
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76293 ***







[Illustration: Cover art]



[Frontispiece: "You darling!" (page 114)]



  THE MAGNET

  (Published serially as "The Pilot-Fish")


  A ROMANCE


  By

  HENRY C. ROWLAND


  Illustrations by
  CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD



  GROSSET & DUNLAP
  PUBLISHERS - NEW YORK




  COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
  THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO.
  as _The Pilot-Fish_.

  COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY
  DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY




THE MAGNET



CHAPTER I

The big schooner-yacht _Shark_ lay peacefully at anchor in Shoal
Harbour, Maine.  At her taffrail the National Yacht Ensign aired
itself lazily in the land-breeze; from fore- and main-trucks
fluttered the pennant of the N. Y. Yacht Club and the burgee of
Captain Eliphalet Bell, U.S.N., retired.

A solid old seafaring tub was the _Shark_, built some time back in
the seventies, when, no doubt, she had been a tremendous swell.  She
was square in the jowls, pug-nosed, paunch-bellied, with a stern like
a coach-horse, and there was a break from her quarter-deck to the
waist, and a high, t'gallant forecastle.  Solid timber she was ... or
at least looked to be, though a gimlet might have shown differently
... and what ballast she had was inside her and not jerking away at
the keel in frantic efforts to whip out her spars.

For a yacht of her size the _Shark_ probably carried the smallest
crew on record, modern double-action hand-winches and other
labour-saving devices being installed about her decks.  Brightwork
there was scarcely any, and that covered with a coat of shellac.
Galvanised iron took the place of brass, but if the old schooner
lacked the glitter of metal she certainly shone with spotless
cleanliness.

One saw at the first glance that the _Shark_ was less of a
pleasure-craft than a floating home, and such a domicile she had
truly been for fifteen years.  Asthma and an insubordinate heart had
retired her owner from the service of his country; the same
affliction forbade his residence ashore and compelled him to seek a
warm winter climate.  Wherefore, he wisely bought the _Shark_ for a
mere song, and made of her a home for himself and his three little
motherless daughters: Cécile, aged nine; Paula, aged seven, and
Hermione, aged four.

That was fifteen years before the epoch of this saga, so that we find
our three sirens at the dangerous ages of from nineteen to
twenty-four.  Little heed had their cantankerous parent ever given
them, and little need had they of it, as from the very first day to
the present, they had found a wise and kindly nurse, playmate, and
duenna in that splendid old grizzled viking, Christian Heldstrom,
Master Mariner.

Captain Heldstrom, sailing-master of the _Shark_, had previously
served for ten years in the U.S. Navy and might have had a commission
had he wished.  Most of his service had been under the choleric
Captain Bell, to whom, for some incomprehensible reason, he was
devoted.  It was, therefore, not unnatural that he should have
followed him on his retirement, nor that he should have assumed the
care of the little girls, the old Norseman having, like so many
big-muscled, big-hearted men, a tremendous fund of paternal instinct.
They had their governess, of course, but it was "Uncle Chris" who
really brought them up and tended them when ill and imparted to them
much of his own honest, fearless nature.  He taught them discipline
as well, and all three had more than once felt the flat of his big
hand where it would do the greatest good; Cécile for impudence, Paula
for theft (stealing goodies from the galley), and Hermione for
adventuring aloft and swarming out on the jib-boom.  This last
admonition had been followed by a cuff on the side of the watchman's
head which had sent that grinning tar into the scuppers.

Thus one may listen with less surprise to a certain conversation
taking place upon the ample quarter-deck of the schooner, she
squatting peacefully upon the sparkling waters of Shoal Harbour, one
golden day early in August.  Sprawled amongst the cushions on a
transome, basking like a pussy-cat in the sun, was Cécile, a luscious
beauty, ripe to the point of falling from the bough, and already
petulant for the plucking.  For three seasons this girl had
demoralised the yachting world, for Captain Bell was widely known,
and the _Shark_ as hospitable as her namesake.  A high-tempered but
jovial host, epicurean of appetite and ready to immolate his health
on the altar of good-fellowship at a moment's notice; three lovely
daughters, one a desperate flirt, one soft and sweet as a West Indian
night breeze, the third a long-legged nymph with violet eyes, her
pretty mouth full of sailor slang, ready to swim a race around the
ship or run one over the truck....  My word, it is no wonder that old
Heldstrom's hair had visibly whitened in the last three years.

Cécile was catching it fore-and-aft upon this August day.

"It vas me br'rought you oop," growled the Norwegian in his beard,
"und somedimes I am not pr'roud of it.  How many yoong men haf you
jilted this summer?"

Cécile dropped her chin on her knuckles and kicked up her heels most
unmaidenly.

"I haven't jilted anybody.  It's not my fault if they slam off in a
rage.  I don't ask any odds, and if they can't play the game without
bawling, they shouldn't play it at all."

"Love is not a game; it is a serious business, as some day you may
find oudt to your cost."

Cécile gave the nearest cushion a vicious kick, and her head a toss
which set the bright hair to shimmering opalescent as a new-hooked
porgy.

"Don't fear," she said; "when I find the man who can make me feel
what I want to feel, he will have no cause to complain."

"Perhaps you may," Heldstrom retorted.  He bent his big brows upon
her flushed, resentful face, and his eyes, clear and blue as polar
ice, softened a little.  "I hope not, my dear.  Meanvile, you must
not encoorage dese oder yoong men..."

"But how am I to know..." Cécile interrupted, when Heldstrom raised
his hand.

"You vill know.  Und if you do not know, den it is not der r'right
man."  He took a turn or two on the deck, then paused to stare toward
the harbour-mouth.  Up forward the sailors were clustered about the
windlass, talking in low, vehement tones, the murmur of which reached
aft.  "Less noise for'ard dere," ordered the captain in his great,
resonant bass, and the gabble ceased.  The hands were all staring
toward the entrance, and as he looked forward Heldstrom gave a little
growl in his throat.

"Dis Pilot-fish..." said he, turning abruptly toward Cécile.  "Vas he
anudder?"

"Another what?" she asked, sulkily.

"Anudder wictim.  Anudder yoong man you haf made crazy ... und pull
your skirt down by your ankles, my dear; you are now too oldt to flop
ar'round dot vay like a little girl."

Cécile jerked her supple young body upright.

"If you are going to do nothing but scold," said she, sulkily, "I am
going below."  She sprang to her feet and stood as primly as was
possible for one of her nymph-like allure.  "I must say," she snapped
and thrust out her chin haughtily, "it seems to me that I have
reached an age where I might expect to be spared lessons in conduct
from the sailing-master of my father's yacht."

She turned toward the companionway, head in air.

"Cécile!" said Heldstrom, sharply, and the little feet stopped as
though despite themselves.

"Well...?"

"You vill say: 'Excuse me, Captain Heldstrom.'"

"I won't."

"You vill say: 'Excuse me, Captain Heldstrom.'"

[Illustration: "You vill say: 'Excuse me, Captain Heldstrom'"]

Cécile pressed her lips firmly together.

"Look at me."

Slowly, and as if moved by some compelling force, the lovely,
rebellious face was turned and the long, grey eyes, with their double
fringe of black lashes, were raised to meet the clear blue ones
flashing from under the bushy eyebrows.  Cécile's eyes sought the
deck.

"Forgive me, Uncle Chris," she murmured.

"Dot is efen better, my dear.  Listen, Cécile; I am not a poor man
und I am getting on in years.  My brudder has left me lands und
houses in Norvay und I own in some big ships.  But I stay und sail
dis old yoonk for your fadder und draw my pay vich is nodding, und
vy?  Because if I go, who den vill take care of my little girls?
Your fadder is not rich; perhaps he is not so rich as me, but you are
my family und all dot I have is yours, yoost as I am yours.  Und so,
my little girl, I talk to you like a Dootch uncle, und I am not
Dootch, but Norwegian und a gentleman born.  Dot is all, my dear."

But it was not quite all, for Cécile rushed to the old viking and
flung her young arms about his neck and kissed the first exposed spot
she could find on the deep-lined, bearded face.

Then she stepped back and surveyed him through misty eyes.

"When I meet a man like you," said she, and caught her breath, "he
will find out that I am something more than a flirt."

And she turned and fled below.

Hardly had she disappeared when the captain's alert, if somewhat
blurred, vision was caught by a yacht's dinghy rapidly approaching
the _Shark_.  Picking up his glasses he at once discovered, sitting
in the stern of the boat, a young man whom he recognised as a Mr.
Huntington Wood and who had been the previous summer one of Cécile's
most devoted suitors.  When the caprice of the spoiled beauty had
sent him eddying in her wake with the other wrecks, Heldstrom had
sighed deeply.  He had liked and admired Wood, finding him all that a
well-bred young American ought to be.  Included amongst these virtues
was a very large fortune, and Captain Heldstrom had been deeply
disappointed that Cécile could not have found it in her heart to care
for him.

Seeing that Wood was coming to call, Heldstrom sent the steward to
inform Cécile, then received the guest himself, there being no one of
the family on deck.  Wood was a clean-cut, thoroughbred-looking man
of about twenty-eight.  Perhaps his greatest attraction lay in the
thoughtful kindliness of expression which was habitual to him.  There
was humour, also, and the typical American alertness.

As Wood and Heldstrom exchanged their greetings there came from
forward a sort of buzz of suppressed excitement.  The hands were
peering intently into the dazzling reflection of the sun on the water
at the harbour-mouth.  Captain Heldstrom quickly levelled his glass
in that direction, then laid it down with a shrug and a shake of the
head.

"What is it?" Wood asked.

"Der Pilot-fish, zir," answered the sailor.

"What do you mean?"

Heldstrom was about to reply when Cécile came up through the
companion and Wood went to meet her.  She greeted him with a rather
quizzical smile.  Wood flushed.

"You were right," said he.  "Here I am back again in less than six
months."

"We have missed you," said Cécile, and led the way aft.

"Thank you.  I have come back, not as a suitor, but as a friend."

"Still bitter?"

"Not in the least."

"I heard," remarked Cécile, with a little laugh, "that you were
building a Home for Sick Babies."

"That is true.  My cure for bitterness ... and not a bad thing for
the babies.  If all of your rejected lovers would only turn to
philanthropy for their cure what a lot of good you would do."

"That is a nasty remark."

"Sorry.  Let's drop personalities.  How are you all?"

"Papa's asthma is better.  He has taken a tremendous fad for cooking,
and spends most of his time stewing over the galley stove.  This
seems to be a good thing for him, though bad for us.  The cook's
wages have had to be raised."

Wood laughed.  "And the girls?"

"Paula is as sweet as ever.  Hermione has grown up.  She is taller
than I and is going to be a beauty."

From the hands clustered on the t'gallant forecastle there came at
this moment a sort of stifled yelp, immediately followed by some
deep-sea admonition from Captain Heldstrom.  As if in answer to the
commotion there popped out of the galley, which as in most
old-fashioned vessels was in a forward deck-house, a corpulent
gentleman with a crimson face, snow-white moustache, and a shining
bald head whereof the lustre was marred by streaks of flour.

"Papa..." called Cécile.

Captain Bell, for it was he, turned sharply, and seeing Wood, his
choleric face lightened.  He tore off his apron, wiped his bare,
floury arms, and came striding jerkily aft.

"Well, well, Huntington ... glad to see you, my boy.  Excuse my
negligée ... was just at work on an omelette soufflée, but somehow it
went wrong.  Infernal thing collapsed like a punctured tire.  All the
fault of this Pilot-fish...."

"What is the Pilot-fish?" asked Wood.

"Cécile will tell you while I brush up.  You will stop for lunch ...
yes, this is not a request, it is an order.  I have made a _plat_
that I want your opinion of."  He glanced over the rail.  "You are
off the _Arcturus_?"

"Yes ... cruising with Livingston Poole.  I leave him to-morrow.  His
people are to join him at Portland."

"Come and visit us a bit."  He raised his voice.  "Christian, tell
that man from the _Arcturus_ to go back and say that Mr. Wood is
lunching with us."

"Yes, zir."

Pausing to search the horizon with his glasses, Captain Bell went
below.  Wood looked inquiringly at Cécile.

"Did you ever hear of a pilot-fish?" she asked.

"Yes.  It is a little fish which is a constant companion of the
shark.  So this is a companion of yours?"

"There is a man who lives on a little yawl and goes wherever we go.
Last summer we began to notice that, no matter where we were, there
would turn up sooner or later this same little boat.  Sometimes she
would be in port when we arrived.  No doubt he got our next address
at the postoffice and then passed us _en route_.  The _Shark_ is
about as speedy as a brick-barge, and this yawl is a smart little
sailer."

"What is the game of this Pilot-fish?" asked Wood.

"It appears that we are his mind.  He makes us do his thinking for
him.  Here comes papa; get him to tell you of his interview with the
Pilot-fish."

Captain Bell, refreshed inside and out, appeared at this moment in
the companionway.  His first glance was for the harbour-mouth.

"Come here, papa," called Cécile, "and tell Huntington about your
conversation with the Pilot-fish."

Captain Bell joined the two.  "The Pilot-fish," said he, "is a balmy
galoot in a little yawl who has been eddyin' around in our wake all
summer.  When it got certain that his whole business was to trail us
I went alongside him and asked what he meant by such cheek.  I found
a long, tawny, sleepy-eyed scoundrel drinking tea and munching
macaroons."

"'Good-day,' says he.  'Won't you come aboard?  You are just in time
for tea.'

"'Thanks,' said I, 'but I didn't come for tea.  I came to ask why in
thunder you hang under my fin like a bloomin' pilot-fish.'

"He sets down his tea-cup and turns a pair of yellow eyes on me.

"'Do you mind?' he asks.  'I don't want to intrude.'

"'That depends on what you do it for,' I answered.

"'Well, then,' says he, rumplin' up his hair, which is about a foot
long and the colour of coir rope, 'I follow you because it saves me
the trouble of deciding where I want to go.'

"'The deuce you do,' said I, too surprised to say more.

"'Do you mind?" he asks again.

"'I don't know that I mind,' said I, 'but you make me tired.  Can't
you do your own thinkin'?'

"'It's so distractin',' says he, and heaves a sigh.  'You see,
Captain Bell, I am a poet and if I have to determine where I want to
go it breaks into the Muse....'"  And Bell went off into a fit of
wheezy laughter which finished in a coughing spell.  "Now what d'ye
think of that...?" he gasped.

"It sounds fishy to me," Wood observed.

Bell nodded.  "Still," said he, "there may be something in it, after
all.  I give you my word, I come near flying off my chump sometimes
trying to decide where to go next.  The girls will never help me out.
But to go back to this balm.  'Just the same,' I said, 'it must be
deuced inconvenient sometimes to follow me through all kinds of
weather in that little thing.'  Says he, 'That's good moral
discipline.  If it weren't for that I'd lie in one place and rot.
You'd see the pond-lilies sproutin' from my spars.  For instance...'
says he, 'comin' up here I got started too late to catch the tide,
and was dodging rocks in the fog all night long.  That is an
excellent way for a poet to refresh his faculties,' says he.  'Of my
own initiative it would never happen, but I put myself under a moral
obligation to go wherever and whenever you do.'"

Bell gave a plethoric chuckle.  "'Well,' said I, 'at any rate, you
must know your business.  It was thick as pea soup.'  Says he, waving
his fin, 'I can usually find my way around...'  And he took a swig of
tea.  Upon my word, I began to like him.  He has only one man; a
half-baked Finn with a cleft palate and one eye swung over to port; a
warlock, if ever you saw one.  The Pilot-fish told me that he found
the beggar starving on the beach.  Nobody would ship him, he was that
rum.  These two zanies scarcely ever speak.  The Finn lives up
forward and only comes aft to handle the boat and valet him.  He was
ironing his shirt on the fore-hatch while we talked.  I asked him to
dinner and you'd have thought from his face that I'd suggested our
havin' a glass of potassium cyanide together.  'Oh, no ... no ... no
...' says he, takin' a grip of his yellow thatch.  Said I: 'What's
the matter?  I'm not planning to poison you.'  He began to spatter
out apologies; said that once he had met my household he would not
feel at liberty to tag me around, and asked me once more if I was
sure that I did not object.  'Follow me to Hades if you like,' said
I.  'The sea is free to all, and you never get within half a mile,
anyway.'  My word, he was so upset he broke his tea-cup against the
coamin', and I left him tryin' to swig his tea out of nothin' and
bitin' the china ring around his finger.  Coming off that evening we
passed the Finn.  'Kennybunkport
Kennybunkportkennybunkportkennybunkport...' he was patterin' to
himself.  You see, he'd been ashore to find out our forwarding
address.  When we reached Kennebunkport sure enough, here was this
floatin' bug-house lyin' at anchor and the Pilot-fish refreshin'
himself with tea and macaroons.  As we rounded up..."

His narrative was interrupted by a commotion forward.  The men were
talking and gesticulating.  Out of the galley bounced the cook, a
pair of battered glasses in his hand.  Up through the pantry hatch
popped the steward like a rabbit coming out of his hole, and the
girls' maid, a matronly woman, followed him.

"Look-a-that!" growled Bell, in disgust.  "You'd think the White
Squadron was comin' in..."  He levelled his glasses at the swimming
glare.  "Confound him ... it's he ... and Cécile gets into me for ten
dollars."

Down below a cabin clock rang sharply two bells.  "Two bells, sir,"
said a quartermaster.  "Make it so," snapped Bell, for the _Shark's_
routine was strictly naval.

Two bells were struck forward, to be followed by a smothered chorus
of exultation from the winners of sundry bets.  "Silence, there,"
cried Bell, and added to Wood: "This ship has got to be no more than
a bloomin' Grand Stand.  That lobster has lost me ten dollars.  He
must have stopped to fish."

Captain Heldstrom started forward, smiling under his grizzled beard.

"Win, captain?" snapped Bell.

"Fife dollars ... from der cook, zir," answered the captain.

"I'm glad it was the cook..." muttered Bell.

"This Pilot-fish," observed Wood, "has got the races beaten to a
finish."

All eyes aboard the _Shark_ were directed over the starboard bow.
Out of the vivid glare appeared presently a small, chunky vessel,
yawl-rigged, though from the size of her mizzen she might have been
classed as a ketch.  No bunting did she fling to the light, offshore
breeze; no pennant, burgee, ensign, nor even so much as a tell-tale
at her truck.  Huntington, a yachtsman of some experience, doubted
that she had been designed and built for a yacht.  Beating back and
forth across the bay, the yawl finally made her berth about halfway
between the _Shark_ and the eastern side of the harbour.

"What is her name?" asked Wood.

"Her name," Bell answered, "goes with the tea and macaroons.  It is
_Daffodil_."

"Oh, fudge..."

"His name," said Cécile, "is Harold Applebo."

She had expected to hear a feeble cry for help, but was disappointed.
Wood sprang up from his lounging position.

"Harold Applebo..." he cried.  "Why, he was a classmate of mine.  I
might have known ... from your father's description."

Cécile opened wide her grey eyes.  "Tell us about him," said she.

"Harold Applebo," Wood began, "is eccentric and a poet.  At college,
however, he was not considered by any means a fool."

"Does he write good verse?" asked Cécile.

"One needs to get into the bath-tub to read it.  Yet, although mushy,
he has a few admirers, and has published two books, doubtless at his
own expense.  Selections from the first were read to me this summer
by a friend.  When she had finished my head felt like a bottle full
of bees.  There was one 'Ode to a Dew-drop in the Heart of a Pansy';
another was called 'Flowers at Play.'"

"Nuf', nuf' ... let me up..." murmured Bell.

"I managed to keep my strength," continued Wood, "until my friend,
who happened to be a young mother, recited from memory, 'Baby in the
Asphodel.'  That finished me.  I have never felt the same toward
babies since.  That is unfortunate, considering my charity."

He levelled a glass toward the yawl.  "Yes ...  I see Harold ... and
there is a thing like a gollywog getting into the dink."

"The Finn," said Cécile.  "Tell us some more about Applebo."

"At college he kept house with a parrot and a bull-pup, and was known
to have eccentric ideas.  He did not believe in friendship, saying
that one's attitude should be the same toward all of one's fellows.
Although known to be tremendously powerful physically, nothing would
induce him to enter athletics.  He said that the demonstration of
individual prowess was a vain exhibition of superiority, and
therefore not ethical.  It was observed that his arguments were
beautifully adapted to his own tastes."

"Sounds rather an interestin' ass," said Bell.  "Why not jump into
the dinghy and see if you can't get him for lunch?  He might come for
you."

Wood glanced at Cécile, who nodded.

"Do," said she.  "Tell him that he may let us do his thinking for
him, just the same."

"Very well," answered Wood, always obliging.  Captain Bell raised his
fat, throaty voice.

"Away ... dinghy..." he called to the quartermaster on duty.




CHAPTER II

While Captain Bell, Cécile, and Huntington Wood were idly discussing
the manœuvres of the Pilot-fish, and different members of the crew
were engaged in settling their bets, there was one person aboard the
schooner who was taking measures to put an end to the peculiar
devotion of Mr. Harold Applebo, poet.

In her roomy cabin below, Miss Hermione Bell had heard the
exclamations which announced the sighting of the Pilot-fish.  The
port-hole over her bunk commanded a view of the harbour-mouth, and
resting on brackets overhead was a big, battered old-fashioned
telescope.  Hermione threw down her book, reached up for the glass,
and took a dead rest on the brass rim of the port-hole, when the
_Daffodil_ sprang to meet her vision, swimming unsteadily in the
vivid reflection of the sun.

Once the yawl was clear of the glare, Hermione was able to examine
her in detail.  The first object to catch her eye was a figure
squatting in a toad-like way up forward, and which, even as she
looked, scrambled upright, as though in obedience to an order, and
began to clear the anchor.  Hermione observed that the man's body was
disproportionately wide for its height, that his head resembled a
deck-swab, and that the legs were very bowed.

"The Finn..." she muttered.  "What a brute!  He looks like a
sea-spider."

Passing from the Finn, she tried to distinguish the figure at the
wheel, but all that was visible above the high coaming was a mop of
reddish-yellow hair and one big, bare shoulder.  As though conscious
that he were under scrutiny, Applebo kept his face persistently
turned away, and Hermione had learned by experience that when he was
presently forced to go about, he would shift himself to the other
side of the cockpit, keeping his back to the _Shark_.  The wheel of
the yawl was placed very low and almost hidden by the high coaming.

"Hang him!" Hermione burst out, and closed the telescope with a
vicious snap.

For several minutes she sat on the edge of her bunk, lost in thought,
her head tilted slightly forward and her eyes unfocussed.  One
graceful leg hung straight down; the other was tucked under her,
schoolgirl fashion.  Her kimono, open at the throat, showed that
splendid, arching bust seen most frequently in singers.  Hermione was
not a singer, but she was a strong swimmer, and the lung development
is similar.  Her neck was straight and strong, the little _nuque_ a
detail for sculptors to dream of, carrying its subtle curve to hide
in the thick, black, lustrous hair.  Hermione's type was Keltic;
Irish and French would both have claimed her, the latter for an
Auvergnatte, because of her very deep violet eyes and the little nose
with the retroussé tip, which all three of the girls had from their
mother.  Hermione was taller than her sisters and was destined to be
a big woman at maturity, this promise being so far draped in youth.

Europeans found Hermione far more beautiful than Cécile, and Paula
lovelier than either.  But to the American taste the girl's type was
too tropical, even her indigo eyes commonly passing for black.  There
was also about her a tempestuosity which appalled most people.
Hermione was not a hoyden; she was far too feminine for that, but she
was temperamentally impetuous, often to the point of violence, and
her discourse, when angered, was not always what it should be.
Christian Heldstrom worshipped the planks she trod on ... and she had
given him more trouble than both of the others put together.  Which
is to say, that she gave him more trouble than did Cécile, as Paula
was always good.

Hermione had already many beaus, whom she treated like dogs.  Yet her
method was kinder than Cécile's, for Hermione never flirted.  If she
liked a man, she permitted him to row and sail and swim with her; if
she did not like him, she told him to clear out.  For gallantry she
had no patience and was apt to receive with contumely the most subtle
of flatteries.

And yet...

Hermione's long, round arm reached for the lid of a little locker
beside her bunk.  Therefrom she took a large package of cream, or
rather, corn-coloured note-paper closely covered by a small, regular
handwriting which at the first glance resembled Greek script.  From
this package Hermione selected a sheet at random, then flinging
herself face downward on the bunk, dropped her pretty chin into one
hand, and resting on her elbow, she proceeded to acquire the
following interesting information:--


  TO HERMIONE

  _The fog may blanket the sleeping sea,
  Hermione;
  Sunbeams may falter, moonbeams pale
  May swoon at the frown of the darkling gale.
  I follow thee,
  Hermione._

  _The skies may weep or the tempest shrill,
  Hermione;
  Tide-rips may growl and the rock-fangs yawn
  And sea-traps be set in the lightless dawn.
  I follow still,
  Hermione._

  _I may not see thee nor hear thy voice,
  Hermione;
  Nothing I ask but to feel thou art there,
  To share thy ocean, to breathe thy air.
  So I rejoice,
  Hermione._

  _Thus if I sing one little song,
  Hermione,
  'Tis the cry of the gull swept off on the wind.
  One soundless sigh of a love that is blind.
  Forgive my wrong,
  Hermione._


Hermione read the verses twice through, then stared at the white
bulkhead.

"Fool!" was her polite comment.

There were a great many of these poems, each bearing a different
date, and each a souvenir of some port where the _Shark_ had visited.
Over a period of three months ran the verses, and not once during
that time had the poet been within a quarter of a mile of her to
Hermione's knowledge.  Once or twice she had caught a glimpse of
Applebo's face through her telescope, but never a satisfactory one.
Paula was the only one of the girls who had ever seen him at close
range; she had come on him face to face in the post-office, but had
been quite unable to say whether or not he was good to look at.

The verses always came most prosaically through the mail.  All three
of the sisters had a large correspondence, so that Hermione's
corn-coloured letters, with their peculiar calligraphy, had excited
no especial comment.  Once or twice she had been asked from whom they
were.  "A darn fool..." Hermione had answered, for which her father,
old sinner that he was, saw fit to reprove her.

