West Wind Drift Part 11

She looked searchingly into his eyes.

"I see," she said after a moment. "You are in love with her."

"Ridiculous," he exclaimed, scowling.

"And so you prefer to have her fix your hands. I see, my friend. Voila!

If so is the case, I am outcast."

"But, confound it, it isn't the case," he cried. "It's simply this: I wouldn't for the world have her feel that I am not grateful, and that's exactly what it would look like if I allowed you or any one else to b.u.t.t in, Madame Obosky."

"b.u.t.t in?" she said, a puzzled look in her dark eyes. "What is that?"

"It's English for interfere," said he, shortly.

She removed her hand from his arm. He was conscious of the abrupt termination of an exquisite thrill.

"Very well," she said, lifting her chin. "I shall not interfere."

"Forgive me, please," he said. "It's mighty good of you. Please don't think me ungracious. You understand, however,--don't you?"

"No, I do not," she replied, shaking her head slowly. Suddenly her eyes widened. "Is it because I dance in my bare feet, in my bare legs, that you think so vilely of me?"

He stared. "Good Lord! I don't think vilely of you, Madame Obosky. I wasn't even aware that you danced in your bare feet and legs."

"You have never seen Obosky dance?" she cried in astonishment.

"Never."

She frowned. "Then, my friend, I was wrong in what I say just now. Most men who have seen me dance think I am a bad woman, and so they either covet me or despise me. If you have not had ze pleasure of seeing me, Mr. Percivail, you do not either covet me or despise me. That is fine.

It is good to know that you do not despise me." Observing the expression in his eyes, she went on calmly. "Oh, yes, I shall be very much please to have you covet me. Zat--that is all right. But if you despise me,--no, no, zat would be terrible."

For a moment he was dashed. He did not know how to take her remark. She was a new, a strange type to him. After a sharp, quick look into her eyes, however, he came to the conclusion that she was absolutely sincere. So far as she was concerned, it was as if she had said nothing more outrageous than: "I shall be please to consider you one of my admirers."

"My dear Madame," he said, smiling, "permit me to express the hope that both of us may go on to the end of our days without having our peace of mind disturbed."

She looked puzzled for a moment, and then favoured him with her broad, good-natured smile.

WEST WIND DRIFT 85

"Spoken like a Frenchman," she cried, and added, "and with equal sincerity, I fear. Go your way, Monsieur Percivail. I shall keep my gauze. Some day when we are very old people and very old friends I may then be permitted to bandage your hands. At present, however, the risk is too great, eh? I am so inexperience. I might by accident tie your hands in my clumsiness, and zat--that would make so much trouble for Miss Clinton to untie zem,--yes?"

Now there was mockery in her eyes. His face hardened.

"I must be on my way," he said curtly. "We have been looking things over down below. The Captain is waiting for our report."

He bowed and started off. She swung along at his side.

"What have you discover, Mr. Percivail?" she inquired anxiously.

"That, Madame Obosky, is something that will have to come from Captain Trigger."

"I see. That means it is bad. I see."

The lurching of the ship threw her body against his. She righted herself promptly, but did not reveal the slightest confusion nor utter a word of apology.

"By Jove, you're a cool one!" he exclaimed. "I don't believe you know the meaning of fear. Don't you realize, Madame Obosky, that we are in the gravest peril? Don't you know this ship has but one chance in a thousand to pull through?"

"Ah, my friend, but it has the one chance, has it not? Surely I know the meaning of fear. I am afraid of rats and snakes and thieves--and drunken soldiers. I am afraid of death,--terribly afraid of death. Oh, yes, I know what fear is, Mr. Percivail."

"Then, why don't you show it now?" he cried. "Good Lord, I don't mind confessing that I'm scared half to death. I don't want to die like this,--like a rat in a trap."

"But you are not going to die," she proclaimed. "I too would be groaning and praying in my bed if I thought we were going down to the bottom of zis dreadful ocean. But we are not. I have no fear. We shall come out all right on top, and some day we will laugh and tell funny stories about how everybody else was frightened but us,--us apiece, I mean."

"Well, you're a wonder! And how the deuce do you manage to keep your feet with the ship rolling like this?"

"Two things I have been taught, since I am ten years old. First, to keep my head, and second to keep my feet. In my profession, one must do both.

You will always find me doing that. Good-bye,--we part here. You will not forget zat--that I have retain the bandage for you? And you will not ever despise me?"

As she turned away a roll that must have caused the wallowing vessel to list thirty-five degrees at the very least, sent her headlong across the pa.s.sage. She slipped down in a heap. The same lurch had sent him reeling against the wall some distance away. She sat up but did not at once attempt to arise. Instead she clutched frantically at her skirt to draw it down over her shapely ankles and calves. In the lantern light he saw the dismayed, shamed look in her eyes and the vivid blush of embarra.s.sment that suffused her pale cheeks. As the ship rolled back, he moved forward to a.s.sist her, but she sprang lightly to her feet and hurried on ahead of him, disappearing around a corner.

"Well, by gosh!" he muttered aloud in his surprise. "And she dances half naked before thousands of people every night! Can you beat it! The last person in the world you'd think would care a whoop, and she turns out to be as finicky about her legs as your grandmother. Women certainly are queer."

With this profound comment on the inconsistency of the s.e.x, he took himself off in the direction of the Captain's quarters,--a forward cabin which served in lieu of the dismantled bridge.

CHAPTER VII.

He saw but little of her during the next forty-eight hours. She seemed to avoid him. At any other time and in other circ.u.mstances he undoubtedly would have resented her indifference,--a very common and natural masculine failing,--but in these strenuous hours he was too fully occupied with the affairs of life and death. Once she stopped him to inquire if Miss Clinton was still able to dress his wounds.

"Once a day," he replied. "She's even pluckier than you are, Madame Obosky."

Her eyes narrowed. "Indeed?"

"Yes, because she believes we are going to die--every one of us. It takes pluck to keep going when you've got that sort of thing to face, doesn't it?"

Her gesture took in the dozen or more men within range of her vision.

"It should take no more pluck to keep a woman going than a man, my friend. You do not call yourself plucky, do you? I do not call myself plucky. On the contrary, I call myself a coward. I am afraid to stay in my stateroom. I like to be out in the open like zis. One has to be very, very brave, Mr. Percivail, to lie in one's bed all alone and think that death is waiting just outside the thin little walls. Miss Clinton is splendid, but she is not plucky. She is as I am: afraid of the darkness, afraid to be alone, afraid to be where she cannot know and see all zat is happening. She has a woman's courage, just as I have it,--if you please. It is the courage that depends so much on the courage of others.

You think I am brave. I am brave because I am with trained, efficient men. But if the Captain were to come to me now as I stand here, and say zat the ship is to sink in ten minutes and that we all must go down with her, would I face it bravely? No! I would throw myself down on the floor and scream and pray and tear my hair. Why? Because the men had given up.

I am kept up by the courage of others. That is the courage of woman. She must be supported in her pain, in her suffering, in her courage."

"Well, if you put it that way, there are very few men who would take such an announcement from the Captain calmly."

"Perhaps not, my friend. But if there were room for but few in the boats, who would stay behind and go down with the ship? Nine out of every ten of the men. Why? Not because they are all courageous, I grant you, but because of the horrible conceit that makes them our masters.