humblest, but he didn't enjoy being interviewed. He got out of the sc.r.a.pe as soon as he could; but there was another surprise awaiting him on deck. He found himself a hero to the Custom House men!

There was no chance of finding out what had become of Miss Sorel, but as the reporters had rallied round her, and Lord Severance also, Garth was reasonably sure to read later on who the girl was; where she was going; whether or no she were engaged to his n.o.ble brother officer; and, indeed, even many more picturesque facts than she knew about herself.