Hermione lay on her bunk and kicked up her heels and read her verses,
sometimes with a curling lip when the sentiment impressed her as
particularly mushy.  Yet, oddly enough, there was a flush glowing
darkly through the olive of her cheeks, and any one would have sworn
that her eyes were a very velvety tone of black.  Once or twice her
long, lithe young body squirmed uneasily and her broad forehead
clouded as though from displeasure.

Certainly, there was, aside from the presumption of the poet in
sending her the verses at all, nothing to give offence in Applebo's
effusions.  All were of the very essence of delicacy, and each
carried somewhere in its text a little word of apology.

Hermione rose suddenly, flung the leaflets back into the locker, and
sat for a moment with brooding eyes and the warm flush burning
through her clear, olive skin.  The girl never burned nor tanned nor
chapped; her complexion preserved invariably its delicacy of tint and
texture.

"What a lot of rot..." muttered Hermione to herself.  "The man's an
idiot.  If I make him feel like that, why doesn't he come over and
kick about it instead of flopping around in that little tub and
writing me fathoms of slush?  Here's where he gets a little sonnet
from his Hermione."

With her flush even darker, she reached for her writing block and
penned the following epistle:--


SCHOONER-YACHT _Shark_, Shoal Harbour, August fourth.

HAROLD APPLEBO, ESQ., Yacht _Daffodil_.

Dear Sir:--Has it ever occurred to you that it is scarcely fair to my
sisters, Cécile and Paula, that I, the youngest, should be the sole
recipient of so many poetic gems?  Inasmuch as your acquaintance with
them is precisely that of our own, my sense of fairness no longer
permits of my being the only favoured one.

I must, therefore, request that you transfer your delicate attentions
for the next few weeks, at least.  This measure will also give me an
opportunity to recover from the emotions produced by your
latest:--"Hermione's Eyes" ... which, by the way, do not happen to be
"grey as the sleeping sea."

Thanking you for your delicate attentions, and in the hope that my
sisters may appreciate them even more than my limited poetic faculty
has permitted,

  Very truly yours,
      HERMIONE BELL.


"There," said Hermione, "if that doesn't send the sentimental youth
flapping out to sea, I'll give him something that will."

She sealed and addressed the letter and proceeded to dress, putting
on a white-serge sailor blouse and skirt, the latter short enough to
clear her trim ankles.  The thick, black hair she wound in snug bands
about her head, added a crimson ribbon, and capped the whole with a
white tam.  Thus costumed she appeared a tall, slenderly graceful
girl with a pretty, tantalising face, of which one carried away an
impression of warm, vivid colouring, sapphire eyes, tip-tilted nose,
and red lips ever ready to return insults for the kisses which would
seem to fit them.  Hermione always looked slender to the point of
being thin when smartly dressed; it needed her bathing-suit or a
riding-habit to reveal her as the Diana which she was.  Whether for
good or ill, the mother had left a rich legacy of physical beauty to
her three girls.

As Hermione went on deck she saw Wood pulling away in the dinghy in
the direction of the _Daffodil_.  He had declined the offer of a man
to row him, and had promised to do his best to bring Applebo back for
luncheon.

"Where is Huntington going?" asked Hermione of Cécile.  "I thought he
was to stay for lunch."

"So he is.  We sent him over to see if he couldn't induce the
Pilot-fish to come, too.  It seems they were classmates at Yale."

"Applebo won't come," said Hermione.

"Why not?" asked her father.

"It would strip him of his sentimental pose to be formally presented.
I'm going ashore to post a letter."

The quartermaster brought her own little cedar skiff alongside, and
Hermione got aboard and pulled in for the landing of the Reading
Room.  Arrived, the boatman took charge of the skiff, and Hermione
started to walk up the steep path which led through the scrub pines
and was a short cut to the village.  She had gone about half the
distance when she saw, waddling rapidly toward her and resembling in
the thicket some gnome or troll, a short, squat figure which she
recognised immediately as the Finn.

Hermione had several times seen the man at close range, the last of
these occasions being while he was propelled to the landing in a
wheelbarrow, insensible with drink, and suggesting some great pulpy
kraken or other fetid creature of the deep.  It had taken the girl a
couple of days to get over the effect produced by the sight of the
sodden, inert body, bloated purple face with its shock of wild, black
hair, and the misshapen limbs dangling and flopping grotesquely over
the sides of the barrow.

Now, as she saw him approaching, Hermione felt a strong impulse to
turn and bolt.  Even at the distance of one hundred yards she could
distinguish the pallid face which the sun seemed powerless to tan.
As she drew closer she observed, with a shudder, the wide cleft in
the upper-lip and the eyes set so painfully askew that the man was
forced to turn his head almost at right-angles to his shoulders in
order to look at an object in front of him.

Pride kept Hermione straight on her course; then, as the Finn drew
near, it occurred to her to give her note to him.  This would obviate
furnishing information to a possibly curious and inquisitive
postmistress, for both the _Shark_ and the _Daffodil_ had spent a
good deal of the summer at Shoal Harbour, where the striking
personality of Applebo must have attracted a certain amount of
attention.

Therefore, as the Finn drew abreast of her, Hermione made a sign with
her hand.  His head still cocked sideways and somewhat curiously
suggesting that of a sea-bird hunting its food in the spray, the man
waddled up.  Hermione, watching him half in disgust, half in
curiosity, received a surprise.  For the face of the Finn, distorted
as it was, held, nevertheless, a sort of wild and spiritual beauty.
Whether this was because of an expression of infinite pathos and
suffering, or owing to the beautifully shaped forehead and deep,
velvety brown of the eyes, Hermione could not have said, but suddenly
all of her repulsion vanished, leaving only kindliness and pity.  The
expression in the great, melting brown eyes, twisted as they were,
suggested that which one might see in the eyes of a faithful
Newfoundland, his back broken by a motor-car.

Hermione held out her letter.  The Finn took it with a smile, then
bowed.

"For your master," said Hermione.

The Finn smiled and nodded.

"Yo, leddy..." said he.

Hermione, thinking to tip him, opened her purse.  To her surprise the
man sprang back, while an expression, almost of fright, filled the
misshapen face.

"Na ... na ... na..." he mumbled.  Hermione noticed that while he
held up one big, gnarled hand, as if in protest, he was nevertheless
drawing nearer, and that in a stealthy, sidelong way.  Startled, she
snapped shut her pocketbook.

"What's the matter?" she asked, sharply.

The Finn's face fell.  He drew the back of his hand across his
forehead.  Hermione saw that it was beaded with perspiration.

The Finn looked at her with a tragic sort of smile, pointed to the
purse, then made a motion as of one drinking deeply.  Hermione
understood.

"You are afraid that if I give you some change you may drink?" she
asked.

The Finn nodded vigorously, stood for a moment regarding her, then,
with a tug at his forelock, turned on his heel and scuttled off down
the slope toward the landing.




CHAPTER III

Close aboard the _Daffodil_, Wood was about to lift his voice in a
hail when there came to his ears the sounds of one declaiming in a
rich and resonant bass.  Having observed the departure of the Finn
some half-hour earlier, Wood decided that Mr. Applebo must be
refreshing his solitude by the recital of some of his own verse.  It
was therefore with no more consciousness of eavesdropping than has
one who pauses to listen to the practising of a musician that Wood
rested on his oars, to be startled by the following interrogation:--

  "_Tell me, beloved, since your eyes
  Hold all the azure of the skies,
  Why, then, when night their brightness mars,
  Those lustrous depths hold all the stars?
  But when the day's once more begun,
  I look, and lo ... there shines the sun,
  And when it sets, alack too soon,
  In each deep orb I find the moon._"

  "_The answer is, Hermione,
  All heaven's in those eyes for me._"


Before Wood could sufficiently recover from the astonishment produced
by this innocent query and its answer, the same voice continued in
prose, apparently in criticism of the effort and as follows:

"Shucks ... How do I know her eyes are azure? ... I never saw
them....  They might be cadmium or cobalt or madder lake, for all
me."  (A pause, then) "when night their brightness mars ... mars ...
oh, hell, what does it mar it with ... a handful of mud?"  (Another
pause, then) "Mars is rotten ... let's see ... mars, cars, spars,
tars, chars, bars ... augh ... what the deuce ... oh, let it go; it's
no worse than the rest.  In each deep orb ... fudge, I wonder how
many thousand millions of bum poets have said that ... oh, dammit ...
dammit ... dammitttt..."

There came the sound of paper violently torn.  Wood, smothering his
laughter at this unofficial peep into the soul of the poet, raised
his voice:--

"Aboard the _Daffodil_..."

There was no answer.  Wood tried again.

"Aboard the daffy daffodilly ... I say ... Harold..."

Followed an instant of silence, then a tawny, leonine head was pushed
up through the hatch.

"Hello, Harold!" said Wood.

The poet blinked a pair of clear, amber-coloured eyes.  His mane of
ruddy-yellow hair was touselled and his expression was that of a
person surprised in a yawn.

"Hello, Huntington!" he drawled, in a very deep and husky bass.  The
yellow eyes blinked once or twice at the dinghy.  "You're off the
_Shark_?"

"Jusso, Mr. Pilot-fish.  May I come aboard?"

"Pray do.  I am in the act of brewing tea.  Sorry I haven't anything
more robust to offer you.  I cannot keep spirits, as my crew is a
Finn with second sight and an alcoholic affinity.  He can spot a
whiskey-bottle through a teak locker; then he forces the lock and
drinks all that there is without reference to the next man.  If there
were a gallon, he would drink it all."

"And then what?" asked Wood.

"Then I chain him to the mainmast so that he will not start to swim
back to Finland.  However, my tea is very good.  So are the macaroons
... after you scrape off the green mould.  The weather has been warm
and humid, and I cannot get fresh ones here.  I have wired to Boston
for a supply.  But come aboard..."

He reached over the side for the painter of the dinghy, and caught a
clove-hitch one-handedly and with a deftness which did not suggest
the amateur.  Huntington stepped aboard and looked about with
interest.

"A handy little boat," he said.

"Yes.  She was designed for a Block Island sword-fisher.  I bought
her on the stocks before they had touched her inside.  These boats'
plans are all got out by yacht designers.  She is not dull."

"No motor?"

"No.  They smell, and the grease would soil my manuscripts.  Besides,
the beat of the engine would get in my head and spoil my metre.
Think of trying to write dactylic hexameter with an accursed motor
pounding away:--'Juba-this ... Juba-that...'  Come below.  Our tannin
is distilled."

In the cosey cabin, singular for its extreme bareness and singular
yellow colour-scheme, Wood seated himself upon the edge of the bunk
and watched the poet as he poured the tea.  Mr. Applebo was in his
customary service rig of faded yellow rowing-shirt, white duck
trousers, and leather sandals.  His long, wavy hair, naturally of a
reddish yellow, was sun-bleached to the lustreless tone of oakum, and
hung in heavy clusters that almost hid his ears.  The lithe,
beautifully muscled figure was flawless, so far as one could see;
big-boned, brawny, deep-chested, yet with a suggestion of lightness
and grace which one associates with statues of Hermes.  His skin,
wherever visible, was of the quality of satin, the colour of
old-gold, and his hands, while hardened from physical work and the
handling of wet ropes, were exquisitely shaped, the fingers straight
and strong and well-spaced.

Most striking of all was the poet's face, and it was here that one
paused in doubt before rendering a verdict upon Mr. Applebo's
physical attractiveness.  In feature and expression there seemed to
be no standard with which to compare the man's singular type ... or
at least, no human standard.  Many faces find their caricatures in
the lower animals; one sees people who resemble, or at least, suggest
the sheep, monkey, bull-dog, camel, etc.  Applebo's face suggested a
sleepy lion.  There was the same tawny colour-scheme, the blinking,
amber eyes focussed on some far-distant point, the straight, broad
nose with a mouth which was slightly lifted in the middle, cheeks cut
away and showing a prominent malar bone ... certainly, the general
resemblance was rather toward the cat carnivora than toward anything
human.

So far as expression went, Wood could discover absolutely nothing.
There was about the poet an atmosphere of languor, either real or
assumed, and one felt that if this sloth could be torn aside, the
true man or animal, beneath, might stand revealed.

"What do you do on this boat?" asked Wood.

"I dream dreams ... and laugh at them.  I weave long and fascinating
romances of which I am the glorious hero ... and laugh at them.
Also, I write many wingèd words."

"And laugh at them?"

"No.  Other people do that."

"I have been sent over here," said Wood, "to order you to report for
luncheon aboard the _Shark_.  They are getting tired of you as merely
a parlor game."

Applebo looked a little scared.

"Thanks awfully..." he said, less dreamily, "but I cannot go.  My
delicate sense of social ethics prevents."

"Rot!"

"Really.  My extreme sensitiveness.  You can't tag strangers about
until they ask you to luncheon, nor, having been so weak as to yield
to the temptation and accept, could you continue to tag.  Then I
would be all adrift and not know which way to sail."

"Harold," said Wood, "please go and sing that to the sirens.  I am
wise to your ingenious sophistries.  You are in love with a lady, oh
poet.  That, and not a lacking initiative, is the reason of your
singular fidelity to yon tub."

Applebo raised his tawny head, and blinked once or twice at his
guest.  Then, in the same dreamy way, he lowered his full cup from
his lips.  Nothing was more remote from his manner than any hint of
agitation, wherefore it struck Wood as odd that he should have let
the cup turn in his hand and spill the scalding tea on the dorsum of
his bare foot.

"Confound it!" quoth the poet, and grabbed at his foot.  The tea-cup
struck the edge of the spirit stove and broke, leaving the porcelain
ring of the handle on Applebo's finger.  Forgetting his foot, he
looked at it and blinked.

"There..." said he.  "That is the second time that this has happened.
A ring upon my finger the minute that my true motive is questioned.
I do not like that."

"You ought to," observed Wood, "since you are in love with her."

"Not necessarily.  My intentions are honourable but not matrimonial,
and a ring is not the symbol of love but of marriage."

"Cynic..."

"No ... poet.  Love to the poet is part of his material.  It is the
most important of his implements of craft.  His motive force.  I
love, but I ask nothing in return ... beyond being permitted to love
from afar.  But not too far.  A poet must be in the general
neighbourhood of his inspiration."

"Stop ... my tea is coming up..."

"Worldling!  No doubt you are in love with her yourself."  The voice
of the poet held the tone of one being roused from a beauty-sleep.
"I hope that you are ... and that she returns your passion.  So much
the better.  A hopeless love is always productive of the purest
verse.  The Italian poets understood this.  It is all that I needed."

"If I listen to you any longer you will have to chain me to the
mainmast with the Finn.  Why did you pick out Hermione?"

The eyes of the poet shot him a yellow gleam.

"What makes you think that it is Hermione?"

"You were yapping her name as I came alongside.  Never mind; I will
not betray you.  But I wish that you would let me tell them that it
is hopeless passion and not feeble-mindedness which leads you on in
the wake of the _Shark_.  They would be so pleased."

"Tell them, if you like.  It does not matter, since we are destined
never to meet.  But don't tell which one I am in love with.  The
others might tease her.  All women are cats."

"A lover-like opinion...."

"I am very fond of cats.  They are my index ... just as yellow is my
colour.  I am really very much in love with Hermione."

"When did you see her?"

"Last winter.  It was her superb walk that vanquished me.  I have
never seen her, bow-on.  Last winter, on my way down Fifth Avenue
every morning to breakfast at the club, I often overhauled her.  But
I never passed.  She drifted along like a marsh lily gathered by the
flood."

"But she might enjoy meeting you."

Applebo shook his head.  "I am wedded to my Muse.  She will not brook
a rival.  Should Hermione enter my life, I would never write another
poem.  You see, I would be merely living one.  Have a macaroon.
There is very little mould on this one."

Wood glanced at him with suspicion, but Applebo's face would have
made that of the Sphinx look open and confiding.  A big, yellow
tom-cat he appeared as he sat there, great shoulders hunched forward,
back bent, blinking impenetrably at his guest.  He finished a
macaroon and licked the crumbs from his lips, and looked even
cattier.  It would not have surprised his guest had he begun to purr.

"Where did you learn so much seamanship?" asked Wood.  "Captain Bell
says that the way you find your way around is uncanny."

Applebo waved his hand and shrugged.

"A mere instinct.  One might almost say a lower attribute and shared
with birds, mammals, and fishes.  I am not proud of it."

"Do you write poems of the sea?"

"Sometimes, but the subject does not interest me.  A great, empty
desolate waste of wet.  No, why write poems of the sea when there are
so many lovable things; old gardens and dear old people; little
children and lovely women ... the last, always in the abstract."  His
amber eyes glowed.

Wood stared at him keenly, but Applebo appeared oblivious.  Wood rose
to his feet.

"It is almost two bells," said he, "I must be getting back.  Sorry
you will not come."

"Thank you, dear boy.  Please make all of my excuses.  Tell them what
you like ... only mention no names.  Express my deep appreciation of
their goodness, and thank them in my name for permitting me to rot
around in their wake.  Good-bye ... God bless you."

In a very pensive mood Wood pulled back to the _Shark_, where his
lack of success was received somewhat caustically by Cécile.  But at
the luncheon table Wood had his revenge.

"It is just as I thought," said he.  "Applebo's plea that he follows
the _Shark_ about to save himself the wear and tear of deciding where
to go is all a bluff."

Had he been looking at Hermione as he made this statement, Wood might
have seen something in her face to have given him food for thought.
But he was looking at Cécile, not without a certain touch of malice.
Since the coquette had rather cruelly thrown him over after having
given him reason to believe that he was not indifferent to her, Wood
had done a good deal of thinking, finally to arrive at the conclusion
that all had happened for the best, and that a girl who could find it
in her heart to do this sort of thing was not the girl that any man
should want to marry.  He no longer loved Cécile, and was therefore
no longer blind to her faults.  Conspicuous amongst these was a
tremendous appreciation of her own charms, and Wood felt
instinctively that, on learning of Applebo's confession, Cécile would
immediately appropriate this devotion to herself.  Wood bore no
rancour for her treatment of himself, but he would scarcely have been
human had he not found a certain cynical enjoyment in the situation.

"I am not at liberty to mention any names," said he, "but when I
directly accused him of being secretly in love with some lady aboard
the _Shark_, Applebo acknowledged that this was the fact."

Hermione's blue eyes opened very wide and a sudden rich colour
flooded her face.  Captain Bell and Wood were, however, looking at
Cécile.  Paula, the second sister, was lunching with friends ashore.

Cécile's black, curving lashes swept down, and she looked at her
plate and laughed, while a delicate colour tinged her soft cheeks.
Secretly, she had suspected for a long time precisely what Wood had
just stated, and the news brought to her that flush of triumph which
attended every new and interesting conquest.

Captain Bell surveyed his eldest daughter with disgust.

"My word!" he snapped.  "Has it come to a point where they follow her
around in boats?"

Wood glanced at Hermione with the slightest suspicion of a wink.  She
coloured and laughed.  Hermione and Cécile had but little in common,
and aside from a certain amount of sisterly affection, were rather
indifferent to each other.  Cécile disapproved Hermione's frank,
impetuous manner, and Hermione detested her sister's cold-blooded
coquetries.  Both of the girls adored their sister Paula.

"Applebo's is a somewhat peculiar devotion," Wood observed, "but that
is to be expected, considering Applebo.  He asks only to worship from
afar.  It appears that his sentiment is useful as a source of
inspiration; 'motive force,' as he expressed it.  He even went so far
as to say that it would profit him even more if some other person
were to win the heart of his inamorata, as hopeless passion was
always productive of the best poetic results."

"Huh..." grunted Bell.  "I told you he was a balm!"

"So he intends never to meet me ... us ...?"  Cécile corrected
herself, but not in time to save the laugh.

"A modest young person, my daughter Cécile," said Bell, dryly.  "Of
course it's not within the scope of human possibility that Paula or
Hermione should have found favour in the eyes of this omelette-head.
Cut another notch in your gunstock, my dear..."  And he continued in
this ironic strain until Hermione and Wood took pity on Cécile and
changed the conversation by sheer weight of voices.

Toward the middle of the afternoon Paula Bell returned aboard.  There
was nothing of the sea about this girl, who was wholly of the warm
and comforting earth.  Paula's type was such as one sees in the
sculptured figures of French public buildings, lending themselves to
emblematic decoration, and representing Ceres, with overflowing
cornucopia, Justitia with her scales, or perhaps an opulent creature
to depict La Vendange, the vintage, or Return of the Grape.  In face
and figure Paula might have posed for one of these splendid, heroic
sculptures.  Already, at twenty-two, her form was gracefully mature,
and her face, pure of feature, had that pretty alluringness of
expression with which the French sculptors know so well how to
sweeten and vitalise the classic Greek.  We Anglo-Saxons, on the
contrary, seeking to copy directly from the ancients, are too apt to
get as a result the well-known, frozen-faced females which suggest
rather George Washington, a suffragette, or an idealised William
Jennings Bryan than the desired Mother of the Earth.

"What do you think...?" cried Paula.  "I met the Pilot-fish face to
face."

"You did!" cried Hermione.  "What did he do?"

"Nothing.  It was in the post-office.  He stood with his eyes fixed
on infinity while the clerk sorted his mail.  He is very striking in
appearance and as graceful as a panther.  People turn to look at him."

"How was he dressed?" asked Cécile.

"Beautifully ... but not the least hint of the nautical.  White serge
suit, straw-coloured pongee shirt with a dark, smoky-orange colour
tie, yellow buckskin shoes.  His hair is long and beautifully
_ondulé_; such a chevelure is wasted on most men, but not on the
Pilot-fish.  I wonder if he sleeps with it in papers."

"No," said Wood.  "It has always been like that.  Freshman year the
Sophs tried to cut it for him.  The infirmary did a big business for
a week.  His bull-pup and parrot got in the game and bit one man and
gouged the ear of another.  The next night the Sophs went back in
force to do the job or die.  Harold waited until they got inside,
then locked the door, threw the key under the bed, and pulled aside
the curtains of an alcove.  Here was a forbidding-looking keg with
"POWDER" stencilled on the side in big red letters, and a fuse in the
top.  Before anybody could stop him, Harold let out a fearful yell
and lighted the fuse.  It began to sputter, and the Sophs lost
interest in Harold's hair.  You see, he was known to be such a wild
freak that there was no telling what he might not do, so out they
went, taking the door with them and piling up in a heap in the
corridor, which was narrow.  The fuse reached the bung-hole, when
there came a sort of mild explosion.  One man fainted.  When the
smoke cleared away, there was Harold drawing beer out of the other
end of the keg.  They let him keep his hair."

Cécile did not join in the laughter of the others.

"Then he is a sort of clown?" she asked, a little sharply.

Wood shook his head.  "Not a bit.  It seems to me that the others
were the ones to perform."

Cécile made no answer.  To herself she was registering a little vow
that she would put the leonine Mr. Applebo through his tricks, and
that before she was many days older.

There was to be a little dinner party aboard the _Shark_ that night,
and Captain Bell, the most recent of whose fads was the culinary
arts, had spent his morning in the galley, preparing certain dishes
with which to "surprise" his guests.  This innocent pastime of their
father's had been encouraged by the girls; as Hermione said, "it kept
him out of mischief, while the heat of the galley, acting as a
Turkish bath, was good for his asthma."

In the present instance, however, this beneficial occupation was
destined to directly affect the future affairs of several people,
notably those of Mr. Harold Applebo.

It was during the soup course Captain Bell ventured to expand a
little to his guests on the higher attributes of the culinary art:--

"A cook," he observed, didactically, "is far above the menial class.
He is an artist, and entitled to the same respectful consideration
which might be shown a sculptor, painter, poet, or musician.  More,
in fact, because a cook ministers, not only to our æsthetic sense and
intellectual demands, but to the physical as well.  In substantiation
of these statements, I am about to offer you an entrée made this
morning by my own hands ... ah..."

The peroration was cut short by the entrance of the steward bearing
the gastronomic chef-d'œuvre, which was in the form of a
vol-au-vent, or chicken-pie.  At first glance, the dish appeared to
be highly successful.  The crust was brown and flaky, and seemed to
promise succulent delicacies within.  After the first anxious glance,
Captain Bell sank back into his chair and looked about with the
benevolent expression of one about to confer a rare treat upon his
friends.

The steward, struggling manfully with his grin, presented the dish to
Cécile, who proceeded to attack it with a blunt knife.  The crust
sagged like the head of a slack drum, but refused to give up its
dead.  Cécile exerted a little more pressure.  The crust held
valiantly, while certain unhallowed gurglings came from beneath.
Everybody was watching Cécile with that painful anxiety peculiar to
such moments.  Bell began to fidget.

"Cut into it..." he snapped.  "The chicken ain't goin' to bite you."

The popular tension found relief in a laugh at this witticism.  Bell
glared, and the ill-timed mirth subsided.  Cécile threw her solid
weight upon the knife.  It bent, and a tiny jet of juice found its
exit, hitting Mr. Poole in the eye.  He wiped it furtively, and the
others pretended not to have observed the accident.

"Briggs, give me a pointed knife," said Cécile.

"Of course..." growled Bell.  "Always serve a pointed knife with a
pastry."

The perspiring Briggs fetched the desired weapon.  Thus armed, Cécile
successfully attacked the crust, which she flayed back as one might
skin an animal.  She helped herself daintily, and the dish was passed
to Wood, all eyes watching him as though he were about to draw in any
other lottery.

Politic youth that he was, Wood helped himself generously, when there
rolled out of the gravy upon his plate, a small, kitchen salt-cellar.

"Thunderation!" snapped the host, "so that's where it went.  I hunted
half an hour for that thing...."

"Papa..." protested Cécile.  Nobody else could speak, and the faces
around the board were crimson.  Their host was known by his guests to
take himself very seriously.

Wood tried again, this time exhuming what appeared to be a misshapen
piece of rubber, but which a clever comparative anatomist might have
recognised as the sacrum of a fowl with its muscular attachments.

"It smells delicious..." said the young man.  He tried to cut the
lump, which slipped from beneath his knife and bounded across the
saloon.  Wood's face expressed polite disappointment at the loss of
the relish.  The suffering steward, unable to look at him, hurried on
with the dish, passing it next to Hermione, who ripped off a ragged
piece of the "crust," which she proceeded to cover with a substance
much resembling asphalt.

