"I am not at liberty to pa.s.s on my information," responded Fisher stolidly. "You wouldn"t understand it if I did, Major. There was danger and there was steam. Two of the engineers had their arms scalded, and one of the stokers was badly hurt. I can"t tell you any more than that."
"Do you go so far as to say that the ship herself was in danger?" asked Major Granville. He was talking loudly, as was his wont, across the smoking saloon.
"I should say so," said Fisher, without lifting his eyes from the magazine he was deliberately studying.
"Where is young Cleveland this morning?" asked the Major abruptly.
Fisher shrugged his shoulders.
"He was in his bunk when I saw him last. Heaven knows what he may be up to by now."
Charlie Cleveland strolled in at this juncture. He had his right arm in a sling.
"Hullo!" he said. "How are you all? I"m on the sick-list to-day. I sprained my wrist when I fell up the steps yesterday."
Fisher glanced at him for a moment over the top of his magazine and resumed his reading in silence.
"Look here, my friend!" he said. "You were in the thick of this engine business. I am sure of it."
"I was," said Charlie readily. "But for me you would all be at the bottom of the sea by this time."
He threw himself into a chair with a broad grin at Major Granville"s contemptuous countenance and took up a book.
Major Granville looked intensely disgusted. It was scarcely credible that a pa.s.senger could have penetrated to the engine-room and interfered with the machinery there, yet he more than half believed that this outrageous thing had actually occurred. He got up after a brief silence and stalked stiffly from the saloon.
Charlie banged down his book with a yell of laughter.
"Didn"t I tell you, Fisher?" he cried. "He"s gone to have a good, square, face-to-face talk with the captain. But he won"t get anything out of him. I"ve been there first."
He went up on deck and found a party of quoit-players. Molly Erle was among them. Charlie stood and watched, yelling advice and encouragement.
"Looking on as usual?" the girl said to him presently, with a bitter little smile, as she found herself near him.
He nodded.
"I"m really afraid to speak to you to-day," he said. "Your skirt will never again bear the light of day."
"What happened?" she said briefly.
The game was over, and they strolled away together across the deck.
"I"ll tell you," he said, with ill-suppressed gaiety in his voice. "We should all have been blown out of the water last night if it hadn"t been for me. Forgetful of my finery, I went and--looked on. The magic result was that I saved the situation, and--incidentally, of course--the ship."
He stopped.
"You don"t believe me?" he said abruptly.
Her lip curled a little.
"Do you really expect to be believed?" she said.
"I don"t know," he said; "I thought it was the usual thing to do between friends."
"I was not aware--" began Molly.
He broke in with a most disarming smile.
"Oh, please," he said. "I don"t deserve that--anyhow. I"m awfully sorry about the skirt. I hope you"ll let me bear the cost of the damage. I"ve got into hot water all round. n.o.body will believe I"m seriously sorry, though it"s a fact for all that. Don"t be hard on me, Molly, I say!"
There was a note of genuine pleading in the last words that induced her to relent a little.
"Oh, well, I"ll forgive you for the skirt," she said. "I suppose boys can"t help being mischievous, though you are nearly old enough to know better."
She looked at him as she said it. His face was comically penitent.
Somehow she could not quarrel with the lurking smile in his merry eyes.
He was certainly a boy. He would never be anything else. But Molly did not realise this, and she was still too young herself to have appreciated the gift of perpetual youth had she been aware of its existence.
"That"s right!" said Charlie cheerily. "And perhaps"--he spoke cautiously, with a half-deprecatory glance at her bright face--"perhaps--in time, you know--you will be able to forgive me for something else as well."
"I think the less we say about that the better," remarked Molly, tilting her chin a little.
"All right!" said Charlie equably. "Only, you know"--his voice was suddenly grave--"I was--and am--in earnest."
Molly laughed.
"So far as in you lies, I suppose?" she said indifferently. "I wonder if you ever really did anything worth doing in your life, Mr. Cleveland."
"I wish you would call me Charlie!" he said impulsively. "Yes. I proposed to you last night. Wasn"t that worth doing?"
She drew her brows together in a quick frown, but she made no reply.
Fisher was drifting towards them. She turned deliberately, her head very high, and strolled to meet him.
Charlie glanced over his shoulder, stood a moment irresolute, then walked away more soberly than usual towards the bridge, where he was a constant and welcome visitor.
V
"There are plenty of fine chaps in the world who aren"t to be recognised as such at first sight," drawled Bertie Richmond to his young cousin, Molly Erle, who was sitting with her feet on the fender on a very cold winter evening.
"I"m sure of that," said Mrs. Richmond from the other side of the fire, with a tender glance at her husband"s loosely knit figure. "I never thought there was an inch of heroism in you, Bertie darling, till that day when we went punting and we got upset. How brave you were! I"ve never forgotten it. It was the beginning of everything."
"It sounds as if it were nearer being the end," remarked Molly, who systematically avoided all sentiment. "I don"t believe myself that any man can be actually heroic and yet not betray it somehow."
"You"re wrong," said Bertie.
"I don"t think so," said Molly. She could be quite as obstinate as most women, and this was a point upon which she was very decided.
"I"ll prove it," said Bertie, with quiet determination. "There"s a chap coming with the crowd of sportsmen to-morrow who is the bravest and, I think, the best fellow I ever met. I shan"t tell you who he is. I"ll leave you to find out--if you can. But I don"t believe you will."