Vision House. Williamson Charles Norris
– and the stains on your beautiful coat!"
"It would have been ale or stout if the ship wasn't 'dry' on account of a few returning soldiers!" said Severance with extreme bitterness, as he got up. "I wonder it wasn't ink. Only ink doesn't spurt."
He crushed his wet cap over his wet hair, and went off, mumbling like distant thunder. Behind the chairs, the beer-bottle window slid shut, but Marise fancied she heard through the thick stained glass a wild chortle of joy.
Mrs. Sorel closed her book, with the lorgnettes to mark her page, and leaned across Tony's empty chair.
"Marise, you laughed!" she reproved her daughter. "How could you?"
"I didn't, I only boo-higgled in my throat."
"I wish you'd be more careful," cautioned the elder woman. "If you're not, take it from me, you may be sorry yet. Tony is worried about something. I noticed it the moment we came on board. You know what an instinct I have! I feel as if – but I mustn't tell you now. He may get to his stateroom and hear us."
"What makes you think he could hear us from his stateroom?" asked Marise. "Do you know where it is?"
"Why, yes," replied the other. "I was with him when he chose the place for our chairs. You were in our cabin showing Céline what to unpack. He pointed out his window, and – but my goodness!"
A gasp stopped her words. Marise followed the direction of the puzzled or startled brown eyes. They stared at the window just closed, from whose sill ginger-beer continued to drip.
"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 titled 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 bête 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 class 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 sex, 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 snatch 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-pricks 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