Mr. Poole, Wood's host on the _Arcturus_, came next.  The face of
this gentleman was painfully congested and his hand trembled so that
he could scarcely hold the spoon.  Bell watched him narrowly.  It was
at moments such as these that he was apt to form his friendships and
enmities.

Hermione saw that Poole was not up to the ordeal and came generously
to the rescue.

"Be careful..." said she, "papa lost his watch a few days ago, and he
would never forgive you if you were to break it."

Even Captain Bell had to join in the roar which followed.  But there
was a fighting gleam in his eye which boded ill for somebody.

"That's right, laugh..." roared Bell.  "Funny, ain't it ... and you
girls know perfectly well that this is the first dish o' mine that's
gone wrong since ... since..."

"Since the casserole blew up and we had to raise the cook's wages,"
said Hermione.

"It's all the fault of that infernal Pilot-fish and his swab-headed,
swivel-eyed Finn..." stormed Bell, oblivious to all attempts at
restraint.  "How in the deuce am I goin' to cook a dish requirin'
care and watchfulness with all hands, cook, scullion..."

"...and yourself..."

"... and myself, then, breaking for the rail every time some
square-head for'ard sights a fishin' boat?  That's the way the
salt-cellar got ... lost.  I set it down on the crust for a second to
take a look, and it got drawn in, like ... like..."

"Like it might have in any other quicksand," supplied Hermione.

No fear nor respect of the host could drown the roar which followed
and stifled echoes of which appeared to come from the pantry, whither
the steward had fled.  Bell was, however, furious.

"Steward..." he bawled.  The unhappy man appeared, saddened, to judge
by the funereal expression of his face, and the tears still brimming
in his eyes.

"Take this dish forward," said Bell, with great dignity, "and present
it, with my compliments, to Captain Heldstrom and the mate."

"How about the corroded top of that salt-cellar, papa?" asked Paula.
"Might not that be poisonous?"

"It doesn't need the salt-cellar..." Hermione whispered to the
writhing Mr. Poole.

"That may be so ... that may be so," Bell assented.  "Wonder none of
the rest of you had the wit to think of it.  Steward..."

"Sir..."

"Carry the blamed thing up and heave it overboard."  Bell glared
savagely about him.  "There's a whole morning's work and two fine
chickens ... no, three..."

"Three!"

"Yes.  The first one I accidentally dropped overboard while looking
for the Pilot-fish.  Curse the Pilot-fish ... I say, curse him.  It's
all his fault.  He has got this whole ship's company going all ways
at once like a school o' gallied whales.  I'll fix him.  I'll lead
him a chase.  I'll wear him out, confound him, or know the reason
why.  Wants to follows us, does he?  Right-o!  I'll keep him on the
trot till his tongue hangs out."

"How?" asked Cécile.

"By keepin' him on the move.  We'll lead him a chase from Cape Race
to Key West and never give him a chance to eat.  Who wants to bet me
that he'll be with us at the end of a fortnight?  Come with us, Wood;
you've got nothin' to do and I'll show you some fun; a sort of
_chasse-à-courre_.  Will you come?"

"Oh, do, Huntington," Paula cried.  Wood glanced at Cécile.

"Do come, if it would amuse you," said she.

"Who wants to bet me that this chump will still be in the hunt two
weeks from now?" cried Bell.  "What! no takers?"

"Wait until we start," said Hermione.




CHAPTER IV

Hermione, that strenuous nymph, was in the habit of early rising for
a row in her little skiff, finishing up with a plunge.  After that,
bed again, where she devoured bacon and eggs, coffee, and perhaps
kippers or haddock.

Sometimes Paula accompanied her, but never Cécile.  This luxurious
beauty had no taste for cold and sticky Maine sea-water.  She liked
hers warm and fresh, in a tub at about ten.  As for Captain Bell, he
never appeared on deck when in port until after déjeûner, which was
served at twelve.  None of the family got to bed before midnight,
usually playing bridge until all hours.  When there were no guests,
Hermione and Cécile always played against Paula and their father.
This may have been the reason why the eldest and youngest sister were
not particularly devoted chums.

The morning after the dinner episode of the salt-cellar, Hermione was
up as usual at about six.  For these matutinal excursions she always
wore her bathing-suit, a simple but exceedingly becoming costume of
cucumber-green trimmed with maroon and an apology for a skirt which
reached to a little above her pretty knees.  Her hair was snugly
coiffed in a dark crimson kerchief, and, taking her, as sailors say,
full and bye, Hermione was well worth getting up at sunrise to see.

As a general thing ladies are not supposed to appear on the deck of a
yacht before eight bells, but the _Shark_ was more of a home than a
yacht, and Hermione sent the steward to prepare the way before her.
Captain Heldstrom was always up, and Hermione was, under his strict
injunction, never to go where she could not be sighted from the
schooner.

Usually the girl contented herself with pulling about the harbour,
taking her plunge alongside on her return.  Sometimes, however, when
lying in some wild and picturesque harbour, she would land on the
beach to explore or perhaps have a try for snipe with her little
16-bore.  Often she gathered wild-flowers for the breakfast table,
and taking it altogether, these early morning rambles were the best
part of Hermione's day.

On this particular occasion, she decided for a stroll along the shore
on the eastern side of the bay, and as the place looked promising for
birds, she took her gun and a game-bag containing a few cartridges.
As she went on deck the quartermaster told her that Captain Heldstrom
had gone ashore on some business of the vessel, for Captain Bell had
announced that the _Shark_ was in for a couple of weeks continually
under way, and it was generally understood that this was a sporting
attempt to shake off the Pilot-fish.  In fact, bets as to the success
of the undertaking were already in process of registry.

Olesen helped her into her skiff, and Hermione pulled away in the
direction of the beach, reflecting naughtily to herself that since
Heldstrom was ashore she might take advantage of the fact to have a
look at the salt marsh on the other side of a strip of dwarf pines
growing almost to the water's edge.  The night before she had
observed flocks of snipe and plover circling this marsh, also a bunch
of curlew, and being a very good shot, she did not see what was to
prevent her from getting a good bag.  True, the whole place was
preserved by the Shoal Harbour Gun and Fish Club, of which her father
was not a member, but to Hermione this fact merely added zest to her
expedition.

Halfway to the beach she passed within about two hundred yards of the
_Daffodil_, at which she looked curiously.  Nobody was in sight, and
the dinghy was hanging out astern.  "Lazy beast!" thought Hermione,
with the contempt of the early riser for the sloths who are still in
bed.

She fetched up at the beach, a good mile from the _Shark_, and leaped
ashore, grapnel in one hand and her little double-barrelled gun in
the other.  The tide was well out, and on reaching a point whence she
could look over into the little lagoon, with its encircling strip of
marsh, Hermione could see several flocks of plover and big snipe
weaving here and there, like motes of dust eddying in the breeze,
while their clear whistlings reached her, sharp and sweet in the
morning air.

She passed quickly over the crest of the beach and hurried toward a
point some quarter of a mile distant, where the pine-scrub grew down
to skirt the sedge.  As the tide was far out, Hermione judged that,
in all probability, the sedge was full of feeding birds, so she
loaded her gun and started in to beat out the rim of the marsh.

Scarcely had she gone fifty feet when up sprang a big yellow-leg
snipe, rising straight in the air as though propelled less by its
wings than the spring from the long, powerful legs.  He was not to be
missed under the conditions.  Hermione's gun flew to her shoulder,
her quick eye glanced along the shining barrel, and making quite
sure, she fired.  The very centre of the charge found the unfortunate
bird, and down it dropped, straight as a plummet.

Another rose to the left.  Hermione fired and missed.  The two
reports had aroused the marsh, however, and the air was filled with
flying birds and their shrill, startled calls.  A bunch of splendid
golden plover, rising from the other side of the lagoon, began to
circle the place, and Hermione, her breath coming quickly and her
eyes like sapphires, drew back into the shelter of the pines.
Straight toward her came the plover; then, within easy range,
Hermione stepped suddenly from her blind and threw up her gun.  The
birds immediately bunched, as she knew they would, and for a moment
appeared to pause undecided in their flight.  Picking a plover in the
centre of the bunch, Hermione fired; then, as the flock swerved, she
fired again.  It was a splendid opportunity, and for a moment
Hermione held her breath at the results of her shot.  Plover seemed
literally to rain from the sky.  Some were quite dead, others merely
winged, and as they fell high up where the grass was short, Hermione
was very busy for a few moments, loading and beating about for the
wounded.

One bird escaped into the tall grass.  It seemed useless to look for
him, so with her game-bag bulging with the prizes already secured,
Hermione decided that, since she had been making a good deal of a
fusillade and the place was, after all, a preserve, it might be just
as well modestly and hastily to withdraw.  Also, to tell the truth,
the sight of the beautiful dead birds, their glorious plumage stained
and blood-soaked, rather sickened her.  It was quite one thing to
shoot at a flying bird and another to pursue him with relentless
ferocity when a wounded fugitive upon the ground, finally to secure
his mangled and bloody corpse.  Hermione found herself suddenly
sickened with the sport.  The thought of the wounded little plover
hiding in the sedge, perhaps dying slowly of its hurts, gave her a
very uncomfortable sensation in her throat.  For the instant she felt
a hot desire to fling her gun into the marsh and hunt no more.

"I'm finished..." she said, aloud.  "Hereafter I stick to the
clay-pigeon trap on the _Shark's_ quarter-deck.  This is a nasty
business."

Filled with remorse she took one of the plover from her game-bag and
stood for a moment looking at it as it lay in her hand.  The tears
sprang suddenly to her eyes.  Here was a little creature which a
moment before had been so joyously full of life, now a sad,
bloodstained martyr to the lust of killing.  Hermione stamped her
small, sandalled foot.

"It's downright wicked..." she cried aloud.

"Yeah..." came a harsh, nasal voice from directly behind her; "it air
daownright wicked ... to shoot on posted graound."

Sadly startled, Hermione swung about and beheld a tall, bleak,
forbidding figure, whose harsh, Yankee face was quite lacking in the
dry, semi-humorous quality which is to be found in so many of his
type, and which the irony of his words might have led one to expect.
On the contrary, it was a cruel, sneering face, with small, swinish
eyes and thin, straight lips, smooth-shaven and of the expression
which one associates with the witch-burners of earlier days.

The man carried no gun, but held in one hand a stout cudgel.  His
costume was that of the vicinity, but above the visor of his battered
ship's cap were the letters:--"S.H.G. & F.C."  Hermione understood at
once that he was a game-keeper.

The blood rushed to her face.  It is always embarrassing to be taken
in the act of conscious wrong-doing, but particularly so when one
happens to be a young lady in a very syncopated bathing suit.
Moreover, there was a quality in the man's regard which angered and
embarrassed her; a sort of sneering contempt, such as a brutal
officer of the law might direct toward some depraved unfortunate who
was dead to all common decency.  Hermione suddenly felt as one does
in some silly dream where one finds one's self in the middle of a
ball-room or addressing a public meeting in a night-gown.  Worst of
all, she knew that she was in the wrong.

The game-keeper looked her up and down, slowly and with insulting
deliberation.  Hermione felt her embarrassment and fright give way to
anger.

"Well..." said she, "what do you want?"

"What do I want, hey?  Wa'al, fust off I want that gun o' your'n and
them birds.  After that, I want you to take a leetle walk with me and
talk a mite to the sup'ntendent.  That's what I want, young woman."

Hermione stared.  She had had a vague idea that, if discovered by any
of the club people, the worst that could happen would be the
indignity of getting "warned off."  Even this, she had thought, would
probably be done politely and with due apologies.  But to be haled
like a thief before the superintendent ... and that in her bathing
suit, was so extreme a measure as to arouse her ridicule and anger.

"Indeed!" said she, scornfully.  "You don't want very much, do you?"

The man scowled.  "I don't want no more than what I'm a-goin' to
git!" he answered.

Hermione's eyes began to darken.  The rich blood glowed through her
clear olive skin.

"You think so?" she retorted.  "Then let me tell you that you will
get nothing but my name and address.  I am Miss Bell, and my father
is Captain Bell, of the schooner-yacht _Shark_.  If the club wants to
do anything about this it can go ahead and do it."

The game-keeper gave her a sullen look.

"The club _is_ goin' to do somethin' abaout it," said he, "and it's
goin' to do it right naow and through me.  I'm the game-warden, and I
got my orders.  You'll hev to come along o' me to the sup'ntendent,
and that's all there is abaout it.  Like's not he'll let ye off with
a warnin' ... that's none o' my affair.  So hand over that gun and
come along, quiet and peaceable."

"Look here," cried Hermione, fiercely, "do you think I'm going to be
taken in like a thief?"

"Wa'al ... ye _air_ a thief, ain't ye?  Them birds belong to the
club."

Hermione stamped her foot.  The man's ugly manner was beginning to
get away with her temper, never any too docile under provocation.

"Take your old birds!" said she, and tumbled them out upon the
ground.  "And let me tell you that when I go back and Captain
Heldstrom learns how I've been treated, he'll come over here and
wring your neck as if it belonged to one of those snipe!  And if you
think I'm going with you ... like this..."

Anger stifled her speech at the mere idea.  The game-keeper hunched
his shoulders with a sneer.

"If you can come ashore half naked to shoot the club's snipe and
plover," said he, "it won't hurt ye none to go a mite further and see
the sup'ntendent..."  His voice took an impatient rasp.  "Come, I've
jawed here long enough ... will you come, 'r hev I got to drag ye
tha'ar by main force?"

He took a step toward her.  Hermione, light on her feet as a Spartan
girl, might have saved herself by flight.  But the sneering brutality
of the man had torn from her the last, lingering grip she had upon a
temper which had many times been the cause of her undoing.  With an
inarticulate little cry she sprang back, and scarcely realising what
she did, threw the gun to her shoulder.

"You beast!" she cried, through her set teeth.  "You try to lay hand
on me and I'll blow your head off!"

Now, the game-keeper, surly brute though he may have been, came of
stern and rigid Puritan stock, and once having decided upon what was
his duty, meant to carry it out at all costs.  He saw that the superb
young huntress in front of him was beside herself with fury, and he
fully realised that he was taking a terrific chance of being terribly
wounded if not killed in his tracks.  In spite of this, though the
colour faded under his mahogany tan, his lean jaw set squarely, lips
tightened, and he began to walk steadily toward Hermione.

He was within three paces when the girl heard a brushing noise in the
pines, directly behind her.  The game-keeper stopped short, and
Hermione, who had raised her gun to cover his chest, saw his eyes
travel past her to fill with amazement at something which he saw
beyond.  Half-fainting and with knees that tottered under her, the
girl turned to look upon a splendid, Olympic figure standing against
the dark background of the pines.

"The Pilot-fish!" gasped Hermione, under her breath.

She lowered the gun, and stood with her legs swaying under her
unsteadily, staring dumbly at Applebo.  Vaguely, she felt that he had
arrived barely in time to save her from committing a very terrible
act, though whether or not she would actually have pulled the trigger
is doubtful.  The chances are that at the critical moment Hermione
would either have flung aside the gun or else fired in the air, and
then very likely would have had a fit of hysterics, which might have
proved more alarming to the harsh longshoreman than a whole battery
of weapons.

Applebo stood for a moment looking from the girl to the man, his
eyebrows, which were very bushy for one of his youth, drawn down over
his yellow eyes, and a straight line cut vertically between them.  At
first glance he gave the impression of a beautifully chiselled statue
in light bronze.  He was clad in a swimming costume which would have
been quite _de rigueur_ on any beach, but the material, originally
some shade of yellow or sienna, had finally acquired the tone of the
sun-tanned skin.  Yet there was nothing startling or offensive in
effect, for so beautifully was the strong, lithe body moulded that it
suggested less a mortal man than some splendid, pagan demi-god.

Applebo stepped forward to Hermione's shoulder ... and the group
became complete.  God and goddess they looked, she dark, tropical,
vivid of colouring; he a sort of golden-hued Apollo.  So striking was
the effect and so beautiful that even the harsh, unlovely warden may
have felt certain rudimentary stirrings of appreciation.

"Gosh-all-sufficiency!" he growled.  "Thar's the he-one!  Ain't it
the fashion to wear clothes no more?"

"Shut your face!" quoth Applebo, unpoetically.  "What d'ye mean by
bothering this lady?  You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

"Huh! ..." growled the keeper; "you're a nice one to talk about bein'
ashamed, ain't ye?  You and your fee-male critter..."

Hermione, still staring in a fascinated way at Applebo, caught the
sudden flame in the amber eyes.  Something swept past her with a rush
like the charge of a Nubian lion.  There was a flash of bare limbs, a
snarl or two, the flutter of clothing, and a body which looked all
arms and legs gyrating in the air ... and there was the keeper
rolling over and over grotesquely as a shot rabbit and, a little to
one side, stood Applebo, his body half bent, big arms crooked, and
the yellow mane hanging about his ears, watching the fallen man like
a cat about to spring.

[Illustration: There was the keeper rolling over and over grotesquely
as a shot rabbit]

The keeper scrambled to his feet and stood for a moment pale and
tottering, one hand on the other shoulder and a scowl on his
deep-lined face.

"Pull your freight...!" said Applebo, in his deep bass, "or I'll tear
your ugly head off!"

Thus, no doubt, may Achilles have admonished Agamemnon, though Homer
puts the speech in different words.  The game-keeper was no coward,
but neither was he a fool, and although his tawny antagonist had not
struck him, the sensations of the contact were those of disputing the
right of way with a rapidly moving motor-car.  The keeper looked the
situation over, but could see no good in it.  Moreover, he saw a
sudden yellow flame in the blinking eyes fastened upon him.  Without
a word the man turned and slouched off into the pines.

Applebo glanced quickly at Hermione.

"Sit down!" said he.  "You look white."

Hermione's usually robust limbs seemed to collapse beneath her, and
she dropped to the pine-strewn sand.

"You got here just in time!" said she, tremulously.  "I might have
shot him."

"I doubt it," said Applebo, "your gun muzzle was weaving figure
eights.  It would have served him right if you had ... and I'd have
sworn to anything."

Hermione laughed hysterically, then glanced up at the poet.  He was
standing a couple of paces away, his arms folded on his chest, his
eyes looking out across the marsh.

"It's silly of me to be so upset..." said Hermione, and covered her
face with her hands.  "I'll be all right in a minute."

"Did you know the place was posted?" asked Applebo.

"Yes..."

"Then you really haven't any kick coming."

"What...!"  Hermione's hands dropped to her sides, and she stared at
him in amazement.  Applebo glanced back indifferently, and she
scarcely recognised the sleepy face and blinking eyes.

He pointed to the birds which she had tumbled out of her game-bag.

"Taken with the goods ... and I must say, you did pretty well for
three shots.  Do you like to kill things?  It seems rather awful to
me ... especially in a woman, to slaughter little birds and animals
for fun.  And I suppose you would raise an awful howl about
vivisection."

Hermione sat bolt upright.  The colour came back to her pale cheeks,
and her violet eyes began to darken with anger.  All sense of
faintness was swept away as if by magic.  Applebo was not looking at
her; he was standing straight as a young poplar, his shoulder turned
to her, sleepily contemplating the marsh.

"If you feel that way about it," said Hermione, hotly, "I wonder you
came to my rescue."

"I was rescuing the game-keeper.  Besides, I am under obligation to
you people on the _Shark_ for letting me tag you around.  What a
lovely bit of colour over there, on the other side of the lagoon!
Sometimes I wish that I were a painter instead of a poet.  However,
if I can't paint it I can write an ode to it when I get back aboard
my boat."

"Why don't you write a satire on women sportsmen?"

"That would not be polite.  Besides, the idea is not an agreeable
one.  The thought of Diana has always been unpleasant to me."

"You are not very gallant."

"Gallantry," said the poet, "is the vain demonstration of superior
effectiveness on the part of the male.  It is more complimentary to
accept a woman on the same footing."

"Do you call bombarding her with silly verses 'accepting her on the
same footing'?" snapped Hermione, whose astonishment was giving way
to irritation.

"Ah..."  There came the slightest flicker from Applebo's blinking
eyes.  "So Hermione has told you that I have been sending her verses?
I had an idea, for some reason, that she would keep it to herself."

He continued his contemplative observation of the marsh.  Hermione
gasped and stared.  For whom did he take her?

"Hermione did not tell anybody," she managed to say.

"But you guessed?  That is better.  I am glad that Hermione did not
tattle ... even though she sent back all of my verses."

Hermione did not at once reply.  She was busily trying to adjust to
her mind the idea that this extraordinary individual, who for three
months had been sending her impassioned love-poems, did not even know
her by sight!

"Why did you write verses to Hermione?" she asked.  "Because her name
rhymed with 'sea' and 'thee' and 'lea' and 'me'?"

Applebo turned to regard her with a flicker of interest.

"You are rather quick on a rhyme yourself, aren't you?" he observed.
"No, I wrote verses to Hermione because I was in love with her."

"Indeed...!"

"Yes, I fell in love with her at first sight."

Hermione leaned forward, clasped her hands in front of her shapely
legs, and looked at the poet through narrowed lids.  The colour had
returned, and her violet eyes were beginning to dance mischievously.
Mr. Applebo was not looking at her.  Indeed, she had already observed
this peculiar disinclination on his part, and it puzzled her.

"Are you still in love with Hermione?" she asked.

"No; she sent back my verses."

"How did you happen to fall in love with her?"

"It was last winter.  Walking down Fifth Avenue to my club for
breakfast, I sometimes overtook her.  An acquaintance who joined me
one day told me who she was.  You were all down south at the time,
and Hermione was stopping with your aunt.  I fell in love with her
walk.  _Vera incessu patuit dea_..."  He threw her one of his brief
glances.  "Your walk is rather like hers; a sort of family
resemblance."

"But less graceful...?"

"You are more of a mortal maid."

"Which is a way of saying more of a lump!" snapped Hermione.  "Do you
know which of the others _I_ am?"

"That is too easy," said Applebo, sleepily.  "You are Cécile, the
beauty of the family."

"Thank you."

"And the flirt ... so it is said."

"My reputation is as bad as that?"

"Everybody knows you smashed up Huntington Wood.  He is one of the
few men whom I care to claim as a friend.  You have broken up others,
too, have you not?"

"I wonder you dare to talk to me," said Hermione.

"I would like to be smashed up.  It would help my verse.  If you
don't mind, I believe I will transfer my devotion to you.  This
entails no obligation on your part ... except to read my verses."

Hermione stared up at him suspiciously.  Applebo was standing as
straight as a mast, his fine profile turned to her.  Hermione made a
little motion as though to rise.  If the poet observed it he gave no
sign, and she was obliged to scramble to her feet without the aid of
the strong grasp which, for some peculiar reason, she craved.  Up she
sprang, a dark flush on either cheek and her red lips pouting.
Hermione was not accustomed to such neglect.  Her crimson-turbaned
head came a little above the poet's shoulder.  Still his eyes evaded
her.

"I don't know that I am so keen for a cavalier who thinks more of his
verse than he does of its object," said she.

"That's because you are a flirt," said Applebo.  "Really, though, it
would be a good moral tonic for you."

"To receive love-poems?"

"From a man who was in love with you purely in the abstract."

"But where's the fun?"

"That's so..." Applebo assented, and looked at her with slightly more
interest as at one suggesting a new idea.  Something in Hermione's
eyes seemed to catch his own and hold them.  The sleepy lids opened a
little wider and a golden flame darted out toward the deep violet
ones so close to his own.  Inflammable stuff it must have found, yet
it did not tarry to set this alight, but coursed on until Hermione
felt it tingling through every nerve and fibre.  It was quite a new
sensation, this, yet carried with it something anciently familiar, so
that while startled she was not shocked, but merely confused and
rendered slightly incoherent in her thoughts.  And then, as though
this were not liberty enough, here came Applebo's deep bass, resonant
yet soft as the purr of a cat, stealing in to assault her reason
through another breach, the auditory one.  Hermione, for the second
time that day, found her usually stable impulses all adrift.

"You are uncommonly lovely," said Applebo.  "What a pity that you
must be such a coquette.  Is Hermione like that?"

Hermione stamped her little sandalled foot.

"Do you take everything on hearsay?" she snapped.  "One would give
you credit for more originality."

"That is the reason I am so surprised.  You do not look ruthless.
But then..."  He glanced back at the lagoon, "one can never tell.  No
doubt, it is not your fault.  You have probably been horribly
spoiled.  Most men would want to spoil you."

"Would you?"

"As long as you were good."

"And if I were bad?"

There was a short silence.  "I think," said Applebo, "that it is time
that you were getting back aboard the _Shark_; your people might be
anxious."

Hermione bit her lips with vexation.  She had quite forgotten
everything but the poet.

"You are quite right," said she, icily.

"I will walk with you as far as your boat," said Applebo.




CHAPTER V

Hermione glanced down at the birds lying upon the sand.

"Since I have so wickedly and unfemininely slain them," said she, "I
might as well take them along."

"Yes," Applebo assented; "besides, they are evidence against you."

Hermione tossed her head.  "That makes no difference.  I shall not
deny having shot them.  If I am a flirt and a poacher and a cruel and
ruthless slayer, I am at least honest!"

"When caught," amended Applebo.  He gathered up the plover, tossed
them into the sack, and slung it on his shoulder, then took
Hermione's gun from her slightly resisting hands.

"I can carry it..." she said.

"Let me," answered the poet.  "It offends my sense of fitness to see
you with a weapon in your hands.  You do not need it; your eyes are
quite enough."

"You have a singular gift for involved compliments," said Hermione.

"These are only truths, and the truth is always involved when told to
a woman.  That is the reason why so few of us tell it."

"Do you tell it?"

"In part.  I find that more deceptive than lying."  He turned, as
though to walk back toward the beach.  Hermione, newly-vexed that he
should be the one to bring the interview to a close, took a pace
which carried her past and ahead of him.  The poet made no effort to
catch her up.  He strolled on, with the nonchalance of one taking a
solitary ramble.  Occasionally he paused to admire the early morning
colours over the sea and marsh.

Several paces ahead of him Hermione paused and looked back over her
shoulder.  The poet was regarding her contemplatively.  His eyes met
hers and he smiled.

"You _are_ spoiled, aren't you?" said he.

"In what way?" Hermione demanded, hotly.

