The day passed as days at sea are accustomed to do, lazily, in siesta, dreaming in deck chair—but her dreams were not pleasant—with books, at exercise. Mr. Knapp descended upon her with his dimpling cheeks and important jowls and suppressed wife, and made himself agreeable in his pompous, erudite manner—very jocular—evidently seeking to make amends for his gaucherie at dinner the night before. She was thankful when they left her to herself. . . . Mr. Ghafir, whom she would have welcomed, was invisible. Paul Dare walked past her chair more than once, but gave it a wide berth—which did not disappoint her—and so came dinner-time, and then bedtime.
The window of her cabin gave upon the promenade deck, and here she stood, after preparing to retire, looking out at the moon's path on the quiet waters, herself hidden by the protecting blind. Where was she going? Whither being driven—and to what contacts and emergencies and dénoûments? Responsible to none, what was she going to do with her liberty? What was going to become of her? . . . There was no answer, nor could she, like the devout of the earth, take refuge in prayer. If prayer had occurred to her she would not have prayed, for she would have considered it, somehow, as avoiding the issue, standing from under, shirking responsibility. There seem to be a great many Christians of a sort who regard God as a being willing to hold the basket for them, but Rhoda was not one of that ilk. . . . She switched off the light and crept into bed. It was dark and very silent.
After a time, it may have been a quarter of an hour, she fancied she heard a soft movement outside, a rubbing as if somebody moved, pressing against the outer wall of her cabin. Then a voice spoke, low, secretive, uttering her name.
"Rhoda."
She sat up and listened, not convinced. Again her name came softly to her ears, and she answered.
"Who is it? What is it?"
"Come to the window."
"Who is it?"
There was a low chuckle, a humorous, tolerant, good-humored chuckle.
"You ought to know. You've been searching the ship for me."
She got softly out of bed, slipped on a quilted gown, and walked steadily to the window.
"Here I am," she said.
"And again I can't see you! I never do have any luck," spoke his debonair voice.
"What do you want?"
Again he laughed, and there was real mirth in it. "I wish I knew," he said, "so let's talk things over and see if I can find out. By the way, have you them with you?"
"What?"
"My little handful of diamonds," he said.
Chapter Five
RHODA hesitated a moment, though it was a demand she might have foreseen and did foresee. Nevertheless, she was not ready to meet it. It was not that she held any fear of Jaunty Bailey in the sense that a normal girl would have feared him; rather it was a fear of herself, a mental and moral confusion. It is true she had been apprehensive, but, now that Bailey was present in the flesh, she rather welcomed the adventure of it, the thrill. There would be a contest between her will and his will and she did not shirk it; and, too, there was a strange excitement for her in the sound of his voice; something which stirred her pleasurably. It was a charming voice, and she could visualize his debonair personality—that personality so well calculated to stir the imagination and to set leaping the flames of romance. In a perverse sort of way he was welcome.
"I suppose," she said, presently, "we may as well have it out."
"Why not?" he asked. "Then we will know where we are and how to march. . . . Suppose you come out."
"No. We will talk here."
His voice told her he was smiling. "Well," he said, "it's like this: some watchman may stroll along and show a prejudice against my whispering through your lattice. Besides that there is a general aversion against the steerage browsing about the first class. If you come out we can walk or sit, and you'll sort of regularize my position in the watchful eyes of authority."
"I'll come," she said, and in a surprisingly short time she appeared upon the dimly lighted deck, there to be joined by the man who demanded an accounting of her.
"Here's a spot," said Bailey. "Let's unreel a couple of these chairs and be comfortable." He set up a chair for her, and when she was seated, tucked her coat about her solicitously. "My!" he exclaimed by way of opening the conversation, "but you did start right off to crave distance."
"I wanted to get away," she said, frankly, "where everything and everybody was strange—where I could think, with nobody to pull and haul and influence me."
"Think? About what?"
"Everything," she said.
"And everything includes me. Now that's nice. I'm going to help you with that part of it. . . . Have you thought about me—about what I told you while we sat so comfortably on the floor of your room? But of course you have." He was not unacquainted with the ways of women and took that for granted.
It was queer, she thought, that she should feel so completely at her ease with this man, that his presence inspired no repugnance, but rather banished the weight from her heart and mind and caused her to feel her youth and the joy of living. She could answer him lightly, with a gay, provocative humor.
"Only incidentally," she said, and he laughed with her.
"You have an idea," he said, "that I've trailed you to get back those stones. You're wrong." His voice grew earnest. "I've come to get you. The world is full of diamonds for the taking, but there's only one Rhoda Fair!" He paused. "After all," he said, "there's just one thing in the world worth having after you've gotten it, and that is love. Sounds funny, coming from me, doesn't it? Haven't you ever dreamed of love?"
"I suppose every girl has," she answered.
