Eustace Hignett began to fear that his cousin"s reason must have become unseated. He could not conceive of any really sane man, looking like that, being anxious to be told how he looked.
"Are my lips red enough? It"s for the ship"s concert, you know. It starts in half an hour, though I believe I"m not on till the second part. Speaking as a friend, would you put a touch more black round the ears, or are they all right?"
Curiosity replaced apprehension in Hignett"s mind.
"What on earth are you doing performing at the ship"s concert?"
"Oh, they roped me in. It got about somehow that I was a valuable man and they wouldn"t take no." Sam deepened the colour of his ears. "As a matter of fact," he said casually, "my fiancee made rather a point of my doing something."
A sharp yell from the lower berth proclaimed the fact that the significance of the remark had not been lost on Eustace.
"Your fiancee?"
"The girl I"m engaged to. Didn"t I tell you about that? Yes, I"m engaged."
Eustace sighed heavily.
"I feared the worst. Tell me, who is she?"
"Didn"t I tell you her name?"
"No."
"Curious! I must have forgotten." He hummed an airy strain as he blackened the tip of his nose. "It"s rather a curious coincidence, really. Her name is Bennett."
"She may be a relation."
"That"s true. Of course, girls do have relations."
"What is her first name?"
"That is another rather remarkable thing. It"s Wilhelmina."
"Wilhelmina!"
"Of course, there must be hundreds of girls in the world called Wilhelmina Bennett, but still it is a coincidence."
"What colour is her hair?" demanded Eustace Hignett in a hollow voice.
"Her hair! What colour is it?"
"Her hair? Now, let me see. You ask me what colour is her hair. Well, you might call it auburn ... or russet ... or you might call it t.i.tian...."
"Never mind what you might call it. Is it red?"
"Red? Why, yes. That is a very good description of it. Now that you put it to me like that, it is red."
"Has she a trick of grabbing at you suddenly, when she gets excited, like a kitten with a ball of wool?"
"Yes. Yes, she has."
Eustace Hignett uttered a sharp cry.
"Sam," he said, "can you bear a shock?"
"I"ll have a dash at it."
"Brace up!"
"The girl you are engaged to is the same girl who promised to marry me."
"Well, well!" said Sam.
There was a silence.
"Awfully sorry, of course, and all that," said Sam.
"Don"t apologise to me!" said Eustace. "My poor old chap, my only feeling towards you is one of the purest and profoundest pity." He reached out and pressed Sam"s hand. "I regard you as a toad beneath the harrow!"
"Well, I suppose that"s one way of offering congratulations and cheery good wishes."
"And on top of that," went on Eustace, deeply moved. "You have got to sing at the ship"s concert."
"Why shouldn"t I sing at the ship"s concert?"
"My dear old man, you have many worthy qualities, but you must know that you can"t sing. You can"t sing for nuts! I don"t want to discourage you, but, long ago as it is, you can"t have forgotten what an a.s.s you made of yourself at that house-supper at school. Seeing you up against it like this, I regret that I threw a lump of b.u.t.ter at you on that occasion, though at the time it seemed the only course to pursue."
Sam started.
"Was it you who threw that bit of b.u.t.ter?"
"It was."
"I wish I"d known! You silly chump, you ruined my collar."
"Ah, well, it"s seven years ago. You would have had to send it to the wash anyhow by this time. But don"t let us brood on the past. Let us put our heads together and think how we can get you out of this terrible situation."
"I don"t want to get out of it. I confidently expect to be the hit of the evening."
"The hit of the evening! You! Singing!"
"I"m not going to sing. I"m going to do that imitation of Frank Tinney which I did at the Trinity Smoker. You haven"t forgotten that? You were at the piano taking the part of the conductor of the orchestra. What a riot I was-we were! I say, Eustace, old man, I suppose you don"t feel well enough to come up now and take your old part? You could do it without a rehearsal. You remember how it went ... "Hullo, Ernest!" "Hullo, Frank!" Why not come along?"
"The only piano I will ever sit at will be one firmly fixed on a floor that does not heave and wobble under me."
"Nonsense! The boat"s as steady as a rock now. The sea"s like a mill-pond."
"Nevertheless, thanking you for your suggestion, no!"
"Oh, well, then I shall have to get on as best I can with that fellow Mortimer. We"ve been rehearsing all the afternoon and he seems to have the hang of the thing. But he won"t be really right. He has no pep, no vim. Still, if you won"t ... well, I think I"ll be getting along to his stateroom. I told him I would look in for a last rehearsal."
The door closed behind Sam, and Eustace Hignett, lying on his back, gave himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by his cousin"s sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to Wilhelmina Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and dropped with a thud on the rocks.