"In every way, it seems to me."  Applebo regarded her thoughtfully.
"Let's hurry.  I want to write a poem about ... about ... lovely,
conscious things that..."

"Come on, then..." Hermione interrupted.  "You make me tired.  Let's
hurry back and you can write your silly poem and go into ecstasies
over your æsthetic sensibilities ... just as my father does over his
cooking, and, Heaven knows, a worse cook never spoiled a broth!"

"What!" cried Applebo.  "But that's not fair!  Have you ever seen any
of my verses?"

"No," replied Hermione, greatly exulting in the lie.

"Then you are not fair ... naturally.  But then, if you were, you
would not be truly feminine.  Never try to be.  It is the secret of
mondaine failure ... to be fair.  As you have probably felt,
instinctively ... being too young to have found it out in any other
way.  I will write a poem about you.  I will call it 'The Petulant
Poppy'..."

"Help...!" gasped Hermione.

"Don't you like the title?"

"But why 'Poppy'?"

"You look like a poppy ... with your black head and red kerchief.
There are other reasons ... certain things connected with poppies.
They are full of dope.  How is it that you are permitted to knock
around at this hour without a duenna?"

"I am not," Hermione replied.  "This is strictly against the rules,
and there is a bad time in store for me when I have to face Uncle
Chris."

"Who is 'Uncle Chris'?"

"He is our sailing-master.  Uncle Chris Heldstrom ... What's the
matter?"

For the poet had stopped short in his tracks and was staring at her
with an expression which Hermione found almost startling.  The long
eyelashes, which were several shades darker than his tawny hair,
swept up, opening to their fullest width, and the yellow eyes blazed
at the girl with a sudden, vivid intensity.  Hermione, startled and
fascinated, stared back in wonder, and under her inquiring gaze the
blood faded from the face of the poet, to leave it of a distressing
pallor.

But only for an instant or two did this last.  Back came the rich,
ruddy saffron; the eyelashes swept down, and the poet caught a deep
breath and blinked at her, then smiled.  The transformation was like
that which one sees in a cat watching a canary, then suddenly
surprised by some member of the household.

"What made you look like that?" demanded the girl.

Applebo blinked several times, then shrugged.

"Did I look surprised?  It struck me as a bit odd that you should
call your sailing-master 'Uncle Chris,' and be in dread of his
displeasure.  I have seen him.  He is merely a Norwegian sailor, is
he not?"

"He is that and more," retorted Hermione.  "He is the most splendid
man that ever lived!  The sort of stuff that is sung of in old
sagas..."

"What do you know about sagas?"

"A great deal.  Uncle Chris has taught me a lot about Scandinavian
legend and folk-lore.  He is one of those big-hearted, big-souled men
with the high courage of an early sea-king and the heart of a child
... or better, perhaps, a mother.  He has been a mother to my sisters
and myself."  She glanced curiously at Applebo.  As if to evade her
scrutiny, he turned away, but not before she had caught a sudden
gleam from his amber-eyes, which had darkened again and were almost
veiled, in their habitual manner.  Hermione also observed that there
was a dark, smoky flush, which extended up the strongly-muscled neck,
to disappear under the clustering mane about his ears, and that the
big chest was rising and falling more forcefully than their easy pace
would seem to warrant.

"What is the matter with you?" she asked, curiously.

He turned to her slowly.

"Do you think," he asked, "that your 'Uncle Chris' was ever more than
a common sailor, to begin with?"

"Christian Heldstrom was never a 'common' anything!" replied
Hermione, with some heat.  "But so far as that goes, he was born of a
good, though poor, Norwegian family and went to sea because he liked
it and had to do something.  I know very little about his early
history.  He does not like to talk about it.  Why does it interest
you?  Are you--like some other people whom I have known--so snobbish
as to be shocked that three young ladies should have been nursed and
tended and taught deportment by their father's Norwegian
sailing-master?  Let me tell you, his manners are far better than
papa's ... and papa is an F.F.V.!"

She looked at him truculently.  Nothing could arouse Hermione to such
quick and torrid resentment as any slight on her beloved "Uncle
Chris."  Wherefore, she turned her dark, violet eyes challengingly
upon the poet.

"You look like a Scandinavian yourself," said she.

"My mother," replied Applebo, "was a cousin to the King of Sweden."

Hermione stopped short to stare at him.  Her eyes opened very wide,
also her carmine lips were slightly farther apart than strict
deportment would approve.

"Really...?" she cried.  "And your father...?"

"She married beneath her.  It was an infatuation followed by a
wedding and an elopement.  Of course, she sacrificed her rank.  They
came to America.  It is a long story, and both of my parents are now
dead.  Applebo is the name of an uncle who made me his heir ... he
was a Swede.  I don't know why I am telling you all of this; perhaps
it is because I don't want you to think that I am a snob.  I would
rather you did not tell anybody, if you don't mind."

"Of course not!" replied Hermione.  "But I would like to hear more."

"Just now your own affairs are more important.  You had better get
back aboard as soon as possible or your sailing-master may put you in
the brig.  What would he say if he saw you walking on the beach with
me?  It's rather a delicate situation ... considering my unsolicited
attentions of the past three months."

Hermione's piquant face took on a very rich tone of red.  Without
answering, she began to walk rapidly toward the beach ... so rapidly,
in fact, that the first few steps carried her on in advance of her
companion, who seemed tranquilly determined to set the pace himself.
Hermione glanced back over her shoulder.

"Since you are in such a hurry to get rid of me," she said, "why
don't you hurry?"

"I was admiring your walk.  It must be a family accomplishment ...
inherited from your mother, no doubt.  Your father walks like a duck."

"Thank you ... on the part of all of us.  Does my walk remind you of
Hermione?"

"Not in the least.  Hermione walks like a gossamer borne by the
breeze."

"And I stump along like a watch-officer."

"No.  Your feet are coquetting with the earth.  Hermione had no feet.
She was borne by invisible wings.  I rather fancy that every part of
you coquettes with everything it touches.  You were making love to
the snipe you had just slaughtered when the game-keeper collared you.
I was watching from the sedge."

"You were!" cried Hermione.  "And you never interfered...?"

"Pardon me ... I did interfere ... when I thought that there was a
chance of your loading him full of lead.  You see, I swam ashore to
contemplate the early sunlight on the marsh in order to receive
certain impressions which might lead to a poem.  Then you came along
and spoiled it all..."

"Thanks..."

"Please do not interrupt.  If you don't like what I am telling you,
just say so and we will talk of something else.  I will tell you how
beautiful you are.  That is, no doubt, a hackneyed subject, but
perhaps I can find a new way of putting it..."

"Please don't be silly.  Go on.  I came along and spoiled it all..."

"Utterly.  I was chock-a-block with æsthetic appreciation.  I was
delighting in the smell of salt sedge and piny perfumes, revelling in
the music of joyous bird-calls, loving the companionship of snipe and
curlew and plover ... free-winged sea-nomads like myself, exulting in
my human solitude, getting warm after my swim, chewing tobacco..."

"What!"

"The fifth sense.  I had had no breakfast, and I am very fond of
chewing tobacco ... when alone.  Please don't interrupt.  Everything
was perfect ... and then you came..."

"And spoiled it all..."  Hermione's small nose, already tampering
sadly with the classic in its modernly rebellious tip, became even
more artistically anarchistic.

"Oh, very well..."  Applebo's voice expressed polite fatigue.  "If
you _will_ interrupt.  I love the shade of your bathing suit.  It
makes you look like a Nereid ... who has found a copy of _l'Art et la
Mode_ chucked off _La Provence_, and got discontented with algæ.
Shall I describe your ravishing face?  Black storm-clouds your hair,
and beneath the snow of your forehead falling into the ultramarine
sea of your eyes; a sea so deep and fathomless that..."

"Shut up!"

"_Pardon_..."

"Close your face!" snapped Hermione.

"Very well.  Only, it's not my fault.  You would shove your oar in..."

"Do you think that is a nice way to speak to a lady?"

"I am not talking to a lady.  There are lots of ladies.  I am talking
to a modern reincarnation of Artemis, who, as you probably do not
know, was the ancient Greek personification of physical sweetness and
purity, whom the brutal Romans had the cheek to degenerate into
Diana, a bloodthirsty goddess of killing things ... snipe or plover
or game-keepers or pilot-fishes ... or..."

"Oh ... please ..."  Hermione looked as if about to break down.
"Must I remind you that ... that ... I've had rather a trying ...
morning of it..."

"Cécile..."  cried the Pilot-fish.  "I'm sorry."

Hermione found no particular stimulant in his sorrows, but the
"Cécile" acted very tonically.  Up went nose and chin again.

"Then drop personalities and go on with what you were saying about
the way I spoiled it all.  Your æsthetic revels ... and the tobacco
and the rest..."

"Well, then," continued Applebo, "I was so content with everything as
it was that when you came and began to kill my little snipe, and
spoil their music with a fusillade, and swamp the odours of resin and
marsh with fumes of sulphur and saltpetre, and obscure the landscape
with smoke and generally put things on the blink..."

"That was easy for you..."

The poet waved his hand.  "I swallowed my little cud..."

"What...!  Excuse me...  Pray go on..."

"I was wild with indignation.  Especially as I recognised you..."

"You did...?"

"I said, 'Here is that pampered beauty, Cécile Bell, not content with
breaking up all the men who know her ... or ought to ... must come
over here and kill these little birds and smell up the marsh...'"

"Oh, come..."

"Well ... that acrid powder, you know.  Therefore, when I saw the
keeper stalking you, I was tickled to death."

"And you'd have let him run me in...?"

"I felt like helping.  But when he got nasty I sympathised with you.
He was right.  You were wrong all the way through..."

"_Merci!_  And you?"

"I was wrong, too.  I should have let him take you to the
superintendent.  It would have done you good in so many different
ways."

"Why didn't you...?"

Applebo gave her a quick look.

"I couldn't," he said, and looked straight into her eyes.

Hermione's heart gave a sudden, tremendous throb.  In that quick
little "psychological moment," which lasted only as long as it took
their eyes to meet, wonderful changes were wrought.  Or perhaps they
were not changes, but only the crystallising of instincts and
emotions some few thousands of years older than Hermione.  At any
rate, what scientists would call "empirical symptoms" were most
pronounced.  Every little dormant cell of the many millions which go
to make a Hermione ... or any of the rest of us ... suddenly awoke
and began to shout for something which was owed it, and for which it
felt, for the first time, a strong and immediate need.  This is a
clumsy way of trying to express what sentimentalists call "love at
first sight," which, when all is said, is really no more than the
love of a pussywillow for the first promise of warmth to come, with
no consideration of intervening frosts.  For good or bad, that was
what happened to Hermione, and all of the many queer, complex
emotions found their resultant in a quick, primitive impulse of which
the keynote was to make the man beside her say, with truth, that
nothing really mattered but herself.

This, Mr. Applebo politely declined to do.  Having instincts of his
own, and a decency peculiar to the cat family, he merely blinked at
Hermione and waited for her to start that most ruthless of all duels
which cynics have tried to misinterpret as "love."

"Then you only interfered," said Hermione, "because you thought that
I might have shot the keeper.  It wasn't that you wished to render a
service to a woman.  It was merely a general humanitarian desire to
prevent bloodshed ... a tragedy."

"Nope."

"What?"

"It wasn't that.  You would not have shot him.  Never!  He would have
dragged you weeping and half clothed..."

"Never!"

"Yes.  That was what I wanted him to do.  But when the time came I
changed my mind.  At least, I changed my behaviour.  My mind is still
the same.  You were quite in the wrong.  The game-keeper was right
... and meant to obey orders if it cost him his life.  But you would
not have shot him.  I had no real fear of that, and theoretically, I
wanted him to march you off and teach you a lesson.  But when you
threw that despairing look around, something brought me to your aid
with a rush.  I could have broken his neck without a twinge of
compunction.  He rather expressed my feeling when he said, '...
tha'ar's the he-one!'"  Applebo laughed.  "I felt like that ... as
though I were some wild creature and my mate was in trouble ... I beg
your pardon, Cécile..."

Again the rush of emotion, followed by the cold shower.  Hermione's
pulses seemed filled with wine and her youthful body with that warm,
intoxicating glow, incomprehensible as it was delicious ... when
there came that "Cécile," and she felt like the hot iron plunged by
the smith into his tub of water.  No doubt, the tempering process was
good for her, but she did not like it, and hissed a little, just as
does the glowing metal.

"Then it wasn't chivalry," she snapped, "but a sort of primitive male
instinct."

"Absolutely.  A woman with a gun and a lot of slaughtered little
plover is no inspiring object for chivalry ... which is, after all,
principally a masculine pose.  But she may awaken other sentiments.
That is what you have done.  I no longer regret Hermione and my
rejected verses ... and that reminds me that you have not yet told me
that I might transfer my attentions to you.  I think that you are the
most lovely creature that I ever saw, and you might awaken lots of
tenderness, if you would.  I am sure that I could write exquisite
things to you.  I would feel them, too ... which I never did toward
Hermione..."

Poor Hermione!  The poet was snatching her from one emotion to
another in a manner most upsetting.  Pique kept her from telling him
then and there that she was not Cécile; that she was Hermione ... the
object of three months' poetic effusion on his part, unrecognised in
her true personality and unjustly vilified as a heartless coquette.
Instinct told her, however, that the more he abused Cécile and
deplored Hermione's heartless conduct, the worse he would feel when
he learned the truth, and Hermione meant that his punishment should
be thorough.  A full-natured woman inherits from her primitive
forbears a good deal of antagonism for the heart-compelling male, and
so far Hermione had not struck back.  She meant to do so effectively,
when the time came.  Applebo was awakening her to many new
sensations, but she was very far from being conquered.

So she tossed her pretty head and remarked:--

"Verse does not appeal to me except in an impersonal, purely mental
sort of way.  If that contents you, go ahead and write it by the
running foot.  Like Hermione, I am not very keen about long-distance
devotion.  If you transfer your attentions to me, there will be
certain responsibilities attached.  The first is that you call and
meet my family in a purely conventional way."

Mr. Applebo looked scared.

"Oh ... in that case ... perhaps ... do you suppose that your sister
Pauline..."

"Paula," corrected Hermione, icily.

"Paula ... quite so.  I wonder if Paula would mind if ... if..."

Hermione stopped short and stared.  The colour flooded her face.  She
was suddenly the prey of a violent desire to do the man beside her a
physical damage.  She felt that she would like to snatch the gun from
his hands and bang him over the head with the stock.  Applebo looked
at her and blinked.

"Don't be angry," said he.  "I would never have the nerve to go
aboard the _Shark_.  I'm an awful coward about most things.  Besides,
I hate the idea of being listed on your collection.  I wonder what
you would label me..."

"'Fool's gold,'" snapped Hermione.

"That would be unjust to yourself, if I were yours," answered the
poet, sleepily.  "All love is pure gold ... but often there is a lot
of base metal alloyed.  I love you, Cécile."  He blinked.

Hermione laughed.

"Then go and smelt out the alloy," said she.  "That consists
principally of a deep and sincere affection for Mr. Applebo."

She turned to look at him, her head critically aslant.  The poet
looked back.  Hermione's heart began to misbehave again, and a
delicious colour burned warmly through her clear, olive skin.  Her
deep, violet eyes looked almost purple in the crimson sunlight
pervading the early morning air.  Her chin was slightly raised, and
her red lips invitingly apart as she waited for his reply.  Without
in the least suspecting it, Hermione looked like a girl who defies
the kiss which she fully intends to get.

Had the poet acted like a man ... or a scoundrel, as one prefers to
look at it ... and kissed Hermione then and there with that
enthusiasm which her prettiness and the situation as a whole appeared
to warrant, there is absolutely no telling what might have happened.
Instead of which, Mr. Applebo's face grew sleepier, and his eyes
blinkier than ever, while the look which he threw at Hermione was
full of appreciation of a purely impersonal character.

"Huntington Wood smelted out his alloy," he observed.  "Instead of
bewailing his ill-fortune and howling for sympathy, he went off and
started a Home for Sick Babies.  Now he is back again ... pure metal.
Do you suppose that it will do him any good?"

Hermione felt that she would like to employ some of her father's
forceful sea-going expressions.  Here was Cécile popping up again to
spoil everything at the most interesting moment!  Yet not for the
world would she point out to him his silly mistake.  She intended
that this disillusionment should come as a _coup de théâtre_, which
would leave the poet in a state of collapse.  So she swung smartly on
her heel and shrugged.

"Huntington Wood no longer offers his gold ... and nobody can blame
him," said she, and resumed her walk toward the beach.

They skirted the pine-scrub, passed along the edge of the marsh, then
crossed the strip of sand and rock to the beach.  The tide was at the
last of the ebb, and as she glanced toward the spot where she had
left her boat, Hermione gave a little cry of dismay.

"Look...!" she cried; "it's gone...!"

What had happened was so plainly sketched on the open page of the
beach that one could run and read.  Several yards above the water's
edge was indicated the place where Hermione had grounded on landing,
as was shown by her own tracks, left from the spot where she had
stepped ashore.  From farther down the beach came another trail, a
man's, running to where the skiff lay, while a long furrow and some
deeply gouged foot-prints showed where he had run the skiff down to
the water's edge.  Here, before the present rim of the tide was
reached, all vanished, as though boat and man had taken flight into
the air.

Hermione threw a frightened look at Applebo.  The poet was standing
straight as an Indian, his bushy eyebrows drawn down, and his lips
puckered.

"That swine of a game-keeper...!" he growled, in his deep, though
husky, bass.  "I wish that I had broken his neck.  Why didn't I think
about his swiping the boat?  I _am_ a fool!"




CHAPTER VI

"What shall we do?" asked Hermione.

Applebo looked at her and blinked.

"Can you swim as well as you can row and shoot and walk?" he asked.

Hermione looked out across the dancing waters of the bay.

"It must be a good mile and a half to the _Shark_," said she, slowly.
"The yawl is about half the distance, but" ... the colour flooded her
face... "even under the circumstances, I should hardly care to swim
to her."

"No," said the poet, "that would not do.  It is very perplexing."

"Couldn't you swim out to your boat, and come back with the dinghy?"
asked Hermione.

"My Finn is ashore with the dinghy, and I have no other boat.  I
would swim to the _Shark_, but I do not like to leave you here alone.
That pig of a keeper probably thinks that he has got us penned, and
may be back at any moment with reinforcements.  He knows that we
would not care to take to the back country in our bathing suits, and
besides, this is a promontory and probably wire-fenced on the side of
the mainland.  Perhaps the best thing for us to do would be to go
straight to the club and see the superintendent.  I would enjoy
talking to that gentleman."

"No ... no ... no!" cried Hermione.  "Think of how it would look!"

"You might wait here and let me go alone."

"No..."  Hermione looked at him thoughtfully.  "Are you a very strong
swimmer?"

"I am quite at home in the wet."

"Then, let's try for the _Shark_.  If I get tired you can take me in
tow."

"What distance do you think that you are good for?" asked the poet.

"To the yawl, at least.  The chances are that we will be sighted from
the _Shark_.  In fact, we might make them see us here ... but I would
rather start back.  If I play out, you can put me aboard the
_Daffodil_ and keep on yourself for the schooner."

"All right.  It _is_ ignominious to be found this way on the beach.
I'll hide the gun and game-bag in the bushes at the foot of that
tree."

This was quickly accomplished, when the two walked side by side down
the sloping beach and waded slowly into the cold water.  Knee-deep,
the poet, who was in the lead, turned to Hermione.

"Take it easy," said he, "and don't try to talk.  If you feel tired,
put one hand on my shoulder and keep paddling.  I could tow you all
of the way, if need be, but you must swim as far as you can, so as
not to get chilled.  The water is like ice in the channel."

Hermione looked at him and nodded, and again there swept through her
the warm little tingling which defied the chill of the sea.  Quite a
new sensation this, and one which Hermione was at a loss to
comprehend, for the poet irritated even while he attracted her.  He
had a most vexing manner of talking to without looking at her.  One
indifferent glance and his yellow eyes were wandering beyond,
anywhere except in her direction.  Now, apparently waiting for her to
take to the water, he was staring sleepily down the beach, interested
apparently in a flock of gulls circling about some stranded object.
The warm sunlight smote on his yellow mane and threw soft shadows on
the bare, saffron-coloured skin, of the texture of velvet, and
glowing richly in the high lights.  He splashed a little water on his
powerful arms, and the long, clean-cut muscles formed shifting
contours to delight a sculptor's eye.  A life-sized statue in dull
gold looked the poet, beautiful as a demi-god and no more human, for
he carried a curious atmosphere of detachment to his surroundings, as
though the milieu were alien to him and he might, at any moment,
betake himself away to his own place.  Even for this lovely mortal
maid beside him he seemed to show a polite disinterestedness not
usually to be found in his ancient prototypes, if we are to believe
the classics.  Hermione felt this, and it aroused in her a sudden
fierce perversity.  Again there came that swift desire to waken him
out of his sleepy indifference by a physical violence.  There were
also the traitorous thrills.

"Come on..." she said, with such sharp impatience that the poet
turned and blinked at her inquiringly.  Hermione's blue eyes flashed,
and with a sudden spiteful motion of her hand, she sent a shower of
the icy water spraying over him.  Applebo gasped, laughed gurglingly,
and flung himself forward to swim, Hermione following.

Side by side they thrust forward through the clear, cold water.
Hermione was swimming prone; the poet lounged along on his side, his
head half buried, the floating hair swirling about his ears, his eyes
almost closed.  To Hermione he looked as though he were asleep and
propelled onward by some involuntary mechanism within.  For a hundred
yards neither of them spoke.  Hermione turned on her side, facing
Applebo.  The thinnest of amber gleams between the double fringe of
eyelashes told that he was watching her.

"You could swim all day, Cécile..." said he.

"What right have you to call me 'Cécile'?" snapped Hermione, tired of
the constantly recurring error of identity.  "Even if I were..."

"I call you 'Cécile' and not 'Miss Bell' because the latter is the
conventional name, and I do not know you conventionally ... and never
will.  Fancy my writing verses to 'Miss Bell'!  As we shall never
meet, in all probability, after this hour, what does it matter?"

Hermione did not reply.  The water seemed to strike her with a
certain chill.

"Don't you want to see me again?"

"No.  My life now is happy and tranquil.  If I saw more of you my
fate would, no doubt, be that of so many others.  No, Cécile ... I do
not want to see you again."

"But perhaps _I_ might care to see you."

"You will have the best of me in the verses I shall send you..."

"Oh, hang the verses...!" cried Hermione, and turned on to the other
side.

At the end of a hundred yards, she rolled back again.  The poet was
harmlessly entertaining himself by taking large mouthfuls of water
and spouting them into the air.  Hermione burst into a ringing laugh.
Applebo regarded her with sleepy inquiry.

"You look like a Triton ... with your cheeks puffed out that way,"
said she.

"Don't talk," replied the poet.  "It adds to the effort of breathing.
You look rather like a mermaid, yourself."

Hermione did not answer, and they swam on in silence through the
golden August morn.  The sensation of cold had passed, and it seemed
to the girl that she was of one substance with the sea; of the same
essence, the same elemental property, feeling neither warmth nor
cold, nor fear, nor fatigue, nor anything that was alien or
individual.  She found herself a mermaid, at home, and felt that when
it pleased her she could leave the surface to explore mysterious
green depths far beneath.

He, her companion, was of it too.  They were sea-mates; Triton and
Nereid, subjects of the great god Poseidon, owing no fealty to any
lord of the land, knowing no trammels but the wide boundaries of the
ocean, that greater dominion of the world.  She looked at Applebo.
He appeared to be under the water, rather than upon it, and the
yellow eyes rose from the swirl of brine to blink at her with
comradeship.  Hermione wanted to take his hand that they might plunge
together to explore unknown depths ... never guessing, innocent girl,
that she was well on the road to explore depths just as deep and
redoubtable.

Well offshore, with their sea-world all about, a sudden odd vibration
smote against their vigorous young bodies; a vibration that suggested
a sound, felt rather than heard.

"Morning colours..." said the poet.  "That's the gun from the Reading
Room.  Look!"

He flashed from the water an arm of gleaming gold from which sprang
diamonds.  Hermione turned upon her face to look toward the yacht
flotilla.  Down from the trucks of the anchored fleet fluttered the
"night-caps," little tongues of black, while pennant and burgee
passed them on their race aloft, and the national ensign, the Stars
and Stripes, unfurled lazily from the taffrails.  To their ears came,
with sweet faintness, the shrilling of the sheaves as the halliards
spun through them, while from a big steam-yacht, nearly a mile away,
came the merry whistle of a bosun's pipe.

Hermione looked toward the _Daffodil_, then at Applebo.

"Rotten lack of etiquette," said he, and grinned.  "I haven't any
bunting."

"Why not?  Are you a member of no clubs?"

"Oh, yes ... the New York and the Atlantic.  There is bunting below,
but I do not fly it because I am merely a parasite ... a pilot-fish."

Hermione did not answer, for their pace was a smart one and she had
need of breath.  Presently she asked:--

"How about the tide?"

"It is running flood out here," said Applebo, "otherwise I would not
have let you swim.  We are in the deep channel now, and the tide is
helping.  I've been gauging our drift on the shore."

The thought of the cold fathoms beneath sent no slightest chill
through Hermione.  She was too much a part of it all.  Neither was
she tired in the least.  They were nearly abreast of the yawl, but
seaward.  Neither had suggested stopping there.  Hermione looked at
her companion and wondered how far he could tow her if required.
Seized by a sudden impulse, she said:--

"I think that I will rest a little, please."

He was close to her in two powerful strokes that sent the water
swirling in his wake, as though he had been a porpoise.  His eyes
gave her a swift, questioning look.

"Take my shoulder," he said.  "Do you want to go to the yawl?"

"No," replied Hermione, and laid her hand on the bare, flashing
shoulder offered her.

"Paddle a little so as not to get chilled," said Applebo, and started
unconcernedly ahead.  The tug of the heavy muscles under her hand
reminded Hermione of the sensation one gets in laying the palm upon
the shoulder of a galloping hunter.  There was the same iron
contraction, tense and quivering, to be followed by the quick
relaxation, the whole evenly spaced and rhythmic as the throb of an
engine.  It seemed impossible that the splendid, human machine could
ever tire.  For several minutes she clung, resting and revelling also
in the sense of being borne onward without effort.  But she was not
actually fatigued, and presently released her hold.

