"No, I can"t," said Brett. "And anyway, I"m going out in the launch to talk things over with Merriman." He shrugged his shoulders in a superior way, and they laughed; but when they had left him for the card-room he walked out on the veranda and stood looking through the darkness at the _Sappho"s_ distant lights, and he might have been heard muttering, as if from the depths of very deep thought:
"Why not?"
II
At first Brett did not head the launch straight for the _Sappho_. He was not sure in his own mind whether he intended to visit her, or just to have a near-by look at her and then return to the club. He had ordered the launch on an impulse which he could not explain to himself. If she had been got ready for him promptly he might not have cared at the last minute to go out in her at all. But there had been a long delay in finding the engineer, and this had provoked him and made him very sure that he wanted to use the launch very much. And it hadn"t smoothed his temper to learn that the engineer had been found in the kitchen eating a Virginia ham in company with the kitchen maid.
But the warmth and salt freshness that came into his face, and the softness and great number of the stars soon pacified him. If she were only with him, he thought, if her father were only not on the brink of ruin, how pleasant the world would be. He pretended that she was with him, just at his shoulder, where he could not see her, but there just the same, and that he was steering the launch straight for the ends of the world. He pretended that for such a voyage the launch would not need an engineer. He wondered if under the circ.u.mstances it would be safe to steer with only one hand.
But the launch ran suddenly into an oyster stake that went rasping aft along her side, and at the same moment the searchlight from Fort Schuyler beamed with dazzling playfulness in his face, and then having half blinded him wheeled heavenward, a narrow cornucopia of light that petered out just short of the stars. He watched the searchlight. He wondered how many pairs of lovers it had discovered along the sh.o.r.es of Pelham Bay, how many mint-juleps it had seen drunk on the veranda of the country club, how many kisses it had interrupted; and whether it would rather pry into people"s private affairs or look for torpedo-boats and night attacks in time of war. But most of all he wondered why it spent so much of its light on s.p.a.ce, sweeping the heavens like a fiery broom with indefatigable zeal. There were no lovers or torpedo-boats up there.
Even the birds were in bed, and the Wright brothers were known to be at Pau.
Once more the searchlight smote him full in the face and then, as if making a pointed gesture, swept from him, and for a long second illuminated the black hull and the yellow spars of the _Sappho_. Then, as if its earthly business were over, the shaft of light, lengthening and lengthening as it rose above intervening obstacles, the bay, the Stepping Stone light, the Long Island sh.o.r.e, turned slowly upward until it pointed at the zenith. Then it went out.
"That," thought Brett, "was almost a hint. First it stirred me up; then it pointed at the _Sappho_; then it indicated that there is One above, and then it went out."
He headed the launch straight for the _Sappho_, and began to wonder what one had to do to get aboard of a magnate"s yacht at night. He turned to the engineer.
"Gryce," he said, "what do you know about yachts?"
"What about "em?" Gryce answered sulkily. He was still thinking of the kitchen-maid and the unfinished ham, or else of the ham and the unfinished kitchen maid, I am not sure which.
"What about "em?" Brett echoed. "Do they take up their gangways at night?"
"Unless some one"s expected," said Gryce.
"Do they have a watchman?"
"One forward and one aft on big yachts."
"Making two," said Brett. "But aren"t there usually two gangways--one for the crew and one for the owner"s guests?"
"Crew"s gangway is to starboard," Gryce vouchsafed.
Brett wondered if there was anything else that he ought to know. Then, in picturing himself as running the launch alongside the _Sappho_, and hoping that he would not b.u.mp her, a question presented itself.
"If I were going to visit the _Sappho_," he asked, "would I approach the gangway from the stern or from the bow?"
"I don"t know," said Gryce.
"Do you mean," said Brett, "that you don"t know which is the correct thing to do, or that you think I can"t steer?"
"I mean," said Gryce, "that I know it"s one or the other, but I don"t know which."
"In that case," said Brett, "we will approach from the rear. That is always the better part of valor. But if the gangway has been taken up for the night I don"t know what I shall do."
"The gangway was down when the light was on her," said Gryce. "I seen it."
And that it was still down Brett could presently see for himself. He doubted his ability to make a neat landing, but they seemed to be expecting him, for a sailor ran down to the gangway landing armed with a long boat-hook, and made the matter easy for him. When he had reached the _Sappho"s_ deck an officer came forward in the darkness, and said:
"This way, sir, if you please."
"There"s magic about," thought Brett, and he accompanied the officer aft.
"Mr. Merriman," said the latter, "told us to expect you half an hour ago in a motor-boat. Did you have a breakdown?"
"No," said Brett, and he added mentally, "but I"m liable to."
They descended a companionway; the officer opened a sliding door of some rich wood, and Brett stepped into the highly lighted main saloon of the _Sappho_.
In one corner of the room, with his back turned, the famous Mr. Merriman sat at an upright piano, lugubriously drumming. Brett had often heard of the great man"s secret vice, and now the sight of him hard at it made him, in spite of the very real trepidation under which he was laboring, feel good-natured all over--the Colossus of finance was so earnest at his music, so painstaking and interested in placing his thick, clumsy fingers, and so frankly delighted with the effect of his performance upon his own ear. It seemed to Brett homely and pleasant, the thought that one of the most important people of eighty millions should find his pleasure in an art for which he had neither gift nor training.
Mr. Merriman finished his piece with a badly fumbled chord, and turned from the piano with something like the show of reluctance with which a man turns from a girl who has refused him. That Mr. Merriman did not start or change expression on seeing a stranger in the very heart of his privacy was also in keeping with his reputed character. It was also like him to look steadily at the young man for quite a long while before speaking. But finally to be addressed in courteous and pleasant tones was not what Brett expected. For this he had his own good looks to thank, as Mr. Merriman hated, with the exception of his own music, everything that was ugly.
"Good-evening, sir," said Mr. Merriman. "But I can"t for the life of me think what you are doing on my yacht. I was expecting a man, but not you."
"You couldn"t guess," said Brett, "why I have been so impertinent as to call upon you without an invitation."
"Then," said Mr. Merriman, "perhaps you had better tell me. I think I have seen you before."
"My name is Brett," said Brett. "You may have seen me trying to play tennis at Newport. I have often seen you there, looking on."
"You didn"t come to accuse me of being a looker-on?" Mr. Merriman asked.
"No, sir," said Brett, "but I do wish that could have been the reason.
I"ve come, sir, as a matter of fact, because you are, on the contrary, so very, very active in the game."
"I don"t understand," said Merriman rather coldly,
"Oh," said Brett, "everybody I care for in the world is being ruined, including myself, and I said, "Mr. Merriman could save us all if he only would." So I came to ask you if you couldn"t see your way to letting up on us all."
""Mr. Brett," said Mr. Merriman, "you may have heard, since gossip occasionally concerns herself with me, that in my youth I was a priest."
Brett nodded.
"Well," continued Mr. Merriman, "I have never before listened to so nave a confession as yours."
Brett blushed to his eyes.
"I knew when I came," he said, "that I shouldn"t know how to go about what I"ve come for."
"But I think I have a better opinion of you," smiled Mr. Merriman, and his smile was very engaging. "You have been frank without being fresh, you have been bashful without showing fear. You meet the eye in a manly way, and you seem a clean and worthy young man. As opposed to these things, what you might have thought out to say to me would hardly matter."
"Oh," cried Brett impulsively, "if you would only let up!"