He nodded. "We're driven that way, whether we want it or not. That's why I'm here—because I love you and because I want you. I'd forgotten everything else. Why, those diamonds had ceased to exist for me." Again he stopped, and then he laughed gayly. "Do you know," he said, "I almost believed that myself while I was saying it."
She could laugh, too. He was a rascal, doubtless, but he was a gay, charming rascal.
"Then," she said, "you won't be disappointed if you don't get them—because you're not going to . . . Not until I've made up my mind."
"I see. You're pondering the moral issues. Torn between loyalty and obligation to me, who trusted you with them, and the duty of a good citizen to return them to the wronged owner."
She acknowledged his acuteness. "But it goes farther than that," she said.
"How far does it go?" he asked curiously.
"As deep as the ocean and as high as the clouds," she answered, cryptically. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Have a try for the stones, of course. I'd be traveling first class if you hadn't started this adventure in the higher morality; and, frankly, I need capital for the—shall we say operation?—I've in view."
"Oh," she said, "so it was neither myself nor the diamonds which brought you on board this vessel!"
"It was all three," he said, not in the least nonplused by her quickness of perception. And then: "Do you know, one of your greatest charms is the readiness with which you see through me. I like it. It's so unusual. Now most people think I'm an enigma."
"I'm not so sure you aren't," she rejoined.
He touched her hand in the darkness. "Really," he said, in his most seductive manner, "I'd like those stones. To tell the truth, I need them. It'll save delay, don't you see?—and, when it comes to the moral issues, it'll prevent another—"
"Crime?"
"Impolite people might call it so. You agree that two—er—crimes are worse than one?"
"For the sake of argument."
"Very well. Now doesn't your conscience demand that you give me what you have and so make the second one unnecessary?"
"I'll have to consider it. I don't think so."
"And you'll have to sail to windward of the law yourself; if you keep them by you. Customs, and that sort of thing. You can't declare them anywhere, and they tell me the Egyptians, since the British have let
them play at governing themselves, are the very mischief on ransacking baggage."
"That," she said, "is my worry."
"You're adamant?"
"Until I make up my mind."
"Um. . . . I hope you have a sense of humor."
"I'm said to have one."
"Even when the joke is on you?"
"I hope so."
"Well, we've got to take the chance," he said, and chuckled in his inimitable way. "Anyhow, I apologize ahead of time, and. reassure you of my love—which is important—and hope that some day we will sit before our own impeccable hearth-stone and laugh at it together."
"Jaunty," she said, seriously, "suppose I were to believe you loved me, and suppose I were to come to love you. Would you give it up? Would you do what mother did?"
"Live straight?"
"Yes."
"When," he rejoined, "the same thing happens to me that must have happened to her."
"And that is?"
"When I've had enough fun."
"But there would be no need. I've enough for both of us to live on splendidly."
He was offended. Actually. "Rhoda," he said, "you don't think I'm that sort of critter, do you? Uh-uh! No, siree! I support my own wife. I stand on my own feet. I can conceive of circumstances where I would take anything you own professionally. It might be necessary—and that's different anyhow, because it's guarded and I'd have to work for it. But to sit down and let you keep me—oh no!" It was a queer quirk in the man, laughable, perhaps, possibly incomprehensible, but not without its significance to a student of human nature. Rhoda laughed.
"What is the joke on me that I must appreciate?" she asked.
"This," he said, and with swift deftness he slipped a long scarf under her chin and drew it tight, tying it, almost with the same movement, behind her chair. She could hear his low, good-humored chuckle as he did so. Then, before she could struggle, he had secured her feet to the footboard of the chair and was holding both her hands in one of his own. "It wouldn't be clubby to scream," he said. "Or must I look to that?"
"I shan't scream," she said. "I suppose you're going to ransack my cabin."
"After," he rejoined, "I've made sure you're not carrying them with you."
"Do you think I'd come out to see you and bring them?"
"One never can tell. Women are so venturesome."
She looked up into the dark blur which was his face and her eyes were very angry and determined—not at his securing her to the chair, but at thought of the indignity of his searching fingers.
"You would do that?" she demanded.
"Only in the way of business—very impersonally," he answered, but there was a note of grimness in his voice. "It's a question of necessity."
He bent over her so closely that she could feel his breath upon her cheek. "Really," he said, more gently, "I'm sorry." Then he stopped, stood erect, and listened. Footsteps were approaching them, slowly but certainly. Rhoda turned her head and saw the indistinct figure of a man some fifty feet away.
"You will be still," said Jaunty in a voice she could not recognize as his own. There was in it nothing of jauntiness, nothing of gayety, only the chill of steel, the cold metallic ring of danger. "If you don't want that man hurt you will be still."
The figure approached. It seemed to be searching for something, for it paused to peer into each corner, each shadow, and then it came straight toward them and stopped.
"Miss Fair?" asked Mr. Dare's voice.