"Rested...?" he asked, looking back.

"Quite."

"Good for the rest of the voyage?"

"Yes ... and if I am not, you are.  Why did you never go in for
athletics?"

"They do not interest me.  Games always made me feel like a
performing lion."

It occurred to Hermione that they must have made him rather look like
one also.

"Football?" she asked.

"I tried it ... but I used to get thinking and forget to play.
Besides, I do not like to get banged about ... that is, merely for
vanity.  If it were to get something I wanted, it would be different."

Hermione did not reply.  She watched him curiously as he lounged
along.  Applebo looked back and smiled.  His eyes reflected the
swirling green; his hair was the colour of the golden-brown sea-weed
and suggested this substance as one sees it trailing from a rock in a
clear tide-way.  He looked more than ever like a Triton, thought the
girl.  All he needed was a shell-trumpet and a trident.  She wondered
if so pagan a creature could possess the elements of real, human
feeling.  At least, she confessed a little ruefully, he could arouse
them!

She herself seemed to be imbued with an unnatural strength.  Her
long, athletic limbs smote the water with unflagging vigour ... more
than that, with an exhilaration.

Just what might have been the reaction from this physical exertion
had she swum the whole course, one cannot say, for the last third was
destined to be uncompleted.  Applebo's trained ear, buried in the
brine, caught the rattle of boat-falls and the whine of sheaves, and
he raised his dripping head to stare toward the _Shark_.

"Rest..." said he to Hermione.  "Here comes your gig.  They have
sighted us.  It's just as well; you might have got overtired."

"Bother!" said Hermione.  "Now you will see me catch it from Uncle
Chris."  She looked in Applebo's face, which was close to hers, and
laughed.  Then her blue eyes opened very wide.

"What's the matter?" she cried.  "You look frightened to death!"

"Do I?  Put your hand on my shoulder and rest..." Hermione thought
that his voice had an odd, strained note.  She took his shoulder,
then looked at him curiously.  The poet's face, naturally a little
pallid already from the immersion, had suddenly become of a sickly,
bleached-out pallor, which suggested the belly of a dead fish.
Hermione was seized by a sudden alarm.

"Are you tired...?" she asked, and loosed her hold of his shoulder.

Applebo gave a rather forced laugh.  The colour began to return
again.  Then, just as Hermione expected, he assumed his sleepy,
blinking expression.

"What _was_ it?" Hermione demanded.

"A little cramp in the sole of the foot.  It's gone now.  Did you
never have one?"  He reached for her hand, and placed it on his
shoulder again.  "They are very painful ... but not dangerous," said
he.

Their faces were very close, each to the other.  Hermione looked at
him questioningly.  The poet smiled, and something in the flash of
the strong, even teeth set Hermione's heart to thumping in the same
undisciplined manner that she had previously experienced on the
shore.  Applebo pushed the wet hair back from his forehead.  As
Hermione looked at him, his amber eyes seemed to darken.

"This is 'good-bye'..." he said.

"It is your own fault."

"No ... my misfortune.  There are reasons ... besides the silly ones
I have given you.  This is good-bye."

Hermione was conscious of a sudden fatigue.  It was as though she had
been under the effect of a stimulant which was suddenly withdrawn.
The chill of the water struck suddenly through her.  Applebo saw the
light fade from the deep, violet eyes, and the sweet mouth droop a
little at the corners.

"I'm so tired..." said Hermione, in a plaintive little voice.

He took her free hand and placed it on his other shoulder.  Both were
slowly treading water, though depending more for buoyancy on their
splendid young lungs, trained to the exercise.  The boat was coming
on rapidly, not over three hundred yards away.

Their eyes met and clung for an instant.  Those of the poet were like
aquamarines, but in Hermione's there was a mistiness not of the sea.
They faltered, dropped, then raised to his as if drawn by some subtle
force.

"Good-bye..." said the poet.

"Good-bye ... and ... and thank you very much for ... for your
kindness..."

She paused, startled at a sudden clear flame, the same amber light
that had been in the yellow eyes when Applebo had turned to her after
flinging to earth the game-keeper.

"You darling...!" cried the deep, throaty voice, and before Hermione
knew what was happening, she felt herself drawn closely to him, and a
pair of wet, salty lips were crushed for the instant against her own.
Her head fell back; her eyes closed; the water swirled about her
ears.  Then she felt two strong arms supporting her beneath the
shoulders, raising her bodily from the jealous grip of the sea.
Blindly she took a stroke or two, then looked dazedly at the poet.

"You ... you kissed me..."

"Yes, Cécile ... it was only good-bye."

Hermione could find nothing to say, but indeed there was no time.  Up
crashed the gig under the powerful strokes of the crew.  Heldstrom's
anxious eyes had noted the drooping of the red-coiffed head, and his
thunderous, "Pull, you lubbers ... pull!" reached the swimmers from a
distance.  Fortunately, the kiss could not be observed, the two heads
having been directly in line during this indiscreet performance.

The boat foamed alongside.  "Vat's dis ... vat's dis?" cried
Heldstrom.  He leaned over the gunnel and lifted Hermione aboard,
when she sank down on a thwart, a limp, dejected mermaid, gazing
mutely at the poet.  "Vere is your boat?" demanded Heldstrom.  "Vat
you mean, svimmin' ar'round in der vater mit dis feller...?"

He turned to glare at Applebo ... and his jaw dropped.  Hermione saw
him pass his hand across his eyes in a dazed sort of way.  The poet
blinked back at him inscrutably, but it struck Hermione that his face
was very white, and she wondered if he had the cramp in his foot
again.

"You vas ... der Pilot-vish...?" said Heldstrom, in an odd, tremulous
voice.

"I am Mr. Applebo," answered the poet, in his silky bass.  "The
game-keeper yonder confiscated Miss Bell's boat.  He sneaked around
and swiped it.  You had better get her aboard before she takes a
chill."

Heldstrom was still staring in the same dazed, bewildered way.

"Vere haf I seen you...?" he demanded.

"_Have_ you seen me...?" retorted Applebo.  "I don't remember you."

Heldstrom seemed to recover himself with an effort.

"You comin' mit us?" he asked of Applebo.

"No, thanks.  I am not tired.  I will swim to my yawl."

"You won't take a cramp...?" cried Hermione.

"Oh, no.  That will not return.  Good-bye ... and I hope you will be
none the worse for your long swim."

"Good-bye..." said Hermione, faintly, and added, with the slightest
catch in her voice, "and I'm not Cécile ... I'm Hermione!"

But, alas! these words were lost to the Pilot-fish, whose yellow head
was buried with his long, powerful overhanded stroke.




CHAPTER VII

When Mr. Huntington Wood, at luncheon aboard the _Shark_, had
asserted that the real explanation for the extraordinary devotion of
the Pilot-fish was a sentimental emotion, inspired by one of the
Misses Bell, Cécile found much matter for her maiden meditation.

Not for one instant did it occur to this self-satisfied young lady
that the cause of this infatuation might be one of her sisters.
Paula was not the sort of girl of whom one would think in this
connection, and Hermione was still regarded by Cécile as a mere
child, though, as a matter of fact, the younger sister's superior
height and dark colouring might readily have caused the careless
observer to consider her the elder.  Cécile was apt to be somewhat
careless in her observation of anything outside of her own interests.
Wherefore, she complacently appropriated Mr. Applebo in her mind as
her own enamoured swain.

For all of her innumerable conquests, Cécile found, in the peculiar
methods of the Pilot-fish, something singularly piquant.  Here was a
lover who asked absolutely nothing in return for his passion.  He
merely desired to be in her general neighbourhood, to accomplish
which he put at inconvenience nobody but himself.  To be sure, many
others had striven for this same result, but these had insisted on a
gradual constriction of what might be considered a "general
neighbourhood," eventually finding the length of a transome all too
wide a separation.  Where Cécile had previously been compelled to
throw cold water on her all too ardent suitors, here was one who
insisted on at least a half mile of this pure element, in varying
depths, between them.

Thinking it over in the privacy of her room, Cécile decided that this
point of view was just as extreme, of its kind, as that which
demanded but a single deck-chair for two people.  Moreover, for Mr.
Applebo to choose his own line of conduct in the matter was not good
discipline.  Cécile was in the habit of herself outlining the régime
to be observed in affairs of this kind, and she did not care to have
it prescribed for her.  In addition to this, Cécile had been very
much interested in the distant views which she had got of the poet,
and was curious to see him at close range.  All that Wood had told
them of his eccentric personality had served to sharpen this
interest, and the girl found herself wondering if perhaps he might
not be the one who was to take captive her heart and her desire.  She
had always felt that the man to do this would not be the ordinary
individual.  It gave her a very lively emotion to picture this fair
young viking threading his way through fog and storm, reef and shoal,
drawn onward by his unselfish, unchanging devotion to her ideal self.
Cécile decided that such fidelity merited at least the reward of some
slight token of her appreciation.

Wherefore, she decided to attach Mr. Applebo forthwith, to keep him
on the end of her line until she made up her mind just what she
wanted to do with him.  She came to this conclusion shortly after
awakening, and she was lazily studying out some plan for bringing the
Pilot-fish within reach of her landing-net, when there descended
through the skylight of her room the sound of the quartermaster's
voice, as in low but excited tones he conveyed to Captain Heldstrom
certain information regarding "der Bilot-vish..."

Cécile lay listening, and a moment later heard Heldstrom's gruff
voice say, "Yoomp back in der gig ... get a move on you, now ...
lower avay, dere..." followed by the squeal of the falls and the
splash of the boat as it took the water just outside her port-hole.
Cécile looked out, but could see nothing of interest.  She was still
looking when she heard Olesen growl something about, "Miss Hermione
svimmin' a r'race mit der Bilot-vish..."

Cécile was "brought up all standing" at the coupling of these names.
She sprang out of bed, slipped on her kimono, and hastened to the
companionway, where she thrust up through the hatch a very lovely
face, flushed and still dewy with sleep, a heavy, opalescent
chevelure which seemed to gather all of the sunlight in its vicinity,
and two eyes of a deep, misty grey.

Even as she looked, the gig, with Heldstrom in the stern, leaped
clear of the schooner's side.

"What's the matter, Olesen?" cried Cécile, alarmed.

The quartermaster turned, with a tug at his watch-cap.

"It vas Mees Hermione out dere svimmin' ar'round mid der Bilot-vish.
Dot's mighty funny.  She vent avay mit her skiff, and here she comes
back mitoudt it und der Bilot-vish.  Dot's awful funny."

He handed her his glasses, which Cécile raised to her eyes.  The
faces of the two swimmers were quite distinct, but as she looked
Hermione's head was eclipsed by that of Applebo.  Cécile could see
that they were apparently treading water and waiting for the boat.

"How very odd!" exclaimed Cécile, sharply.  "What is that mad girl up
to now, I wonder?"

Much disturbed, she laid down the glass ... just in time to miss the
cream of the performance!  Had Cécile witnessed that good-bye kiss it
would have changed considerably subsequent events, and have saved
herself much wear and tear.  But when she looked again, Heldstrom was
lifting Hermione into the gig, and she caught the flash of Applebo's
hand as he flourished it in farewell.  Cécile then went below and
waited impatiently for her sister's arrival on board.

A few minutes later she heard outside a light step and the swish of a
wet bathing skirt as Hermione hurried to her room.

"Is that you, Hermione?" called Cécile.

"Yes."  Hermione looked in at Cécile's door.  Her face was quite
pale, and her eyes looked almost black.

"What _have_ you been up to?" cried Cécile.

"I'll tell you all about it when I've changed..."

"Can't you relieve my curiosity a little, at once?  What became of
your boat ... and Applebo..."

"Oh, well..."  Hermione gave a brief and rather impatient outline of
her adventure.  Cécile listened attentively.

"How dreadful!" she exclaimed.  "I hope that this will teach you not
to run about alone in that wild way.  Now go and take off your wet
things and get a pot of good hot coffee.  You look very badly."

It occurred to Hermione that, since she looked so badly, her sister
might have sacrificed her own curiosity and let her change before
telling her tale.  But she was feeling rather gone, and with very
little fight left in her body, so she turned and hurried off without
a word.

Her maid gave her a vigorous rub-down, then put her to bed, and
brought coffee, with eggs and bacon, which Hermione devoured with
great enthusiasm, despite the varying emotions through which she had
so recently passed.  Her breakfast finished, Hermione fell into a
deep and refreshing sleep, from which she was awakened a couple of
hours later by a stamping and roaring overhead, which she recognised
as proceeding from her father, and from which she gathered that he
was being put in possession of the facts concerning her adventure.
This was indeed the case, but in the meantime there had arrived from
the diplomatic superintendent of the gun club a note of apology and
regret for the too great zeal of his minion.

Wherefore, balked in his opportunity to raise a tremendous row,
Captain Bell was working off steam in storming about and vituperating
the club, Shoal Harbour, the State of Maine, the Pilot-fish,
Hermione, and generally, as sailors put it, "cursing everything a
foot high and a minute old."

This innocent pastime exhausted, it occurred to him that, after all,
he owed a duty to the Pilot-fish, but for whom Hermione would have
been subjected to great indignity.  From the account given him by
Cécile, Mr. Applebo had apparently done a hammer-throw with the
game-keeper, then swum off to the schooner with Hermione trailing
from his shoulders.  Captain Bell was a stickler for etiquette, and
therefore he decided to call immediately upon the poet and express
his obligation.

"You say that you have seen him somewhere?" he asked of Heldstrom.

Christian Heldstrom shook his big, shaggy head.  There was a distant
brooding look in his blue eyes, usually so keen and alert.

"I am not sure.  Dere vas somedings ... like an echo in his voice.
Like somebody I haf known ... long ago, in Norvay ... or some odder
place.  His name, Applebo, vas Scandinavian, too.  I do not know."

Bell shot him a quick, curious look.  Heldstrom looked old ... and it
suddenly struck the choleric owner that his sailing-master was
getting on in years.  He observed that Heldstrom's thick, curling
hair, formerly of a rich, lustrous chestnut colour, was grizzled
almost to the point of being white, while the bushy eyebrows, heavy
moustache, and thick, curling beard were fast becoming snowy.  The
big Norwegian's face was very deeply lined, and at this moment the
creases looked like those of age and suffering, rather than the
result of exposure to all winds and weather.  Bell was a little
startled, for Heldstrom was but slightly older than himself, and it
occurred to the ex-naval officer that if Heldstrom were becoming an
old man, then he must be doing the same.

"He seems to have given you a bad turn," said Bell, crossly.  "You
look as if you'd just come from a funeral."

"Und I feel like it, too..." muttered Heldstrom.  "It is a long time
since I have let myselluf t'ink of my old home.  Someding about dis
yoong man br'rought back der fjords und der midnight sun und der big
fires on der heart' of my fadder's gaad..."

"You think he's a Scandinavian?" demanded Bell.

"No, zir; I t'ink he vas American like myselluf.  But he is from
Scandinavian stock.  It is so t'at he can find his way ar'round in
der fog..."

And his deep-set blue eyes roamed across the intervening water to
where the _Daffodil_ lay at anchor.

Bell ordered away the gig, and as he was about to set off on his
formal call, he turned to see Cécile, fresh and lovely, in pink
muslin, with a little panama hat wound about with a rose-coloured
pugaree.  In her hand was a tiny parasol to match.  Cécile made it a
point never to wear anything nautical.

"Huh..." snorted Bell; "where are you going?"

"With you, papa."

"But I am going to call on the Pilot-fish."

"So I imagined.  As Hermione's sister I thought that I ought to go
with you.  You see, in a way, I stand in _loco parentis_."

Bell wrinkled up his nose.  He was, on the whole, pleased with the
idea, but he guessed that Cécile's object was less inspired by a
sense of social obligation than a feminine curiosity to see the man
reputed to be following them about through hopeless love of herself.
He determined to tease her a little.

"Oh, it ain't necessary.  I'm parent enough.  It would only embarrass
him if you were to go too.  He's shy as a red-head duck."

Cécile bit her lip.  "Very well," said she.  "If you don't want me.
I merely felt that I ought to go because the situation was a rather
delicate one ... those two wandering about at daybreak in their
bathing suits.  My instinct told me that some official recognition of
such an incident should be taken by a woman of the family; it seems
scarcely the thing to be left for two men..."

"Oh, well, well..." interrupted her father.  "Come along then.  I ...
eh ... it had never occurred to me in just that light.  You are quite
correct, my dear, quite..."  He ushered her to the rail with great
ceremony.  Yachting etiquette requires that the owner shall be the
first one to board his vessel and the last to leave her.  Bell
invariably observed these details, which are, of course, modelled
after naval etiquette.  There was a little smile in the corner of
Cécile's pretty mouth as she descended the accommodation-ladder.
These three girls were all quite able to manage their father: Cécile
by guile, Paula by sweetness, and Hermione by violence.  Heldstrom,
on the other hand, managed all three by the same quality: quiet,
dominant force of will which was, of course, backed by deep affection.

Off they started then, crisply and with four lusty oars.  Bell would
have no "chugging stink-pot" for a gig, although not disdaining power
for errands and market work.  His gig was a beautifully modelled,
diminutive man-o'-war's whaleboat, with the official arrow on the
bow, the insignia of a gig.  She slipped through the water like a
barracouta, light, easy-pulling, buoyant and dry in any sea-way, and
swift under sail.  The distance to the _Daffodil_ was quickly
spanned, and they drew close aboard to find Mr. Applebo, immaculately
clad in ducks, regaling himself with tea and macaroons in the
cock-pit.

As the gig shot alongside, the poet arose and saluted.  In response
to his deep-toned order, the Finn squeezed out of a small hatchway up
forward in a way that suggested a crab coming out of a hole, and
sidled aft, boat-hook in hand.  Cécile observed that the bow-oar, an
Irishman, crossed himself.

Mr. Applebo's manner was dignified and polite, but had he been
discovered sitting atop of an iceberg in Davis' Strait he could not
have been more cool and distant.  His leonine features betrayed no
hint of any sort of emotion, and the deep, amber eyes, half hidden
behind his long, dark eyelashes, blinked sleepily at his guests.

"Good-morning," said he, and bowed again.  Seeing a little hesitation
on the face of Captain Bell, he added, "Will you do me the honour to
come aboard?"

Had the words been rather, "Will you do me the honour to clear out
and not bother me," the hospitable desire behind them could not have
been more distinctly expressed.  Bell was sadly taken aback.  He had
expected to be met with embarrassment, which he would graciously seek
to allay.  While himself the heart and soul of hospitality, he always
clung to a certain punctilious formality and detested the social
negligée of the Corinthian sailor, in spite of which it was a little
discomposing to be received aboard a little two-by-six shallop with
this, "Sir, I have the honour to request..." manner.  If Cécile
shared his surprise she did not show it.  Leaning slightly forward
she regarded the poet with that expression of polite inquiry which
one might bestow upon an unfamiliar entrée served at the table of a
friend.

A person familiar with good form, however, need never be more than
momentarily embarrassed.  Captain Bell arose as though there were but
three joints in his body, only one of which was needed for his bow.
"Thank you," said he, and turned to Cécile, who floated up from her
cushions and gave the tips of her fingers to her father.  Bell
preceded her aboard, using two joints in the manœuvre, and shook
hands with Mr. Applebo, whose expression suggested a person roused
from a beauty-sleep.  "H'm ... h'm ... daughter, permit me to present
Mr. Applebo..." said Bell to Cécile, and added, turning to the
Pilot-fish, "My daughter, Miss Bell ... h'm ... huh!"

With the face of one oppressed by the recollection of a sad dream,
Mr. Applebo assisted Cécile to the deck of the _Daffodil_.

"Pray, come below," said he, "the glare is rather intense."

A one-and-a-half-jointed acknowledgment from Bell, and a swift,
curious look from Cécile, were the receipt of this invitation.  The
Pilot-fish shot back the sliding hatch, and led the way down, the
others following with something of the manner of people who inspect
an apartment still occupied by a polite but greatly bored tenant.

On entering the cabin, the two guests were forcibly struck by its
peculiar atmosphere of warm and immaculate emptiness.  One does not,
as a rule, associate warmth and emptiness, but the former quality
was, in this case, conveyed by the peculiar rich and mellow light
which pervaded the place, and which Cécile quickly discovered to be
due to the sun shining through amber-coloured skylights and reflected
from the yellow enamel of the paint-work.  It was a peculiar effect,
but, unlike that of red, blue, or green lights, extremely restful and
agreeable.

People whose homes are on the wave usually like to surround
themselves with personal trinkets suggestive of the land, which is,
after all, their natural element.  Cécile's room aboard the _Shark_
was a sans-souci of delicious luxury in exquisite taste.  But here in
the _Daffodil's_ cabin, aside from a vase of yellow roses, there was
not one single object which did not have its distinct and practical
use.  Not a picture, not a curio nor knick-knack of any sort.  Books
there were, no doubt, in the double row of lockers on either side,
but nothing of ornamentation.  There were two big nickelled lamps set
in gimbals, one over a gravity table, the other over the head of the
single bunk.  A large watch hanging on the forward bulkhead furnished
noiselessly the time; above it were a telltale compass and a small
aneroid barometer, while a battered and archaic-looking sextant was
jammed against the bulkhead under a yellow leather strap.

The poet produced a couple of camp-chairs, which he opened and
offered to his guests.

"I hope that you do not object to yellow light," said he.  "Yellow is
my colour.  I find it intellectually stimulating."

"It is said to be the mental colour," observed Cécile.

"In France," Bell remarked, "they say that it is the symbol of a
_mauvais ménage_.  But since you are not married it does not matter."

"I am wedded to my Muse," said Applebo, "and it is true that we
sometimes quarrel.  Perhaps that is the reason."

Bell shot his daughter a glance which said as plainly as words,
"There!  I said that he was balmy!"  The poet looked sleepily
unconscious.  The dreamy expression of his eyes would have led one to
believe that he was dreaming of meadows sown with asphodel.  Bell
made noises in his fat throat.

"H'm ... huh ... huh ... my daughter and I have called to thank you,
Mr. Applebo, for your services rendered this morning to an indiscreet
member of our family ... h'm ... huh..."

The poet made a graceful, undulating motion with his hand, expressive
and deprecatory.  Cécile, regarding him intently, decided that he was
quite correct in saying that yellow was his colour.  Her eyes clung
to him, fascinated by his odd, unusual type.  The yawl swung a trifle
on her cable, and a golden shaft of light which struck diagonally
through the skylight, travelled slowly across the bulkhead and bathed
the leonine head of Applebo in a golden effulgence, wreathing his
wavy hair with a true aureole.  A golden man he looked.  Cécile was
unable to take her eyes from him.

[Illustration: Cécile was unable to take her eyes from him]

"My sister is much to be congratulated," said she, "in finding a
champion at the critical moment."

"Oh," said the poet, "the one to be congratulated is the keeper.
Miss Bell was about to fill him full of shot."

"What!" cried Bell, much startled.

"Quite so.  He meant to drag her off by force and she felt
differently about it.  When I arrived she had him covered and was
promising to blow his head off."  He blinked.

"What!" cried the horrified Bell.

"How terrible!" exclaimed Cécile.

"It would have served him right," said the Pilot-fish.  "If she had
done so, I would have dug a hole in the sand and buried him and we
would have said nothing about it."

"But ... but ... Bless my soul..." cried the horrified Bell.  "It
would have been .... eh ... manslaughter!"

"This fellow deserved to be slaughtered," observed the poet.
"However, he was so fortunate as to escape.  I persuaded him to go
away.  Then, while Miss Bell was recovering from her agitation, the
scoundrel stole her boat.  Unfortunately, my man was ashore with my
only boat, and as I did not like to leave your daughter alone, and
she assured me that she was a strong swimmer, we decided to swim.
There was no great risk, as I could have towed her the whole distance
at a pinch."

All of this in a sleepy voice, while the screened eyes blinked
drowsily from Bell to Cécile.  The girl's scrutiny was more intent
than she realised, and her soft cheeks were slightly pale.  Little
lines had appeared, running vertically between her brows.  One would
have said that she was agitated at thoughts suggested by the recital
of her sister's adventure, but that was not the case.  Cécile was
inwardly stirred at something in the quality of the deep, monotonous
voice, low and vibrant as the purr of a great cat.  The personality
of Applebo had upon her an odd, exciting influence.

In rather ridiculous contrast to the effect he produced on the inner
emotions of this accomplished coquette, the poet was sitting in the
most uninspiring manner possible to conceive.  He was perched on the
extreme rim of his bunk, which, being rather low, brought his big
knees chest-high.  His feet, of generous proportion and elegantly
shod in rubber-soled buckskin, were "toeing in," his forearms rested
across his thighs, and his back was domed like the shell of a
tortoise, so that the long, wavy hair clustered about his shoulders
as he turned his head from one guest to the other.  Add to this a
sleepy, blinking face and a wide mouth, which seemed ever ready to
yawn, and it seems odd that Mr. Applebo should have caused any
acceleration of the pulses in a young lady who had successfully
weathered many an impassioned declaration.  As a matter of fact, it
was the suggestion of swift, latent force masked in this somnolent
pose which was discomposing.  There was a deep, slumberous gleam in
the amber eyes which told of a very wakeful spirit within, while the
muscular contour of the inert limbs promised an output of tireless
strength which their present laxity sought in vain to conceal.  Both
Captain Bell and Cécile felt the existence of this masked vitality,
the former with the admiration of a man who had himself been athletic
in his youth, and Cécile with the aforesaid stirring of some new and
unclassified emotion.

"Fancy your being able to drag a big girl through the water for a
mile or more!" said he.  "You must be a very powerful man."

"It would be easier for a good swimmer to carry a person for a mile
in the water than on the land," said Applebo.  "The water takes most
of the weight.  Besides, one could never tire in performing a service
for so charming a girl as your daughter."

Bell looked startled.  "H'm ... huh..." he began, but Cécile
interrupted.

"If you find a service of that kind so stimulating, I should think
that you would lend yourself oftener to it."

There was the least touch of sharpness in her tone.  Applebo eyed her
inquiringly.

"I do," said he, "but in spirit rather than in body.  Thus, following
you" ... there was the faintest emphasis on the "you" ... "about all
summer has been a sentimental though unasked service.  All services
should be unasked; otherwise they are obligations.  It has been a
service ... and I have never tired of it."

