"What does he look like?"
"My father?" she gasped, in a wondering way.
"No--yes--certainly not! I mean--oh, this is intolerable! I don"t know your father, never saw him in my life--unless he was the one with you last night when you drove me frantic with that ball of paper trick! But what you did has nothing to do with my being here. I"ve not wilfully followed. A stupid boatman mistook your yacht for my own when I was--I mean to say, when I was too engrossed with the memory of you to notice his mistake."
From alarm her look gave way to wonderment, then almost to mirth. It was a hard place for a girl to be in, and I expected her to leave me now, find the old chap and promptly have me hanged to a yard-arm. The fact that there are no yard-arms on schooner yachts made no difference. And I do believe she was considering that when a sailor pa.s.sed us, looking enough like Tommy to have been his twin brother.
"Jack," she said to him, "tell Mr. Graham to come below!"
The fellow saluted and left, and I stared at her in surprise, saying:
"Then my name can"t seem very odd to you, Miss Graham!"
She was regarding me as though trying to discover what kind of a species I was that had got on her father"s yacht, when the sailor came back followed by a husky brute in uniform. Intuitively I stiffened to meet the crisis, but even at this eleventh hour a respite came.
"He ain"t aboard," the other Jack whispered, and the captain--for the burly one was only the captain, after all--saluted, saying:
"I"ve just now found out, ma"am, he ain"t aboard!"
"Not aboard? What do you mean?"
"After bringing you on last night he went ash.o.r.e again to get a little ball of paper, but told me to sail the minute he returned. I don"t understand it, ma"am, for later the watch woke me to say Mr. Graham had come."
"Good Lord," I groaned. "It was I, and not your father, who answered the watch."
For several minutes we stared blankly into each other"s faces, but it was she who broke the deadly silence.
"We must hurry back," she calmly told him, adding with a nervous catch in her breath: "What a joke on Daddy!"
"A scream of a joke," I muttered, "----one he"ll roar over till G.o.d-knows-when!"
"We can"t go back, Miss Sylvia," the captain now said. "When our mainsheet parted the boom gybed so hard that it opened a seam. It may hold on this tack, and it may not, but we"d sink if the weather hit us on the other side. So I"m making for Key West."
A suspicious quiver played over her lips as the big fellow turned and went upstairs, and I began to hate myself rather cordially.
"Do you happen to have that--that ball of paper?" she asked, when the threatened storm of tears had been controlled.
"No, I threw it down."
A look of terror came into her eyes as she gasped:
"Then he"ll find it!"
"It won"t matter if he does! You hadn"t written anything on it!"
"Did you look on both sides of it?"
"I--I think so; of course, I must have. Did you write on the other side?"
"I don"t know which the other side is that you refer to," she answered with some show of anger. "There were two sides, you know. Still, it can"t much matter now whether it had any sides or not."
This was very perplexing, the words no more so than the way she looked at me while p.r.o.nouncing them. Yet I hardly thought it should give her as much concern as our leaky boat. The storm had grown worse, and more than once she glanced anxiously at the portholes whose gla.s.s, over half the time, were submerged by swirls of greenish water.
"It"ll turn out all right," I said, gently. "And you mustn"t be afraid of this storm."
"I"m not afraid!"
"Yes, you are," I tenderly persisted, "but your skipper looks like a man who"ll bring us through."
"Your concern is most flattering," she frigidly replied. "But fear of storms, and distress over the unhappiness one may be causing others, are quite different phases of emotion."
"I stand corrected and rebuked," I humbly acknowledged. "Yet I want you to know that my concern springs from a deeper source than flattery. I want honestly to a.s.sure you----"
"Of course, there"s less danger here than in port," she continued in the same icy tone, utterly ignoring me, "for here, at least, we can"t be boarded at night by irresponsible people."
I winced.
"By people who drink," she added.
I winced again, for I seemed to be getting the winces now, and couldn"t stop.
"That isn"t fair, Miss Graham! Circ.u.mstances are against me, but you might suspend judgment till you know me better!"
"The circ.u.mstances require no further evidence," she said, with supreme indifference.
"But circ.u.mstantial evidence," I felt pleased at turning her phrase, "often wears the cap and bells, instead of the wig and gown!"
"I"m discovering that," she murmured, and added with a touch of sarcasm: "The knack of making a catch phrase is often very agreeable, but presupposes no presence of an idea."
Now I thought this most unkind of her, because I had been quite set up by my retort; so, arising with as much dignity as the waves would permit, I b.u.t.toned my coat, remarking:
"Then I"ll go on deck, and leave you."
The coat was tight and, while fastening it, I felt something in an inner pocket press against my side. There are few impulses more natural than to investigate anything that has a curious feel in one"s pocket, so thrusting in my hand I brought forth a small round frame of bra.s.s, made in the imitation of a porthole, encircling her photograph. This would not have happened had I remembered being in her father"s clothes, but it was done, and I stood looking first at the picture and then at her.
"Give it to me," she cried.
"I don"t see why," I temporized, not at all loath at having this chance for revenge.
"It"s mine," she imperiously announced.
"It may be a picture of you, but, as you perceive, not at this moment your picture," and my eyes lowered again and lingered on it, for it was indeed a wonderful likeness, moving me strangely by its amazing beauty.
The frame, too, gave it added charm, as she seemed really to be looking out of a porthole.
"Give that to me this instant," she said, with such a show of pa.s.sion that I pa.s.sively surrendered it, and started to walk away. Yet some cruel power held my feet. I tried again to move, but could not.
Overhead the men were working desperately at the pumps to keep us afloat. One of them left his place and pa.s.sed us, whispering:
"It"s no use--we"re gone!"