"It is Miss Fair," said Rhoda.
"I saw you come on deck, and—all day I have been wanting to talk with you. An interesting question."
Rhoda contrasted the two men, the man of intellect and the man of action. What, she wondered, would this professor of philosophy do if he became aware of the emergency. How would he carry himself? Would he live up to the promise of that falcon face, or had lack of use atrophied those impulses to action, that courage and decision which, in like case, the normal man would exhibit. An almost incontrollable urge obsessed her to put it to the test, but Bailey put it to the test.
"Miss Fair is engaged," he said, sharply.
"Ah." Mr. Dare sought to pierce the dimness, but Bailey's features were indistinct, unrecognizable. He paused an instant while Rhoda wondered if he would take himself away at the rebuff. But he did not. "It is Miss Fair's prerogative to say that," he answered, icily.
"I repeat," said Bailey, "Miss Fair is engaged."
"Your tone is unpleasant," said Mr. Dare as he turned a shoulder to Bailey. "The gentleman," he said to Rhoda, "seems desirous of making an issue of this. Is it your wish that I retire?"
He waited for her answer. Of a truth she did not want him to go, but she feared for him should she permit him to stay.
It seemed life was full of difficult decisions, and this one was rendered the more difficult by her curiosity to see how he would conduct himself.
"I should be glad if you both would leave me," she said. But this did not satisfy Bailey. "This is not my night to be trifled with," he said. "Be on your way."
Dare shook his head, unaware the movement was invisible. "I hope, Miss Fair," he said, "you will pardon me, but I cannot go under compulsion. The gentleman has overstepped."
"I'll overstep farther in a second," Bailey snapped.
Dare's action then all but took Bailey by surprise, for the dismissed professor suddenly drew from his pocket a match box and struck a match—his idea being, evidently, to determine the identity of Rhoda's companion. As the match flared Bailey leaped from his chair and Rhoda uttered a little, involuntary cry. But to her surprise Dare was not immediately overborne; indeed, it seemed to her astonished eyes that Dare's reaction had been swift as Bailey's, that he had comprehended the threat and moved with automatic reaction to meet it. There had not been time for Bailey to drive home a blow, and the men closed with a sudden panting of breath and scuffling of feet. Rhoda watched them, fascinated, startled, but, nevertheless, with curiosity and a sudden uplift of excitement not unpleasant to experience. The space was narrow, inadequate; the struggle brief. Then, whether by accident, luck, or superiority, she was almost dazed to see that the professor had Bailey's back against the rail and was bending him across that fulcrum. It was a highly disadvantageous position, for serious damage may ensue when one is forced backward with his spine upon some immovable obstruction. Suddenly Rhoda called in alarm:
"Look out! the watchman!"
Bailey put forth all his strength in a sudden sidewise thrust and wriggle, and, his mind being then occupied with but one thought, and that to free himself, he managed to shake off his antagonist. While Dare hesitated an instant, he darted forward with light swiftness and disappeared. Dare would have followed, but Rhoda spoke his name.
"Mr. Dare!"
He stopped, turned his head.
"You might come and loose me now," she said.
"Loose you!"
"I'm tied," she said, her purpose being to make him forget pursuit for the moment. It was successful. He strode to her side and lighted a match, then he exclaimed under his breath. "This one under my chin first, please," said Rhoda. "Where is the watchman?" he asked.
"There is no watchman," she answered.
His hands busied themselves with the knots, as his keen mind busied itself with the circumstances. "Did that man tie you?"
"He did."
"And you didn't call for help." Here was a strange thing, a problem to wrestle with. It did not make sense and he abhorred an absurdity.
"There was no need," she said.
"Who is he?"
"I'm afraid I cannot tell you that."
"You know him?"
"After a fashion."
"Why did he tie you?"
"Because he wanted to rummage in my cabin without being disturbed."
"A thief, eh?"
"Not exactly that—no. You might call it a personal matter."
She took an impish, perverse delight in bewildering him.
"That," he said c
oldly, "is no explanation. It is very strange."
"I told you," she said, "that people were interesting."
"I did not say it was interesting. My implication was that it was questionable."
"Decidedly," Rhoda said, placidly. "So much so that you will oblige me by keeping it a secret between ourselves."
"If that is your wish," he said.
"It is. . . . I hope he didn't recognize you."
"Why?"
"He may be the sort to carry a grudge."
"That," said Dare, "need give you no concern."
"Nevertheless, it does," she said. "I would not have harm come to you through doing a kindness to me."
He grunted without graciousness, and muttered the word "Incomprehensible!" twice.
"You rather surprised me," said Rhoda.
"In what respect?"
"I'm afraid my thoughts were not complimentary, so I shall keep them to myself."
"You mean," he said quickly, "you are surprised I did not permit that man to drive me away—and that I did not get altogether the worst of the brief encounter."
"Something of the sort," she admitted.
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