Bell's jaw slightly dropped.  Cécile's glance was very intense.
Applebo blinked.

"Huh..." said Bell.  "It seems to me that the service was on our
part, seein' that we were doing your thinkin' for you."

"The leader must always do the thinking for the one who follows,"
murmured the poet.  "The stray dog who attaches himself to your heels
follows blindly where you lead because of his unasked and often
undesired devotion.  The pilot-fish does not dictate his course to
the shark."

Bell looked confused, then turned a slightly richer shade of pink.
The idea was slowly permeating his intelligence that Applebo was
chaffing them, and that so subtly that one hardly knew how to reply.
The same idea had entered the head of Cécile.  To this pampered
beauty the idea that a young man should deliberately amuse himself at
her expense was maddening.  Cécile had plenty of fight in her and she
was active-minded as well, and she did not propose to be set dancing
on a string like a marionette for the pleasure of this sleepy-eyed
enigma.

"After all," said she, "one might consider that we were quits.  You
furnish us with some idle amusement which otherwise we might lack
while we furnish you with some of our mind, which otherwise you might
lack."

"Precisely," drawled the poet; "a fair exchange."

Bell cackled outright.  The colour flared into the face of Cécile.
Applebo blinked.  Captain Bell came to the rescue of his daughter.

"Aboard the _Shark_," said he, "you are a sort of benefactor.  You
instil our monotonous lives with a great excitement.  All hands make
bets on how long after us you will arrive in port."

"In that case," said Applebo, in a tone of dreamy regret, "I must
sometimes have thoughtlessly spoiled the game by carelessly
permitting myself to arrive before you.  Hereafter, I will not follow
you out so soon."

Bell's face grew rather purple.  While obliged to admit the dull
sailing qualities of the _Shark_, he had never particularly relished
comment on the topic, but to have it so "rubbed in" by a little
sixty-foot sword-fisher was infuriating.

"Of course," he snapped, "on these short runs it's not difficult for
you to pass us.  But I am afraid that you may not find it so easy to
stay with us for the next fortnight or so.  We're tired of mud-holing
and rottin' around with the small fry."

"If you are tired of me," observed the poet, "you know that you have
only to say so.  Not for worlds would I persecute you with undesired
attentions."

"Not a bit of it!" exclaimed Cécile.  "We find you very amusing.  The
question is, whether you will find your occupation so amusing from
now on.  As papa says, we are planning some good offshore runs.  I do
hope that you will not find your duties too arduous."

Here was a challenge directly thrown down.  Applebo looked as if the
mere thought of it made him overtired.

"Come, come..." said Bell, with an assumption of his hearty manner.
"'Fess up now.  What is your real object in trailin' us around?  Wood
says you find the proximity of three pretty girls stimulatin' to your
poetry.  Is that true?"

"Quite."  Applebo looked slowly at Cécile.  "Huntington exaggerates.
The proximity of one of them would be quite enough.  The focus of so
many romantic and sentimental aspirations must, by its mere
juxtaposition, inspire by repercussion the acme of poetic expression."

"H'm ... huh ... hough ... I don't precisely understand..." said
Bell, with perfect truth.

Cécile drew back with a little sniff.  Applebo showed actual signs of
awakening.  He leaned toward Bell and spread out his large,
well-shaped hands.

"We poets," he said, "are souls highly sensitised to extrinsic
emotions.  We are less sentient beings than æsthetic interpreters of
the passionate vibrations of art or nature.  Like the æolian harp
responding to the dalliance of a zephyr, thus do we translate
soul-talk of alien origin."

He beamed at the agonised Bell, who was panting for air.

"Just as the compass swings to meet its electric affinity," pursued
Applebo, in a rapt voice, "so doth the spirit of the Muse within us
react to the atmosphere of Love, that divinest of all motive force.
It is thus that I find your aura so stimulating" ... he looked at
Cécile... "like tabasco on an oyster."  He gave her a celestial smile.

"I see," she answered.  "You use us as a sort of stove."

"Less for its warmth," said Applebo, "than for the fuel with which it
is fed."

Captain Bell mopped his brow.  "I am a practical sort of person
myself," said he, vaguely.  "Why don't you accept our invitations and
get your inspiration at short range?"

"To do that," said the poet, "would be to sacrifice my sacred Muse
upon the altar of my own selfishness.  No.  All that I ask is merely
to continue as I am, a humble and devoted little pilot-fish."

Bell and Cécile both cast him glances of quick suspicion, but the
face of Mr. Applebo expressed no more than a sad and somewhat sleepy
resignation.  Bell rose to his feet, and Cécile, somewhat
reluctantly, did the same.  She felt that she was quitting a
considerable loser.

"Well," remarked Bell, a little snappishly, "keep on being a
pilot-fish, if that suits you better.  As far as following us is
concerned, you can do that and welcome.  Follow us till..."

"Oh, papa...!"

"H'm ... huh ... h'm ... but I'm afraid you'll find that you've got
some swimming cut out for you that will wear the brisket off you."

"Where the _Shark_ swims," said Applebo, "the Pilot-fish will follow."

"We will see ... h'm ... we will see," said Captain Bell, oracularly.




CHAPTER VIII

It is sad to chronicle the fact that, on the way back to the _Shark_,
Captain Bell's language was not such as a maiden's ears should hear.
But it is doubtful if Cécile's ears did hear it, such paternal
explosions being somewhat too common of occurrence to command
attention.  On the other hand, the treatment which she had just
received at the hands of the poet was an entirely new experience,
and, in consideration of what Wood had told her, one that puzzled her
mightily.  There was naturally no way of poor Cécile's knowing that
the poet took her for her sister Hermione, and was working off a
little artistic pique, due to the return of verses, which had cost
him gallons of tea and many pounds of macaroons.

Bell was going off at intervals, like an automatic fog-horn.

"The ---- fool!" he stormed, to the expressionless delight of his
crew, which pulled away with stony faces.  "Is he a wild ass of the
desert, or does he think I am, or both?  What in thunder did he mean
by all that rot about Hermione shooting the keeper and he standin' by
to bury him in the sand?  Was the fool tryin' to josh me, I'd like to
know?  And all that slush about percussion somethin' and poetic
interpretation by an æolian harp crackin' on ... Did you ever see
such a cub-faced, swab-headed guillemot?  Soul-talk!  I want a
drink..."

These and other winged words were lost upon Cécile.  She was trying
to hit on some solution of Applebo's treatment of herself.  Certainly
there had been some hidden meaning in the looks which he had turned
upon her; something which suggested a motive for his peculiar
behaviour.  Cécile, who found it quite impossible to construe any
situation as unflattering to herself, decided that the behaviour of
the poet was nothing less than sheer "bluff."  Either he was trying
to disguise some deep, inner emotion, or else he had wished to
mislead Captain Bell as to the true reason for his constant
attendance.  Cécile did not for an instant take seriously Applebo's
sentimental effusions about the effect upon his poetry produced by
the propinquity of the _Shark_.  She was quite convinced that there
was a very deep and subtle method underlying his apparently foolish
pose.  Heretofore she had been divided as to whether he must be
considered as a really smitten lover or merely as a sort of
half-witted loon, which, like all of its species, was quite at home
on the wave.  She had even thought it possible that he might be a
fool of whimsical ideas who had actually attached himself to the
_Shark_ from sheer lacking objective.  This theory had been
overturned by Wood's revelations, and she had accompanied her father
to call on Applebo with the secret determination of discovering what
was really underneath his eccentric behaviour.

The sleepy quick-wittedness; the supine manner of attempting to
disguise a fierce forcefulness beneath; the deep, resonant voice,
silky and warm; the inscrutable, leonine face with its mane of tawny
hair; the _tout ensemble_, had deeply impressed Cécile, though she
was not yet conscious of how deeply.  But she knew that Applebo was
very far from being the pilot-fish which he claimed to be.  A chunk
of pork on a hook, perhaps, but a pilot-fish ... no!  Cécile had a
vague instinct that she was shortly to be more fully informed in the
matter.

Notwithstanding which, she arrived at the schooner in a state of
extreme irritation, while her father had subsided into a sub-acute
exasperation expressed by grunts and growls.  A certain curiosity had
backed up the real motive for the call aboard the _Daffodil_, and
this curiosity had been politely but effectually flouted, and both
father and daughter much resented it.  Especially the daughter, as
much trifling with the affections of many young men is a poor way for
a girl to get in training to have a young man treat her with _lèse
majesté_.

On coming alongside of the schooner they found a boat from the
_Arcturus_, and Cécile's temper was not improved at hearing the gay
laughter from the deck, where Hermione, Paula, Huntington Wood, and
Mr. Poole were having a very good time.  Cécile was one of those
girls who grow restive at the sight of attractive men in the
possession of other girls, so she proceeded at once to break up the
_partie carrée_, taking Wood away from Paula as one might deprive a
child of some object with which it was too young to play.

All were curious to hear about the call upon Mr. Applebo, however,
especially as the red and belligerent expression of Captain Bell's
face showed that it had not been in all ways agreeable.

"Your friend Applebo," said Cécile to Wood, "is, without exception,
the rudest man I ever met."

Hermione raised her eyebrows.  Wood, always loyal to the absent,
protested.

"Oh, no!" said he, "odd and eccentric and all of that, but not really
rude...."

"Call it what you like," said Cécile.  "We had to board his nasty
little boat practically by force, after which he did nothing but sit
there and make sneering remarks."

"That was the only way he managed to keep awake," growled Bell, who
was pacing up and down his quarter-deck with short, impatient steps.

"Apparently," said Cécile, "he was trying to be witty at our expense.
You should have heard what papa said about him coming back...."

"We did ... from the time you left the yawl," said Hermione.

Cécile gave a mirthless little laugh.  "Fancy your being so silly as
to say that he was in love with me!"

"Huntington never said that," observed Hermione.  "He merely said
that Applebo was in love with somebody aboard the _Shark_."

There was a laugh, which was quickly checked, for Cécile's face
became suddenly crimson.  She bit her lip, and her grey eyes actually
filled with tears of sheer mortification.  Wood went quickly to her
rescue.

"Up to this time," said he, "Harold has probably fancied himself in
love with an Ideal.  Now that he has seen the Real, we may look for
rapid developments."

"Huh..." grunted Captain Bell, whose promenade had brought him within
earshot, "he's a balm, that's what's the matter with him.  Said it
wasn't Hermione he rescued, but the gamekeeper.  Said Hermione was
about to assassinate him, and that if she had he would have dug a
hole in the sand and shoved him in ... huh ... h'm ... balmy as a
spring dream...."

"He's quite capable of it," said Wood, and glanced at Hermione.
There was a vivid red splash in either of the girl's cheeks, and her
eyes were like sapphires.

"By Jove..." Wood laughed.  "Look at Hermione!  I believe she would
have helped him!  What a pair of savages!"

Bell stopped in his beat and threw one arm around Paula.  He made no
secret of the fact that she was his favourite daughter; a preference
which aroused no jealousy in the hearts of the other girls, as both
appreciated fully Paula's sweetness of disposition and invariable
unselfishness.  She was, in a way, the mean between the extremes of
Cécile's calculating and Hermione's impetuous nature; also she acted
as a sort of fender between her sisters and their father.  On the
whole, the family was an affectionate one, but high spirits and
diverse dispositions made the offices of a peace advocate
indispensable.

"D'ye know what I think?" snapped Bell.  "I think that the scoundrel
is secretly in love with Paula, and he ain't man enough to step up
and say so!"

"What makes you think that?" Wood asked.

"Logical exclusion.  Here he has performed a service for Hermione,
and lets it drop there, and Cécile goes aboard his boat and he sits
there and jollies her.  What was it he said ... that about the idle
amusement he furnished bein' a fair exchange for the use of our minds
... eh ... what was it, Cécile...?"

"Some rubbish ... I don't know..." Cécile turned away, angrily.

"Besides," continued Bell, "Paula is the only one he has ever sighted
close aboard.  All right, old man" ... he glanced toward the
_Daffodil_ ... "we'll see how much of a test you can stand.  Wait
'til I romp you up and down the coast from St. John's, Newfoundland,
to Hatteras a few times!"  He glanced at Wood.  "Come with us,
Huntington.  You'll see some sport.  The beggar means to follow, if
he can."

Wood hesitated.  Cécile was looking at him, ready to give a little
sign of affirmation, but to her extreme surprise, Wood glanced, not
at her, but at Paula.  Cécile's eyes followed his.  Paula was looking
at Wood, and as he hesitated, her face grew suddenly pale.

"Do you all want me?" asked Wood, smiling.

"Of course we do," answered Hermione.  "Do come."

Paula echoed the invitation, a little faintly, and Cécile, in a cool,
indifferent way.  She was wondering at the peculiar expression she
had caught in Paula's eyes as they met those of Wood.

"Then I'll go with great delight," said Wood.  "But I don't think
that the chase will last very long, when it comes to offshore work.
You can hardly expect a little yawl like that to keep up with a
schooner of this size."

"I'll back him," said Hermione.  "The _Shark_ is about as speedy as
an oyster-float."

"Just the same," snapped Bell, "I'll make you a bet, young lady, that
we will have lost our pilot-fish at the end of ten days."

"For what...?" asked Hermione.

"For a month's allowance.  Double or none.  Come now, do you take me?"

"Done with you!" said Hermione, promptly.

Huntington Wood was giving a dinner party ashore that night, and
Cécile, according to her custom when dining out, spent the late hours
of the afternoon in repose.  Her room aboard the _Shark_ was as big
and luxuriously furnished as though it had belonged to a modern
country-house, and she slept in a brass bed securely bolted to the
deck.  Adjoining was a boudoir and bath.

In a flowered kimono, her bright hair unconfined, Cécile was taking
her beauty-rest and turning in her mind the events of the day.
Piqued as she had been at Applebo's behaviour, she was by this time
angry ... and a little startled to find how insistently his
personality occupied her thoughts.  She would have resented this more
had it not been that this retrospect was by no means disagreeable.

The startling feature of this obsession was the vividness with which
she could recall every detail.  Cécile had only to close her eyes to
see again the big-framed, loosely-held figure, the sleepy, leonine
face with its mane of wavy hair, sun-bleached on top of the head to
the colour of old oakum, but holding rich, coppery tints in its
depths.  Facial features were shockingly vivid; the high, wide
cheekbones, the cheeks themselves cut out to a degree which gave the
mouth an appearance of being slightly pushed out, the upper lip
slightly raised in the middle.  Most distinct was the set of the
eyes; the leonine "bumps" with the bushy eyebrows, the eyes
themselves of a clear, deep amber and fringed about with lashes that
looked black, but were not.

She thought, with a gust of irritation, of the poet's blinking,
indifferent expression and of the sudden gracious change in the
cat-like face when he smiled.  The smile humanised him, it was so
kind.  And it reassured one, in revealing teeth that were straight
and white and even, and not feline.  The recollection to most stir
Cécile's pulse was that of the deep, resonant purring voice, which
seemed to have left its echoes in her ears, as the voice of the sea
leaves its murmur in a conch-shell.

"If it weren't for that catty, mocking pose," thought Cécile, "how
attractive he would be!"  She pictured him as open and frank and
sincere ... looking into her eyes with no veil across his own ...
Cécile's heart beat furiously.  She wondered if she were going to
make a fool of herself and fall in love with the only man who had
ever treated her with disrespect.

Perhaps the factor which made Applebo's memory so intrusive was his
enigmatical position.  From thinking of him Cécile would ponder,
until her head ached, upon what could be his real motive.  She was
now convinced that his attendance was not aimless.  She was also sure
that if it were due to a sentimental emotion toward herself she would
very soon know of it, now that they had met.  There had certainly
been some deep meaning, some understanding in those, regards which he
had given her.

Thinking of these things she fell into a doze, only to be pursued by
vague images of her waking thoughts.  Then, just before fully
awakening, she saw, as in a camera-obscura, the face of Applebo
regarding her with a lazy, ironical smile.  This was not fancy, but
an actual vision, which faded slowly as she awoke.

"Bother the man!" cried Cécile, fiercely to herself.  "One would
think that I were an ingenue of eighteen, haunted by visions of my
first beau!"

Many men had called Cécile cold, unfeeling, heartless ... all of
which terms were, from the man's point of view, quite correct.  From
Cécile's, they were wrong.  As she saw it, love was a game in which
one must realise, just as in football, the possibility of getting
hurt.  A coward or cry-baby had no right to play it.  If any man
could hurt her, as she was said to have hurt others, he was quite at
liberty to go ahead and do it.  It was, perhaps, in the hunt for the
person who could do this that she had ruthlessly vivisected so many
hearts.  Cécile felt instinctively that she possessed no lack of deep
feeling, if the right man were to claim it.

But Cécile knew quite well that she was not "in love at first sight."
She was momentarily fascinated, perhaps, but mingled with her
sentiment there was not the least trace of sympathetic or tender
interest.  On the contrary, the thought of Applebo exasperated her.
She felt that she would like to wake him out of his lethargy with a
hat-pin or the butt-end of an oar.  Something in his sleek, smooth
complacency aroused the desire to do him a damage.

Tired at length of the changeless object of her fancy, she tried to
put it from her mind, but in vain.  Then, finding herself unable to
stem the tide of her imaginings, she tried drifting with them, to
arrive ultimately at the startling knowledge that she was quite wild
to see the poet again.  She was also forced to admit, for however
much she might deceive others Cécile was always candid with herself,
that, were he to exert his magnetic potentialities toward that end,
it was very possible that she might wind up by falling very
desperately in love with Mr. Harold Applebo.

Hardly had she arrived at this rather humiliating conclusion when the
maid entered, handed her a note, and went out again.  The post-mark
was a local one, and the handwriting of the copy-plate regularity
which one associates with bills.  Nevertheless, Cécile's heart beat
with a sudden increased force as she tore open the letter.  Inside
was a single sheet of corn-coloured note-paper covered by a fine
regular calligraphy, which Cécile recognised at a glance as being
identical with that in which some of Hermione's letters had been
addressed.  She held it to the waning light from her port-hole, and
read as follows:--


TO CÉCILE

  _Lips oft sing loudest when the heart is numb;
  'Tis when Love enters there, though all unseen,
  These scarlet courtiers, bowing to their Queen,
  Knowing their hollowness, are stricken dumb._

  _Thus, ere Love reached me with his tiny dart,
  Clamoured I vainly.  Many a lover's moan
  And sigh proclaimed a love I ne'er had known,
  Vaunted a passion alien to my heart._

  _My soul has met with thine.  Though I did wrong,
  These lips are stilled.  No slightest sigh is heard,
  And all my poesy is prisoned in a word:--
  "I love thee, Sweet."  Herein lies all my song.
                                        The Pilot-fish._


Cécile read the verses twice through, then flung herself back amongst
the pillows with a burning face.

The solution was not long in coming.  Apparently, the poet had
previously sent verses, from time to time, to Hermione.  Cécile had
seen the envelopes.  It was very wrong of Hermione to have received
them and said nothing to her about it.  Cécile would reprove her for
that later on ... not just at present.

It was probable, she thought, that Applebo had seen Hermione at some
time, found her attractive, and being himself of a sentimental and
poetic nature, had fancied himself in love with her.  Then, in their
meeting of that morning he had, no doubt, been disillusioned, found
Hermione a mere child and a bit of a hoyden.  Later on, seeing
herself, Cécile, he had been completely vanquished.

Certain parts of the verses appeared to bear this out.  The theme of
the poem, as a whole, was that formerly, when he really had felt
nothing, he had been doing a lot of singing.  Hence the verses which
Hermione had from time to time received.  But now that he had really
fallen in love, he found himself deprived of expression.

Cécile put away the verses, rang for her maid, and proceeded to
dress.  At the dinner that night everybody who knew her agreed that
she had never been so radiantly lovely.

"Lucky dog!" said Poole to Huntington Wood.  "You'll win her before
this wild-goose chase is over!"

Wood smiled, and his eyes followed Paula as she crossed the room to
speak to an acquaintance.




CHAPTER IX

After the departure of his guests, Mr. Applebo returned to his yellow
cabin and remained, for some minutes, sitting upon the extreme edge
of his bunk, his eyes fixed upon infinity.

Like many men who spend much of their time alone, Mr. Applebo had
acquired the habit of audible self-communing, this custom rendered
the more spontaneous due to his practice of reciting his poetic
efforts for the sake of euphony and metre.  Audible self-communing
was also a favourite employment of the Finn, so that any one
approaching the yawl at any time of the day or night might have been
surprised to hear two monologues proceeding with the tireless
monotony of a pair of phonographs.

As though to relax his mind after the lofty heights of poetic
utterance, Mr. Applebo's unofficial soliloquies were very apt to be
curt, colloquially idiomatic, which is a high-sounding way of saying
"slangy," and even at times, profane.  Mr. Applebo pouring out his
soul over a sonnet or madrigal, and Mr. Applebo commenting to himself
on topical events, was scarcely to be recognised as the same person.

On the present occasion the subject of his monologue was the visit
just received.

"That must have been Hermione with the captain.  She looked like a
sassy young thing.  If I'd seen her face I'd never have wasted good
verse on her.  The old man looks like a sun-blister in red
paint-work.  He'll go 'pop' some day.  So he's going to try to lose
me out.  I'll fool him.  Since I've met Cécile I'd follow him over
Niagara, whether I had a chart or not.  Cecilia ... Cécile..." he
dwelt upon the name as if loath to leave it.  "Doesn't lend itself to
verse like 'Hermione,' but the girl is a wonder.  Harold, my son, I'm
afraid you've got yours at last...."

For some minutes he remained in silent contemplation of this
reluctant admission, and to look at his face one would have thought
that he had just discovered himself to be infected with malignant
smallpox.  Presently he gave a sigh which suggested a porpoise coming
up to blow.

"She is a wonder, and I am not surprised that every man who sees her
goes off his chump.  It is their own silly fault for presuming to
raise their eyes to such a young goddess.  I shall not raise my eyes
to her ... but I shall raise my voice and send her a drool.  And this
time it will be the truth...."

One long arm went to the locker beside the bunk and drew out a
writing-block of corn-coloured paper and a fountain-pen.  For a few
minutes Mr. Applebo scratched away industriously, then flung himself
back on the bunk and read aloud and sonorously what he had just
written.

"Pretty rotten ... but I have no time to monkey with it.  Her proud
parent has given me a dare, and honour compels that I gird myself for
the fray.  He is going to lead me an offshore chase, I fancy.  I had
better get busy and grub up.  I must fake the address of this drivel
or Hermione might get sore.  All women but one are cats."

The note, addressed in an utterly characterless copy-plate hand, Mr.
Applebo lifted up his voice in a melodious yowl, whereat the Finn
came scuffling aft and stood in the cock-pit peering into the cabin
like a gnome looking into a cave.

"Come down here..."  Applebo spoke in Danish.  The two always
conversed in that tongue, when they conversed at all, which was
seldom.

The Finn hooked his strong fingers over the rim of the hatch and
swung down his squat body to stand before his master, cap in hand,
and with an expression of dog-like devotion in his great brown eyes.

"We are going on a long voyage.  Fill the water-tanks and the
ice-box, and take this list to the store.  Bring off the stuff with
you.  But first mail this letter.  No drink.  Dost thou understand?"

"Yes, master."

"The least sign of liquor and I leave thee on the beach and ship a
clean man in thy place.  Remember."

"Yes, master."

"Very well.  Go!"

The Finn swung up through the hatch like a chimpanzee.  Applebo sat
for a moment thinking.  Then he flung his great frame back on the
bunk, and reaching into the book-locker, took therefrom a copy of
Rostand's "Cyrano."  This was his favourite of modern poems.  He
began to read aloud, in sonorous tones, and with careful regard to
the scansion:--


  "... Je  t'aime, je suis fou, je n'en peux plus, c'est trop.
  "Ton nom est dans mon cœur comme dans un grelot..."


Which, when one considers that the name at that moment tinkling in
the heart of Applebo was the name of the wrong girl, made of his
pleasure in the verses a delightful irony!

He was still half reading, half didactically reciting, when there
came the splash of oars alongside and Applebo threw down the poem,
arose, and shoved his tawny head up through the hatch to behold a
small and frightened-looking boy in a boat.  The youngster handed him
a note and appeared loath to linger for the tip which the poet tossed
him.  Applebo tore open the envelope to find within a sheet of paper
with the _Shark's_ heading.  On it were the words:--


  Sailing to-night for Halifax.
                          CÉCILE.

* * * * * *

The middle of the following forenoon found the _Shark_ well on her
course across the wide mouth of the Bay of Fundy.  The schooner was
almost becalmed and smothered in a thick white fog, through which the
sun was trying to burn its way.

On the starboard rail were leaning Paula and Huntington Wood, trying
to look into the cottony blanket of mist.  The yacht had been
threading her way through a fleet of fishing-boats, and from all
sides there came the faint or loud, but always muffled and elusive,
_dong ... dong ... dong ... dong_ ... of the fishermen's bells.

From the t'gallant forecastle of the _Shark_ there blared out at
half-minute intervals the _honk ... honk_ ... of her automatic
fog-horn.  A few minutes before they had heard the shriek of a
steamer's siren as it ripped its way through the fog.  Directly it
had come again, appallingly close aboard; so close, indeed, that
people could be heard talking on her decks, and a gruff voice,
apparently from the bridge, had rasped, "Lookout, wha'ar d'ye make
that fog-horn?"

The _Shark_ had answered the question for herself, when the same
voice aboard the steamer said in a sharp tone, "Starboard!  He's
plumb under our baows!"

Everything was a-drip.  There was scarcely breeze enough to keep
steerage-way, and the knowledge of the swift tides and eddies and the
treacherous southern extremity of Nova Scotia did not tend to have a
soothing effect on the nerves of Captain Bell.  He was standing on
the weather side, just abaft the mainmast, muffled to the ears in a
heavy ulster, with a deer-stalker's hat pulled down over his eyes and
a very long cigar, which reminded one of a spinnaker-boom, sticking
straight out from his damp, rubicund face.  Altogether, he looked
more like a discontented British tourist than an ex-naval officer
conning his yacht through the fog.  At sea, Bell always stood
watch-and-watch with Heldstrom, and did his own navigating.

