Part 68

John lolled back in his chair, slowly sipping at his tall glass, and neither of us made any remark. I think he wanted to ask me how I came to mention the Duke of Clarence; but I did not see how he very well could, and he certainly made no attempt to do so. Thus did we sit for some time, hearing the piano and the company grow livelier and louder with solos, and choruses, and laughter. By and by the shadow of the awning shifted, causing me to look up, when I saw the shores slowly changing; the tide had turned, and was beginning to run out. Land and water lay in immense peace; the long, white, silent picture of the town with its steeples on the one hand, and on the other the long, low shore, and the trees behind. Into this rose the high voice of Gazza, singing in broken English, “Razzla-dazzla, razzla-dazzla,” while his hearers beat upon glasses with spoons--at least so I conjectured.

“Aren’t you coming, John?” asked Hortense, appearing at the companionway. She looked very bacchanalian. Her splendid amber hair was half riotous, and I was reminded of the toboggan fire-escape.

He obeyed her; and now I had the deck entirely to myself, or, rather, but one other and distant person shared it with me. The hour had come, the bells had struck; Charley’s crew was eating its dinner below forward; Charley’s guests were drinking their liquor below aft; Charley’s correct meal-flag was to be seen in the port fore rigging, as he had said, red and triangular; and away off from me in the bow was the anchor watch, whom I dreamily watched trying to light his pipe. His matches seemed to be bad; and the brotherly thought of helping him drifted into my mind--and comfortably out of it again, without disturbing my agreeable repose. It had been really entertaining in John to tell Kitty that she ought to see the inside of Kings Port; that was like his engaging impishness with Juno. If by any possible contrivance (and none was possible) Kitty and her Replacers could have met the inside of Kings Port, Kitty would have added one more “quaint” impression to her stock, and gone away in total ignorance of the quality of the impression she had made--and Bohm would probably have again remarked, “Worse than Sunday.” No; the St. Michaels and the Replacers would never meet in this world, and I see no reason that they should in the next. John’s light and pleasing skirmish with Kitty gave me the glimpse of his capacities which I had lacked hitherto. John evidently “knew his way about,” as they say; and I was diverted to think how Miss Josephine St. Michael would have nodded over his adequacy and shaken her head at his squandering it on such a companion. But it was no squandering; the boy’s heavy spirit was making a gallant “bluff” at playing up with the lively party he had no choice but to join, and this one saw the moment he was not called upon to play up.

The peaceful loveliness that floated from earth and water around me triumphed over the jangling hilarity of the cabin, and I dozed away, aware that they were now all thumping furiously in chorus, while Gazza sang something that went, “Oh, she’s my leetle preety poosee pet.” When I roused, it was Kitty’s voice at the piano, but no change in the quality of the song or the thumping; and Hortense was stepping on deck. She had a cigarette, her beauty flashed with devilment, and John followed her. “They are going to have an explanation,” I thought, as I saw his face. If that were so, then Kitty had blundered in her strategy and hurt Charley’s cause; for after the two came Gazza, as obviously “sent” as any emissary ever looked: Kitty took care of the singing, while Gazza intercepted any tete-a-tete. I rose and made a fourth with them, and even as I was drawing near, the devilment in Hortense’s face sank inward beneath cold displeasure.

I had never been a welcome person to Hortense, and she made as little effort to conceal this as usual. Her indifferent eyes glanced at me with drowsy insolence, and she made her beautiful, low voice as remote and inattentive as her skilful social equipment could render it.

“It is so hot in the cabin.”

This was all she had for me. Then she looked at Gazza with returning animation.

“Oh, la la!” said Gazza. “If it is hot in the cabin!” And he flirted his handkerchief back and forth.

“I think I had the best of it,” I remarked. “All the melody and none of the temperature.”

Hortense saw no need of noticing me further

“The singer has the worst of it,” said Gazza.

“But since you all sang!” I laughed.

“Miss Rieppe, she is cool,” continued Gazza. “And she danced. It is not fair.”

John contributed nothing. He was by no means playing up now. He was looking away at the shore.

Gazza hummed a little fragment. “But after lunch I will sing you good music.”

“So long as it keeps us cool,” I suggested.

“Ah, no! It will not be cool music!” cried Gazza--“for those who understand.”

“Are those boys bathing?” Hortense now inquired.

We watched the distant figures, and presently they flashed into the water.

“Oh, me!” sighed Gazza. “If I were a boy!”

Hortense looked at him. “You would be afraid.” The devilment had come out again, suddenly and brilliantly:

“I never have been afraid!” declared Gazza.

“You would not jump in after me,” said Hortense, taking his measure more and more provokingly.

Gazza laid his hand on his heart. “Where you go, I will go!”

Hortense looked at him, and laughed very slightly and lightly.

“I swear it! I swear!” protested Gazza.

John’s eyes were now fixed upon Hortense.

“Would you go?” she asked him