"This is the sort of weather that makes you more indulgent toward
power!" he growled, waddling up to join Paula and Huntington.  "I'll
bet our bloomin' Pilot-fish wishes that _he_ had some!"

"Do you suppose that he is out in this?" Wood asked.

"Sure.  He took my challenge, so the chances are that he followed us
out last night.  If he'd waited until this morning, he'd have missed
the tide."

"Poor little _Daffodil_!" said Paula.  "It's no place for her out
here!  I hate to think of it!"

"She's all right," growled Bell.  "Don't you worry about her!"

"How is the betting?" asked Wood.

Bell grinned.  "The sailing-master is offering two to one that
Applebo will be in Halifax harbour within four hours of ourselves.
He used to bet against the Pilot-fish, but since he found out that he
is a square-head, he backs him.  The bosun offers even money that we
get there first, and the cook has taken him on for a 'V,' but then
the cook's a fool!  In light airs the yawl can out-sail us, as unless
there's half a gale, this tub is so slow that if it weren't for her
sails they'd take her for a light-vessel.  But I can out-navigate the
chump, and we'll save on steering a truer course."

"Don't try to cut corners, papa," said Paula.  "You might cut one off
the schooner."

"No danger.  I didn't serve for twenty-five years in the U.S. Navy
for nothin'...."  He glanced forward, then raised his voice:
"Lookout, there, why don't you report that bell?  What d'ye think you
are ... the figger-head?"

"Bell on der poort bow, zir...!" bawled the lad.

"All right," snapped the owner.  "I'm deaf already from listenin' to
it.  Don't try to make me any deafer.  Now keep your lugs buttoned
back and see if you can't hear the next one before I do!"

Bell stumped aft to look at the taffrail log, then to the
companionway for a peep at the barometer.

"Glass risin'," he announced.  "This stuff will blow off before noon
and then we may get a bit of a breeze."  He went forward, pausing at
the door of the galley to watch the cook, wishing mightily that his
watch was over that he might get to work on a ragoût.  Paula looked
at Wood and laughed.

"Papa's wishing that he were inside there, warm and messy and
spoiling good food," said she.  "Why don't you _get_ a fad,
Huntington?"

"Cécile intimated last night that I was rapidly doing so."

"And what is that?"

"She declined to say, but I think that it had some reference to
yourself."

Paula did not immediately reply.  With both elbows on the schooner's
high rail she stared into the grey-green water eddying sluggishly
alongside.  Wood watched her, and his fine eyes kindled.  Experiences
of the past year had taught the young man many things about life and
character, and he was beginning to be able to tell the pure from the
alloyed metal.  Never in his life had he known Cécile Bell to be as
lovely as the night before at his dinner-party, nor had he ever found
her so sweet and sympathetic.  But not one flash of the old emotion
had been rekindled.  His eyes had been so evidently filled with Paula
that in the end Cécile had grown slightly piqued and turned her
attentions to Mr. Poole, whom she speedily reduced to abject slavery.

Paula was sufficiently pretty, when it came to that.  Her charm was
of a sweet, gentle sort, which was destined to grow with her
character.  She was fuller of figure than either of her sisters, with
a great abundance of chestnut hair, which held deep, auburn tones.
Like the other two girls her complexion was clear to transparency,
and the general type was Keltic; French or Irish.  In repose, Paula
was as quiet as a nun, but when she became interested in conversation
to the point of self-forgetfulness, the change to a vivid animation
was almost startling.  On these occasions the rich colour flooded her
face, her words were rapid and vehement, and she gestured as freely
as a Frenchwoman.  Paula was a continual surprise to those who knew
her but slightly.

She raised herself from the rail and let her clear, jade-coloured
eyes rest thoughtfully on Wood.  There was a faint tinge of colour in
her cheeks, damp from the fog.

"I was wondering how long it would be before Cécile became jealous,"
said she.

"Cécile has no reason to be jealous," Wood replied.  "I offered her
all that I had and she very graciously declined it, but desired to be
a sister to me.  I accepted the honour with gratitude.  _Eh, voilà!_"

Paula looked into the fog.  Wood gave a little laugh.

"Of course," he went on, "it is one thing to offer to be a sister and
another to consent to be a sister-in-law."

[Illustration: "It is one thing to offer to be a sister and another
to consent to be a sister-in-law"]

"Don't speak in that flippant way, Huntington."

Wood stepped to her side and laid his hand upon her gloved one as it
rested on the rail.

"My dear," he said, "I do not mean to be flippant.  Of course, you
know, Paula, that I was very much in love with Cécile and took it
very hard when she told me that she did not care for me in the same
way.  I did not try to argue the matter, but started in to forget my
own troubles in trying to interest myself a bit in those of other
people who were much worse off.  The result was most successful,
although all of my friends seem to find it very amusing...."

"You mean your charity?  That was splendid, Huntington...."

"The motive was originally selfish ... but I don't think that it is
so now.  Because I am cured."

He paused, as though thinking of how best to go on.

"What I wish to say now, Paula, is rather difficult.  Perhaps I had
better not try any complicated self-analysis.  When Cécile refused
me, I thought that my life was blasted and that I should never love
again, and most of the things, I suppose, that young men usually
think under these circumstances.  I don't claim any originality.  It
has not been so.  My life is not in the least blasted, and I do love
again, and very, very deeply.  I love you, Paula, and I want you for
my wife.  Will you marry me, dear?"

Paula appeared to have some difficulty with her breathing.  Perhaps
it was the fog, which, at any rate, had very evidently got into her
eyes.  She turned slowly to Wood, her face very pale, and her sweet
mouth quivering.  They were standing near the main rigging, and Paula
steadied herself by gripping a lanyard.  This may have been due to
the very slight heave coming in from the sea.

"Huntington," she said, "do you think that you are quite sure?"

"There is no longer the slightest doubt, Paula."

The girl did not seem able to speak.  As if seeking counsel she
turned again to the sea.  Wood waited, his eyes upon her face.  He
was impressed by the sweet purity of her profile, cut like a cameo
against the white fog.  There was the family likeness to her sisters
in the short, straight-bridged nose with its seductive tip; a
frivolity of feature corrected by the straight, pretty mouth and
decisive chin.  Paula's face in repose had sometimes a touch of
melancholy not to be found with her sisters.  There was a touch of
the Madonna of the Italian painters.

"Paula," said Wood, with the tone of one who offers not a compliment
but a simple fact, "you are a very beautiful woman.  You will grow
even more beautiful as you get older."

She turned to him with a faint smile.  "I am glad that I please you,
Huntington ... but..."

He stepped forward quickly and took her hand.  She twisted it away,
almost impatiently.

"Oh!" she cried, "if I could be sure!  Cécile rejects you ... and you
come to me!  All of Cécile's rejected suitors come to me.  First they
want sympathy, then ... more!  I'm sick of being _consolatrice_!"
Paula had passed with startling abruptness from her breathless
silence to an almost passionate vehemence, and as she talked she made
fierce little gestures with her hands.  Yet her voice was low in
pitch and volume.  "It is so easy for a man to fall in love with the
woman who pets and pities him!  Hermione has the right of it; I heard
her say a few weeks ago to one of Cécile's despairing swains, 'You
had better go to Paula and have your cry out.  You can't weep on my
shoulder; I've got troubles of my own ... and besides, this is a
clean shirt-waist!'"  Paula laughed, semi-hysterically.

Wood looked rather hurt, but not at all irritated.

"That's not quite fair to me, Paula," said he.  "I did not try to
weep on anybody's shoulder, nor am I coming to you for consolation.
I don't need it.  The want of it disappeared long ago.  It is
precisely as if I had never been in love with anybody...."

"Oh, Huntington ... are you sure...?"

"Positive."

"And you really love me?"

"I love you with all my heart, Paula.  Can't you believe me?  And
don't you think that you could manage to care yourself just the least
bit...?"

Paula threw a swift look forward.  Her father, a bulky figure,
half-swaddled in the fog, was rolling aft in their direction.  Behind
them, alas! was the ubiquitous man at the wheel.

"So you will tell me nothing?" Wood asked.

Paula turned to him quickly, caught up his ungloved hand, and
squeezed it between her own so tightly that it gave him a stab of
pain.

"I adore you..." she whispered, then dropped his hand and fled for
the companionway.




CHAPTER X

While these agreeable events were transpiring on the deck overhead,
Cécile, warm and luxurious in her bed directly underneath, had been
doing some very busy thinking, and had finally, aided to some extent
by the muffled but pleasant tones of Wood's voice as it came
intermittently through her ventilator, arrived at her decision.

This decision was that she had better be a sensible girl and marry
Huntington Wood.

By this time she had come to fully realise that the undoubted
attraction which Applebo could have for her came through an appeal
made neither to the heart nor to the mind.  It was purely a physical
attraction, and its hold was upon her material senses.  Cécile was,
however, very much alive in her senses.  If not the slave to them,
she was at least a very indulgent mistress, and the things which they
brought her she valued more than the higher attributes of mind.  She
revelled in all five; bright pageants of colour, exquisite perfumes,
whether natural or artificial, music of any sort, from a gipsy band
to Bach, a terrapin or canvasback and an old Amontillado, a cold bath
on a hot day or a hot bath on a cold one.

Her visit to the _Daffodil_ had catered to these senses.  Applebo was
pleasing to the eye in colouring and contour; the odour of late roses
perfumed the cabin of the yawl, for the poet loved flowers and always
had them about when procurable; his resonant voice rang in the ears
of Cécile and stirred more sympathetic chords than had ever an opera;
the touch of his hand as he helped her into the gig had set her
pulses pounding like old wine.  As for taste, there had been certain
moments when, in her vexation, she had felt a strong desire to bite
him!

Cécile was no fool, and she was quick to realise that these were not
precisely the emotions upon which to lay the foundations of future
happiness.  Moreover, Cécile was both luxurious and socially
ambitious.  Her husband must be a man with money and position, and
she much doubted that Applebo had either.  Wood possessed both, with
many other desirable qualities.  Cécile, though not in the least in
love with him, liked and admired his personality.  She found in him a
great improvement over the idle and rather aimless young man whom she
had rejected some months ago.  His disappointment and its manly
method of treatment, followed by a real, philanthropic interest in
his work, had matured and sweetened him.  Cécile thought it possible
that in time she might grow really to care for him.  Also, he would
make such a creditable husband; clean-cut, good-looking, thoroughbred
of type, popular with all who knew him, well-connected, and very
rich.  Cécile had observed a certain disposition on his part for her
sister Paula, but she was too accustomed to seeing her rejected
suitors turn to Paula to put much importance on the fact.  She had
not the slightest doubt that she could whistle Wood to heel whenever
she so decided.

Cécile wanted to marry.  She was twenty-four years old, a
full-natured beauty with plenty of high vitality beneath her
luxurious laziness, and she found herself becoming bored with her
spinsterhood.  She was tired of the _Shark_ and her family as a
steady diet, and she wanted the big world and a definite individual
position in it.  Which is to say, that she wanted the fulness of
life, and she decided that, under the circumstances, Huntington Wood
was about the most fitting and available person to furnish her with
it.

Scarcely had Cécile arrived at this conclusion when she heard the
rush of light feet on the deck above, followed by steps flying down
the companionway.  The next instant the door of her room was thrown
unceremoniously open and Paula dashed in.

"Oh, Cécile ... Cécile...!" she cried, "Huntington has just asked me
to marry him!"

Cécile raised herself in bed and stared wildly at her sister.  It was
a bit trying, and for the moment took her clean aback.  Paula was far
too excited to notice her sister's expression, which was changing
from astonishment to a dismay not unmixed with resentment.

Paula's cheeks were like Jacqueminot roses and her eyes sparkled like
the sun on deep green water.  As was habitual when greatly moved, her
speech was swift and torrential, and she gestured with quick hands,
shoulders, and little nods and jerks of her head.

"He was so darling and manly; he said that when you refused him he
was sure that his life was blasted and that he would never love
again.  Then, instead of moping or travelling, or drinking, he went
to work with his charity and that healed the wound, and now he is
deeply in love again ... with _me_ this time ... and oh, Cécile, I
just adore him ... and always have...."

"What?" cried Cécile, sharply.

"Yes, dear.  Even when he was in love with you" ... Paula's rich
colour deepened ... "because it was plain enough that you did not
care for him in that way.  If he had come to me at once for
consolation, I would never have married him.  Never, never, never!
It might even have killed my love for him.  But now that he has gone
away and got over it and come back heart-whole ... Cécile!  Why do
you look at me in that odd way...?"  Paula's eyes opened very wide.
She stared at her sister, and slowly the colour faded from her face,
leaving it white.

Cécile stared back without answering.  In the course of Paula's rapid
recital she had made up her mind.  Wood had told her when she refused
to marry him that he would love her always, nevertheless, and Cécile
chose to believe him.  Under these circumstances she did not think
that Paula should be permitted to marry him.  So she stared at her
sister with a set, pale face.

"Cécile...!" cried Paula, her voice trembling so that she could
scarcely speak.  "Do you ... are you ... do you ... care for him ...
yourself?"

Cécile's eyes filled.  The colour flooded her face.  She was one of
those natural actresses of whom the very reflex emotions lend
themselves to the rôle.  Paula was clinging to the foot of her bed,
watching her sister with a white, anguish-filled face.

"_Do_ you?" she cried, despairingly.

Cécile nodded.  "Yes..." she whispered, then twisted upon her side
and buried her face in the pillows.

For several minutes she remained in this position, during which time
a choked sob and the rustle from Paula's rain-coat, followed by the
gentle closing of her door, told her that her sister had gone.
Cécile then raised herself, glancing instinctively in the mirror at
the side of her bed.  There was a hot flush on her cheeks; her hair
was in disorder, and her grey eyes held a sullen look.  Altogether,
her appearance was not pleasing to her.

"I look like a pussy-cat!" she muttered, and slipped out of bed.
Standing before the mirror, she gently massaged her face with her
hands.  "And I rather think I am one, too..." she added, under her
breath.

She rang for the maid, who brought her tea and toast.  Cécile was
thoughtfully making her _petit déjeuner_ when there came a tap at her
door, and Hermione, fully dressed in grey sweater and a green,
homespun skirt, entered.

"What have you been saying to Paula?" demanded Hermione, abruptly.
"She's in her room sobbing her heart out."

Cécile's face showed the keenest sorrow and sympathy.

"Oh, Hermione..." she began, with her mouth full of toast, and then
went on to tell what had occurred.  Hermione listened, with her black
eyebrows drawing a straight line across her deep, violet eyes.  Her
vital face hardened in a manner not pleasant to see in so young a
girl.  Cécile, glancing at her, grew actually frightened.

"Hermione!" she protested.  "Why do you look at me in that way?  I
did not tell Paula that she was not to have Huntington!  No doubt, he
is really in love with her ... and no longer cares a snap for me!
But when she asked me if I cared for him, what was I to tell her?"

"The truth," said Hermione, shortly.

"But I did, did I not?"

Hermione thrust out her chin.  "No," said she.  "You told her a lie!"

And she turned abruptly on her heel and went on deck.

The first person whom she saw was Captain Heldstrom, he having
relieved the owner, who was joyously disporting himself in the
galley.  Heldstrom was peering into the fog, which was thinning out
on all sides.  The big Norwegian's beard and moustache were beaded
with the moisture, and he looked like a hero of Wagnerian opera.

"What are you looking for?" Hermione demanded.

"For der Pilot-vish.  Der lookout reported a little yawl on der poort
bow; den der fog closed in again.  I hope it vas he."

"Why?  On account of your bet?"

"No.  Der bet is nodding.  But ve haf a good offing, und der tide iss
setting like a mill-r'race onto Cape Sable.  Der glass iss dropping,
und it looks like a sout'easter, und it vould not be vell to be much
nearer in."

"First time I ever saw you worrying about the Pilot-fish," observed
Hermione.

"That is true.  Since I haf seen him in der vater, svimmin' mit you
... dere is somet'ing about that yoong man ... I do not know."

He passed his hand across his eyes, as though to clear his vision.

"Well," said Hermione; "what about him?"

"That is yoost vat I cannot tell.  But his face clings in my mind
like a gr'reen hand in der r'rigging."  He glanced at Hermione, and
something in the girl's face caught his attention and held it.

"Vat is der matter?" he asked.

This was exactly what Hermione wanted.  She led him to the break of
the quarter-deck, and there, out of all ear-shot, told him of the
complication between Cécile, Paula, and Huntington Wood, frankly
concluding with her own unmaidenly observation to Cécile.  Captain
Heldstrom listened, with his heavy brows knit.

"That iss goot und bad," he said, when she had finished.  "I am glad
und sorry.  Q'varrels between sisters are very bad.  But Mr. Wood is
der von to settle der business.  He iss in love mit Paula und he vill
marry mit her, und dey vill be very, very happy.  Cécile does not
care for him, but perhaps she t'inks she does, und for that reason
you haf done very wr'rong to say vat you did.  It vas unkind und
unjust und unladylike ... und you vill go down at vonce und ask her
par'rdon."

"I won't...!"

"Go, Hermione...!"

And Hermione turned, without a word, to the companionway.

As she entered Cécile's room, she saw that her sister had been
crying.  This softened Hermione and made her apology spontaneous.

"I'm sorry, Cécile," said she.  "I was angry and spoke without
thinking.  Will you forgive me?"

Cécile nodded, and her grey eyes filled.

"You don't really think it, Hermione?"

"No.  If you say you care for Huntington, I believe you.  But I do
not believe that you care one hundredth part as much as Paula does.
Oh, Cécile, why don't you keep out of it?"

Cécile looked thoughtfully at her sister and nodded.

"I am going to," said she.  "I have been thinking it over and have
come to the conclusion that I was a cat.  I will tell Paula so.
Don't let us talk about it; I'm awfully ashamed.  What is going on
above?"

"Fog and calm," said Hermione, pleased at getting off the topic.
"Uncle Chris is worrying about the Pilot-fish.  So am I."

Cécile knit her brows.  She had honestly determined to give up
Huntington Wood, and had rather consoled herself by thinking that she
would at least "take it out" of the Pilot-fish.  And now, here was
Hermione confessing to an anxiety for this self-sufficient young man.
Poor Cécile felt that she was navigating shallow and uncharted waters.

"What are _you_ worrying for, Hermione?"

"I don't like to think of Applebo out here in that little tub.  We
are in a silly business, _I_ think."

"No sillier than he is."

"It's undignified.  Papa gives him a dare and he takes it.  Suppose
he were to come to grief, how would we feel?"

"I don't see that we are to blame if a silly young man in a
sixty-foot yawl tries to stay with a big sea-going schooner.  It's
rather cheeky of him, _I_ think."

"It's a game" ... Hermione knit her brows ... "and not one that I
care for.  I like Applebo.  Besides" ... her tint deepened a trifle
... "he's the only man I ever met to give me a thrill."

"Hermione!"

"It's nothing to be ashamed of.  He fascinates me, and I like him,
too.  He is something between a tiger and a great boy.  When he
leaped on that pig of a keeper he was the tiger, tawny and fierce,
and swift and strong...."  Hermione's eyes kindled, and the light in
them found its reflection in those of Cécile.  Her breath came more
quickly.

"And the boy?" she asked.

Hermione laughed, and her colour spread to the tips of her little
ears.

"When he kissed me good-bye..."

"What?" cried Cécile, honestly scandalised.  With all of her
coquetries Cécile had always drawn her dead-line before the kissing
stage.

"He kissed me good-bye out there in the water," said Hermione,
smiling.  "I couldn't help myself.  I'm not sure that I would have
done so if I could.  It was a very diluted kiss and finished under
water...."

"Hermione!  You ought to be ashamed...!"  Cécile looked as if she had
just been kissed herself.  "Well...?"

"It wasn't much pay ... considering the service recently rendered.
To tell the truth, I was rather crazy about it.  I've been kissed
under the mistletoe, and under the ear, and under protest, but to be
kissed under water is distinctly sensational.  Another like it and I
would have drowned happy...."

"Hermione! ... hush!  You shameless hussy!"  Cécile was laughing in
spite of herself, but she was agitated also.  Oddly, in spite of her
disapproval, she was conscious of a sudden envy of her younger
sister's unaffected naturalness.  Hermione had been kissed under
circumstances which she found most agreeable, and she did not mind
saying so.  But Cécile knew well that Hermione would put up a very
pretty little fight before she would submit to the same sort of thing
again.  Still, as an older sister, she felt that she ought to read
Hermione a little lesson.  In which sophistry there was a certain
element of ironic humour which Cécile, being a very feminine woman,
was quite unable to appreciate.

"You surprise me, my dear," she said, sedately.  "Of course, you are
merely a child and, as you say, you couldn't very well help yourself.
But I wish I had known that this undesired appendage of ours had
collected his pay.  I would have told him what I thought of it.  You
seem to think that it was quite right and a gentlemanly sort of
performance and all that.  But if a man had done that sort of thing
to me..."

"Rats...!" said Hermione, and went in to console Paula.

It was two days after these unpleasant incidents that the _Shark_
sailed into Halifax harbour, arriving at about noon.  Exactly four
hours later the _Daffodil_ was sighted, blowing in with a damp breeze
which had backed into the east and smelt of trouble.

"Get under way!" growled Bell.  "Keep the scoundrel on the move...."

The _Shark_ had already left her forwarding address for Old Point
Comfort, a little run of eight or nine hundred miles.  She got her
anchor shortly after the _Daffodil_ had dropped her own.  It is
probable that Applebo followed her out and hung on her heels through
the night, which was sufficiently clear, for at daylight the news
spread over the schooner that the yawl was on the starboard quarter,
a mile astern, and as the day advanced, she hauled up abeam, about
half a mile distant.

All of that day the two vessels were in sight of each other.  Toward
evening the breeze dropped light, and Bell was wild.

"We could leave him with a bit of wind and sea, but this sort of
thing is just his weather.  Wait, though.  The race is not always to
the swift!"  Which was lucky for the _Shark_.

At midnight the wind dropped to almost a calm.  Daylight showed the
_Daffodil_ wallowing drowsily on the long, oily rollers, almost in
the same position as of the evening before.  She was under her
mainsail and forestaysail only, the jib and mizzen being dropped.

Captain Bell's language would be barred by the censor.

"It's an insult!" he raved.  "Shortenin' sail to keep from leavin'
us!  Just you wait, you peroxide blondine!  I'll make you wish you
were in the Adirondacks!"

As if to help him to fulfil his threat the breeze sprang up freshly
from sou'west, with the promise of plenty to follow.  Bell tacked
inshore.  The Pilot-fish stood out to sea.

"Now, what is the chump doin' that for?" Bell demanded of Heldstrom.

"He t'inks der vind vill back into der sout'-east ... und I am not
sure but he vas r'right.  It iss late of der season, und der vind iss
a little crazy."

"It's more apt to come nor'west ... and hard, with this risin'
glass!" Bell retorted.

But before the following morning the wind was southeast, thus putting
the _Daffodil_ well to windward.

Bell's prophecy was true, though a trifle belated, and a hard
nor'wester gave the _Shark_ the weather gauge for the finish of the
run.  Early one morning the old schooner pushed in sluggishly against
the four-knot tide racing out between Old Point and the Rip-Raps, and
came to anchor just beyond the can buoy opposite the hotel, on the
far side of the swash-channel leading to Hampton.  There was no sign
of the _Daffodil_, and Captain Bell was anticipating a pleasant, if
unhygienic, sojourn with certain whiskey-drinking, poker-playing
friends from the cruisers and battleships lying in the port when, to
his intense disgust, he received a letter from his lawyers,
requesting an interview for the current week.

"Marblehead!" he snapped to Heldstrom.  "I've got to be in Boston the
end of this week or early the next."

So the _Shark_ got her anchor, scarcely wet, hoisted sails still
unfurled, and slipped out with the same tide which had so stubbornly
contested her entry.  Saddened eyes from the men-o'-war followed her
departure.  An old crony, with three lovely daughters and a taste for
vintage wines, is a serious loss to his friends.

"Never mind," Bell observed, philosophically, to Huntington Wood.  "I
never got off so easily in all my life.  That gang would have got me
tanked at my expense, drunk up all of my brandy, smoked all of my
good cigars, cleaned me out at poker, and finished the job by telling
me that if it wasn't for the nose-pole on the old _Shark_, they'd
make bets on which way she was going!  I know 'em!  Rotters all!  My
only revenge is that Cécile usually leaves three or four bayin' at
the moon!"

Which was not a pretty speech for a number of reasons, chief of them
being that the man to whom he spoke had been left in that same
lugubrious position some few months previously.  But Captain Bell was
possessed of his full share of shrewdness, and it was already
apparent to his rheumy eye that his guest was in a fair way of being
consoled.

Halfway across the mouth of the Chesapeake that same rheumy eye,
which was one of the quickest aboard to pick up objects at sea,
discovered a diminutive fleck on the drab wall of the sky.

"Here comes that infernal Pilot-fish!" said he.  "I thought we'd lost
him!"

Wood, sufficiently keen of sight, marvelled.  There had been no
question in Bell's voice; he was merely stating a fact.  Wood's glass
revealed it as a fact.  Like most men who have certain talents which
excel and some lacking faculty which can never be more than an object
of ridicule, Bell was unconscious of the former and fought hard for
recognition in the latter.  In the same connection, he was a profane
man, yet an authority on the Bible.  At heart he was religious.

The news of the Pilot-fish brought all hands on deck more quickly
than might have done an alarm of fire.  The wind had got into the
northeast, and Bell, scanning the weather conditions with an
experienced eye, told Wood that it looked to him as if they were in
for a hard "easter," and that the following morning might find the
_Shark_ behind the Delaware Breakwater, there to wait until the
weather improved.

The _Daffodil_ was coming up with the fresh easterly breeze,
valiantly bucking the strong ebb tide.  As the two vessels rapidly
approached, a peculiar quiet fell upon the deck of the _Shark_.  The
little yawl looked very tiny and very much alone upon that broad
expanse of grey water, and the knowledge that she was coming in from
the sea at the end of a run of nearly a thousand miles inspired a
sort of admiration.

As she drew closer aboard, they could see the ruddy-yellow head of
Applebo projecting above the high coaming, and forward the dark,
squat figure of the Finn standing by the mast.

"Stand by to give 'em a dip o' the ensign..." growled Bell to the
quartermaster of the watch.

The courses of the two vessels would bring them abreast of one
another at the distance of about half a mile.  Hermione glanced at
her father.

"Why don't you speak him and tell him where we're bound?" she asked.

"Not a bit of it!" snapped Bell.  "Let him find out for himself at
Old Point."

With everything taut and drawing, the _Daffodil_ drew abeam, and
through the glass Hermione saw the Finn scramble aft and run a small
packet to the peak.

"There goes his ensign in stops..." said she.

"Dip!" ordered Bell.  The _Shark's_ ensign came slowly down.  At the
same moment Applebo broke out his at the main-peak.  The _Daffodil_
held straight on her course toward Hampton Roads.

"I'll bet he hasn't had much sleep!" said Bell, grimly.

From the forecastle of the _Shark_ there came the subdued though
vehement sounds of a lively altercation.  Heldstrom came swinging
aft, scratching his curly, grizzled head.

"Der bets is all mixed up, zir!" said he.  "I don't know if I owe der
cook ten dollars, or if he owes me fifteen!"




CHAPTER XI

For three days the _Shark_ beat stubbornly back and forth against a
hard head-wind and a short, choppy sea, into which she drove her bows
like a wedge, completely to check her way.  The wind never exceeded
the velocity which sailors call "a fresh gale," but it held dead
ahead, appearing with devilish persistency to follow the bow around
when the schooner tacked, hanging fiendishly on the end of her raking
jib-boom.

Nobody aboard particularly cared.  The _Shark_, if slow, was the
height of comfort, even in a sea-way, with very little angular heel,
and no motion to speak of beyond the steady churning of her bows.  In
the cabin they read, and played bridge, and Bell went into the galley
and made certain horrible messes which were, as usual, sent forward
to the crew, but unfailingly fell overboard _en route_.

Her two sisters had convinced Paula that she was free to marry the
man she loved, whereupon Wood had formally requested her hand of
Captain Bell, who most cordially gave his consent.  This occasion was
made one of general celebration fore and aft.  At dinner, Bell grew
genially mellow and made an excellent speech, after which the two
young people appeared to fade gently from the popular view and find
much service for secluded corners of the vessel.

"At any rate," Bell observed, on the third day of the stubborn blow,
"if we are not gettin' to wind'ard fast, it's comfortin' to know that
the Pilot-fish is doin' even worse.  The chances are he hasn't
tackled it.  A little boat that size couldn't get north a mile a day
in this chop!"

Had the worthy naval man known that at that particular moment Mr.
Applebo was booming up the Delaware River with a fair wind and tide,
bound for the entrance of the Raritan Canal, which would eventually
drop him out at South Amboy, in the Lower Bay at New York, Bell's
disgust might have led to an explosion dangerous to his health.

For the poet, on arriving at Old Point Comfort and learning that the
_Shark_ had sailed for Marblehead, Mass., took a careful survey of
the weather, and decided to "go up inside."  It was apparent that
there was an easterly gale brewing, and the storm signal was already
flying from the station at Old Point.  Applebo knew that, under these
conditions, it would be a waste of time to go to sea, and determined
to outflank his "host" by taking the inland route as far as New York,
then, if the weather was still contrary, to keep on east through the
sounds: Long Island, Block Island, The Vineyard, and Nantucket.  This
route would ensure still water the whole distance from Hampton Roads
to Cape Cod, while the northeastern, then blowing outside, would
enable him to make one "long leg" of it, close-hauled, up the
Chesapeake.

He was therefore nearly to the Raritan Canal before Bell had even
laid Cape May abeam.  Propelled by a four-mule breeze through the
canal, and the ebbing tide in the Raritan River, the _Daffodil_ was
skimming around the end of Staten Island while the _Shark_ was
walloping about off Atlantic City, slatting and slamming in the calm
which followed the blow.

The _Daffodil_ caught a tow up the East River behind a blue-stone
barge, and cast off at Randall's Island to catch the first of the ebb
at Whitestone.  Here, in company with a hundred or more coasting
schooners known as "the ebb-tide fleet," she was favoured by a
roaring nor'wester which boomed her the whole length of the Sound,
from Execution to Fisher's Island.  Holding on eastward through the
sounds, she encountered fog and baffling breezes, in spite of which
she rounded Cape Cod, crossed Massachusetts Bay, and dropped anchor
off the Eastern Yacht Club at Marblehead, some thirty-six hours
before the _Shark_ was sighted.

A fresh southeast breeze brought Bell careening around the Cape and
across the Bay, thereby doing much to eliminate his disgust with the
weather encountered earlier in the run.

"Who wants to bet that we find the Pilot-fish at Marblehead?" he
asked, jocosely.

"I do," replied Hermione.

"Huh?"

"I'll bet you that he's beat us out, in spite of the weather.  Come
now...!"

"You're crazy ... huh ... h'm..."

"Perhaps.  But here's a chance for you to get square for that month's
allowance that you are going to be stung for."

The others laughed, thinking that Hermione was having a little fun at
her father's expense.  As a matter of fact, she was having more than
they realised.  Offshore sailors that they all were, Hermione was the
only one who had thought of the "mud-hole" route, but once having
thought of it, she was certain that Applebo would avail himself of
it.  In this case, it needed but a glance at the charts to show
Hermione, herself a good practical sailor, how tremendous an
advantage it would give him.

"Huh...!" growled Bell.  "I can't take a fool bet like that!  It's
not within the bounds of nautical possibility that a little tub like
that should have overhauled us through that head chop!  Then that
nor'wester was just our meat!  All we could pack under our four
lowers.  What's the matter with you?"

"All right," said Hermione, coolly; "then take me on at odds."

"I'll give you ten to one ... just to teach you a lesson!" snapped
her father.

"Done with you.  Ten dollars to a hundred...."  And Hermione made a
note of the bet, and compelled her father to sign it, he muttering
deep-sea blessings.

Wherefore one may picture the scene which followed when, at about
four of a lovely August afternoon, the _Shark_ came bowling into the
little harbour of Marblehead to find the _Daffodil_ lying serenely at
anchor off the Yacht Club.

For an instant Bell was deprived of speech, through sheer
astonishment, not unmixed with awe.  When they had last sighted the
yawl off Cape Charles, she had still sixty miles to do against a
strong tide before ever she fetched Old Point.  By that time the tide
would have begun to flow again, so that by the time that Applebo had
learned their next port, and taken the water and stores of which he
must have been in need after more than a week at sea, he would have
had another thirty miles of head wind and tide, or a six-hour delay.
Thereafter was to be considered the easterly blow ... the thing was
obviously impossible!

Then, like a flash, came the true solution.  Bell slapped his fat
thigh and let out a roar like a bull cachalot.

"That's it, by the jumpin' John Rogers!  The scoundrel sneaked up
inside!"

"Of course he did!" cried Hermione.  "Why the dickens wouldn't he?
That's the reason I made my bet!"

"Huh ... h'm ... hough...!"  Bell went off like a badly-made
firework.  "And you have the nerve to expect me to pay a bet like
that?  When he tows behind a jackass for miles!  Why not load his
brute of a yawl on a flat-car and be done with it!  I won't pay!"

[Illustration: "And you have the nerve to expect me to pay a bet like
that?"]

"Yes, you will, old boy!" said Hermione.  "We bet on his being here;
not on how he came!"

The others sided with her.  Bell appealed to Wood, counting on
support from a son-in-law elect.

"You are stung," said that young man.  "All that you have got to do
now is to pay up."  Which Bell did, lamenting piteously.

"To-morrow," said he, "I must run into Boston to see the lawyers.
The day after that we make a run for Bermuda ... or St. Paul, or
Tristan d'Acunha ... I don't care where.  But I'll lose that
yaller-crested gillyflower if I have to lead him through the
Northwest Passage!"

* * * * * *

That night Huntington Wood invited his host and hostesses to dine at
the Yacht Club.  The place was very gay, for although the yachting
season was on its wane, the hot weather had held and there were many
yachts lying in the harbour.  It was a lively room, a trifle more
brilliant than select, as yachting contingents are apt to be, but
rich in life and colour and gaiety.

The "Sharks" were scarcely more than seated when Hermione, happening
to glance toward the door, saw Harold Applebo.

"The Pilot-fish!" she whispered.

Applebo was quite alone.  For a moment he stood in the doorway,
sleepily surveying the room.  From here and there people at different
tables caught sight of him, then whispered to their table-companions,
so that in that moment, brief as it was, the poet became the focus of
every pair of eyes in the room.

One might have travelled far and failed to find so striking a figure.
Applebo was in the regulation yachting costume for evening dress, the
only eccentric feature being a somewhat voluminous black silk scarf
of poetic or artistic pattern.  His great mane of reddish-yellow hair
fell in a wavy mass, almost hiding his ears.  His skin was clear as
the water of the Great Dismal Swamp, and tanned to nearly the same
tea-colour, with its golden lights.  Antique ivory would best
describe its tone.  The amber eyes, darkly-fringed, blinked sleepily
from table to table, as though looking for a vacant place.

A peculiar silence had fallen on the room.  Everybody was looking at
Applebo, who, for his part, appeared as drowsily indifferent as a
lion in the Zoo.  He was standing straight as a poplar, yet quite at
ease and with no hint of stiffness or self-consciousness.  As his
slow scrutiny passed the table occupied by Wood and his party, it
paused for a moment.  He smiled and slightly inclined his head, then
crossed the room and took a single table in a far corner.

At Wood's table, which was in the centre of the room, the captain was
at one end, Paula at the other, Hermione facing the door, and Cécile
and Wood directly confronting Applebo.  Bell, as the poet entered,
twisted about and gave him a goggle-eyed stare.

"He's thinner!" announced Bell, with satisfaction; "a thundering
sight thinner!  Good-looking fool, ain't he ... huh?"  He nodded at
the others with the air of one discovering a new and surprising fact.
"If you were to cut his thatch and poke him up a little with a sharp
stick, he might be even handsome ... huh ... h'm..."  He began to
gurgle.

Cécile found it quite impossible to keep her eyes from Applebo.  Try
as she did, they kept straying back.  For his part, the poet was
looking dreamily into space, and when his dinner arrived it appeared
to consist of a succession of melons, which he devoured, one after
the other, with infinite relish.  Cécile estimated that he must have
eaten at least six.

Occasionally he looked her way without appearing to see her.  The
melons were followed by snipe on toast.  A considerable flock flew
down the throat of the poet, in strange contradiction to his views on
the killing of game.

From snipe, Cécile observed that his taste backed around the compass
to fish.  Bluefish were at their prime, and Mr. Applebo took
advantage of the fact to quietly devour the best part of the
amidships section of a big one.  This accomplished he licked his
lips, looked at Cécile, and blinked.

All of this took considerable time, during which Cécile's eyes were
so constantly seeking Applebo that her companions began to notice it.
Nobody said anything, however, until presently Hermione observed:--

"Don't try to hypnotise him 'til he's finished eating, Cécile.  Think
how long the poor fellow must have been on tinned rations."

The others laughed.  Bell glanced at the poet.

"Help!" cried he.  "The chump is eatin' his dinner backward!  He's on
_hors-d'œuvres_ now."

Which was quite true, Mr. Applebo having caught sight of some
anchovies at an adjoining table and conceived a relish for them.

In spite of Hermione's remark, Cécile found herself physically unable
to keep her eye away from him.  He fascinated her.  Looking about the
room she saw that others shared in this peculiar desire to stare at
Applebo, who for his part was as utterly oblivious of those about as
if he had been in the cabin of his yawl.  The man was so strikingly
singular.  Cécile observed that he did not even sit at the table as
did other folk.  His back was arched like a bow, big shoulders
hunched forward, chin thrust up so that the fringe of his long,
shaggy mane swept below his coat collar, while his legs were bent
under his chair, the toes hooked around the chair legs from inside
out.  Though one could certainly find no fault with his appetite, he
picked at his food in a curiously dainty way.  This mannerism also
suggested a cat, which animal, while never appearing to eat, can get
away with a prodigious amount of food.  Occasionally he looked up and
blinked about the room.

There were several attractive men, all yachtsmen, straight-backed,
squarely set, good-looking young chaps, but Cécile scarcely saw one
of them.  As the minutes passed and she continued to watch the poet,
there began to develop within her the same peculiar obsession of
which she had been the prey after her visit to the _Daffodil_.  This
time it was stronger and tinged with a warmer personal interest.  At
Halifax, Old Point Comfort, and again that afternoon, when the mail
had come aboard, she had received an offering of verse.  The Halifax
poem, which had been mailed from Shoal Harbour, had impressed her
deeply, less in its execution than in the thought conveyed, which was
of an intensity that thrilled her.  The realisation of the long
sea-miles which the little yawl had covered, the long sea-watches
which the man opposite must have spent, the fog, wind, rain, and
calms ... all of the details of an offshore voyage in a little
shallop like the _Daffodil_ ... merely to be near the object of his
adoration, herself.  There was a mediæval romanticism about this
steadfast devotion which took powerful hold of the sentimental side
of Cécile's nature.

Before the dinner was half over Applebo's attraction for her had
reached a point where it appeared to monopolise her whole
consciousness.  She lost interest in her food; her conversation
diminished, and what she said was abstracted.  She was trying to get
sufficient possession of herself to request Wood, in a casual way, to
bring the poet over to their table, but was almost afraid of
betraying the state of her emotions.  These were such as most girls
experience during their first season.  She longed to hear the deep,
resonant, purring voice, but felt that if he spoke to her she would
make herself ridiculous.

Hermione, facing her, observed enough of this suppressed agitation to
arouse her to an ironic amusement.

"Look at Cécile!" said she.  "I warned her not to try to hypnotise
the Pilot-fish.  Now he has hypnotised her!"

Had Hermione known the actual state of her sister's feelings she
would never, of course, have thus cruelly directed the general
attention upon her.  Instead, however, she ascribed Cécile's
schoolgirl manner to curiosity and the mistaken idea that she was the
object of the Pilot-fish's assiduity.  Consequently she was a little
startled at the sudden flame in her sister's cheeks and the
resentment in her eyes when the others began to laugh.

Cécile, for the moment, lost her poise.

"It's all very well to laugh," said she, vexedly, "but if you had
been bombarded by verse as _I_ have by our friend yonder, you might
exhibit a certain amount of curiosity also!"

Hermione's eyes opened very wide.  She instantly understood the
situation.  Applebo, then, had been sending verses addressed to "Miss
Cécile Bell," intended for herself, Hermione, and most naturally
appropriated by her sister.  She was filled by a sudden gust of anger.

Captain Bell, however, was staring at Cécile.

"What's that?" he demanded.  "Been sending you verses...?  Why,
confound his impudence, how long has he been doing that?  I never
heard of such cheek ... and I'll go aboard his boat and tell him
so...."

"Oh, hush...!"  As usual, the good captain had raised his voice to
its quarter-deck pitch.  "There was no harm in his doing so.  The
verses are quite innocent, and some are rather pretty.  It's merely
his pose...."

Bell began to eat and grumble.  Wood laughed and glanced at Paula.
Hermione, hot with irritation, lost her interest in the entrée.  She
wanted the verses which she knew had been meant for her, and in her
mind she anathematised the Pilot-fish for his fatuous blunder, Cécile
for her self-complacency, and herself for being so silly as to let
the man persist in his error as to her identity.

"You might let the rest of us see 'em," grumbled Bell.  "Hereafter,
tack 'em up on the mainmast.  Don't know, however, that I approve of
my daughter receivin' verses from a long-haired yellow tom-cat...."

"Nonsense!" said Cécile, sharply, and wishing that she had not spoken.

Bell subsided, glared, and savagely crunched the leg of a sorarail.
His eyes passed to Hermione.

"Bless my soul!" he cried.  "I believe Hermione's jealous!  Look at
the jade!"

Hermione was jealous, and her vivid cheeks and sapphire eyes showed
it.  But more than being jealous was she irritated and disgusted as
well at the whole absurd situation.  She determined to abolish the
poet as a pilot-fish, and that before she was twelve hours older.

Matters were in this nervous state when Applebo, having made his
dessert of a plate of soup, arose suddenly and made his graceful and
light-footed way toward the door.  For a man of his size and weight
he moved like a dancer.  As he passed Wood's party he bowed, with a
quick, flashing smile.  Bell, who was gobbling a _filet au cœur
d'artichaut_, looked after him with a sort of resentful admiration.
Being short and fat and red, and formerly black-haired, he found much
to admire in the physical appearance of Applebo.

"Not a bad-looking chap," said he, grudgingly.  "Looks rather as I
should think Heldstrom might have looked when he was a youngster."

Hermione looked startled.  She had never thought of it before, but
what her father's keen eyes had discovered was quite true.  There was
a great deal about Applebo that suggested Heldstrom, and the voices
of the two men were identical, barring the huskiness which many years
of full-throated commands had put into the tones of Heldstrom.

"Have you decided on your next jump?" asked Wood, of Bell.

Bell glanced around the table.  "What do you all say to Bermuda?" he
asked.  "It ain't the season, of course, but it would be rather good
fun to see if he tackles it."

"Bad time of year," said Hermione.  "There's always a West Indian
hurricane in August or September."

"Can't feaze us," said Bell.

"It might feaze the Pilot-fish," said Paula.  "Suppose anything were
to happen him."

"There won't.  He knows his business.  There's a lot more danger on
the coast than offshore, anyway.  If he follows us there I'll own
myself outclassed.  What d'ye say?"

"Bermuda!" answered Cécile, leaning forward on the table, her eyes
very bright.  Bell looked at Hermione.

"Bermuda!" said she, with a peculiar little smile.

"Paula ... oh, Paula doesn't count.  She's too much in love.
Bermuda, Buenos Ayres, Hoboken ... they all look alike to her.  Wood?"

"Bermuda.  I know of lots of things more to worry about than Harold."

"Bermuda it is, then!"  Bell raised his glass of champagne.

"Here she goes south!  The _Shark_ and the _Daffodil_.  Bottoms..."

"Down!" cried the laughing chorus.




CHAPTER XII

Back aboard the _Shark_, Paula and Huntington did what Hermione
called their "wonderful disappearing act."  Bell had lingered in the
club to play poker, at which he was very good, and to drink
whiskey-and-soda, of which he stood in no need.  Cécile retired, and
Hermione went into the saloon, where she sat at a gravity
writing-table, and after destroying some dozen or more sheets of
expensive note-paper, with the _Shark's_ insignia, she gave up her
task in disgust and went to her room.  Not being in the least sleepy,
she curled up in a heap of cushions and tried to interest herself in
a French play, but meeting with no success, she flung aside the
pamphlet, one of the _Illustration_ supplements, and gave herself up
to the topic which so occupied her mind.  Needless to say, this was
Mr. Applebo.

Unlike Cécile's meditations, which were apt to be self-indulgent,
pleasant, and profitless, those of Hermione were swift, ruthless, and
followed by prompt and decisive action.  Half an hour of concentrated
thought and she had extracted from her reflections three opinions and
a resolve.

Of these opinions, the first was that Applebo was in love with nobody
but himself and his Muse, that he found the situation piquant and
amusing, and was having just as much fun out of it as were the
"Sharks," which was saying a good deal.

The second opinion was that she, Hermione, had been very violently
and dangerously attracted by the peculiar personality of Mr. Applebo,
but that she had thoroughly overcome it (_sic_).

The third opinion was that Cécile was also violently and dangerously
attracted by the peculiar personality of Mr. Applebo, and was very
far from being over it.

And the resolve was that she would write to Mr. Applebo to say that
they had had enough of him, and would he kindly clear out!

Action always followed hot on the heels of Hermione's resolutions.
She was a mature-minded girl, and found no difficulty in
crystallising her thought into words.  This was, no doubt, because
her thought was a saturated solution and not the dilute,
strained-out, indecisive brain-mush of so many of us.  Hermione
whipped up her writing-pad and indited swiftly the following:--


DEAR MR. APPLEBO:--Permit me to compliment you upon the able way in
which you have demonstrated your admirable seamanship.  It must be,
and no doubt is, a source of great satisfaction to you to prove to us
your capacities.

("That will cheer him up, if he has one grain of modesty!" thought
Hermione.)

I must tell you, however, that, in the opinion of some of us aboard
the _Shark_, the game has now gone quite far enough.  We acknowledge
your ability to cope with our vessel in soundings or out of them.

My father is planning to sail for Bermuda in two days, and I must
request that you do not follow us.  Your somewhat peculiar constancy
is beginning to excite a little comment outside our immediate circle,
and I think it better in many ways that it should be discontinued.

My father is inclined to resent your sending of verses to my sister
Cécile, and perhaps it would be better to discontinue this attention
also.

  Sincerely yours,
      HERMIONE CHESTER BELL.


Thought Hermione, having completed this hasty epistle, "There!
Something tells me that he will read this, and curl up his
six-feet-two in a manner to arouse the envy of a chestnut-worm!"

This heartless epistle achieved, Hermione decided for bed, but after
undressing and snapping off her light, for the _Shark_ had a dynamo,
she found herself still wakeful.  Wherefore, she re-illuminated, and
attacked the French play with greater interest, other preoccupations
being disposed of.  This play was one which, had her mother been
alive, Hermione would never have been permitted to read.  But the
maternal vigilance of a Norwegian sailorman can hardly be expected to
ransack the lockers of nineteen-year-old young ladies, wherefore
Hermione was perusing a somewhat tarnished story, with her red lip
contemptuously curled, when the little ship's clock in the saloon
rang sharply four bells.

Hermione shoved the play through her port-hole and was about to try
for sleep again when she heard a rustling outside her door.

"Hermione..." said a low voice, which she recognised as Cécile's.

"Yes?"

The door opened and Cécile came in.  Hermione, glancing with surprise
at her sister, was startled at Cécile's pale and tragic beauty.  Her
shimmering hair was drawn severely back from her broad, low forehead,
and hung in two heavy braids well below her waist.  Her grey eyes,
with their dark, encircling lashes, were like stars, but ringed about
in a way that alarmed Hermione.  Cécile wore her white, embroidered
kimono, which hung straight from her shoulders like the sacrificial
robe of a Druidess.  There was a bright red spot in either cheek, and
her bosom was rising and falling rapidly.  Cécile reminded Hermione
of Goethe's "Bride of Corinth" ... that is, in appearance.

"Cécile!" she cried.  "What is the matter?  Are you ill?"

The colour flooded the face of Cécile.

"I am off my head, I think!" she answered.  "I can't sleep; I can't
think!  I don't seem to belong to myself!"

"Cécile...!"  Hermione crossed the room and dropped on the transome
beside her sister, who had sunk down amongst the cushions.  "What is
it, dear?"

Cécile caught her breath and choked back a sob.  Tenderness in
Hermione touched her, where in Paula she would have thought nothing
of it.  She pressed her hands over her eyes, then dropped both arms,
and looked intently at her sister.

"Hermione," she said, "are you in love with Harold Applebo?"

Hermione turned to her a very startled face.

"No!" she answered, emphatically.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I am!  I never met him but once in my life!"

"Nor I," answered Cécile, and sprang to her feet, "but I am madly,
insanely, desperately in love with him!  It's silly, I know!  It's
unreasonable, and unmaidenly ... anything you like.  But I can't
think of anything but this man!  What _is_ it, Hermione?  Am I crazy?"

She turned to her sister with a half-sob.  Hermione saw that Cécile's
hands were clenched so tightly as to drive the finger-nails into the
delicate skin.  Her face was colourless, except for two crimson spots
on either cheek and the red line of her lips.

Hermione was not only startled, but tremendously surprised.  She had
always thought rather contemptuously of Cécile's possible capacity
for deep feeling, and rather pityingly of Paula's, ultimately
concluding that she, Hermione, was blessed, or cursed, with all that
there was in the family!

"But, my dear," cried Hermione, "you never spoke to him but once!"

"I know it," replied Cécile, wearily.  "I'm a crazy fool!  It's quite
shameless of me, is it not?"  She gave a bitter little laugh.  "The
man has put a spell on me!  I can't close my eyes without seeing that
yellow mane and those sleepy amber eyes ... and they are not so
sleepy, either, when you look closely!  It's a possession!  What am I
to do?  And the worst of it is, I know that he has some sort of a
tender sentiment for me.  Oh, why doesn't he come over here and say
so, instead of keeping me on pins and needles with his everlasting
verses?"

Hermione looked thoughtfully at her sister.  For an instant she was
on the point of telling Cécile bluntly that the verses were actually
intended for herself.  But she was quite aware of her sister's
unconscious vanity, and felt that to do so would arouse her undying
resentment.  So she merely asked:--

"Do you really care for him?  Or is it only a sort of infatuation?"

"So far, I don't see how it can be more than infatuation," replied
Cécile, frankly; "but I think that I might easily care ... and care a
great deal, when I came to know him.  You can scarcely be said to be
in love with a person you don't know.  As it is, I sometimes feel as
if I hated him!  It is not even an infatuation.  I am fascinated, I
suppose ... as you sometimes see a bird fascinated by a cat.  There
is something about his lazy, indifferent, cat-like look and manner
that makes me feel at times like whacking him!"  She laughed,
nervously.

Hermione wrinkled her forehead and contemplated her sister in deep
thought.  Cécile watched her in that confident anxiety with which a
patient might regard a very young but intelligent physician who has
just been put in possession of a history of the case.  In force of
character and what is commonly called "strength," Hermione was easily
the senior of the three sisters, for all of her trifling nineteen
years of inexperience.  Besides her natural intelligence, Hermione
had a good deal of theoretic knowledge of the world, its men and
women, and the psychology of love, from the reading of books written
by folk who should have understood their subject, and had frequently
obtained this knowledge at a considerable price.  Wherefore, after a
few moments of thought, she observed, with all of the aplomb of forty
years:--

"When a girl feels as you do toward a man with whom she is not really
in love, it is time that he was told to clear out.  Once removed from
your life, you would very quickly get over it."

Cécile looked dissatisfied.

"But I am not at all sure that I want him out of my life," she said.
"I would rather prefer that he came into it.  The trouble is, he does
neither the one thing nor the other."

"Have you a clear idea of what you _do_ want?" asked Hermione.

"No."

"I have.  What you would like would be to keep him dangling about, to
be ultimately reduced to the same pulpy substance into which you have
converted so many others.  It can't be done.  He's a different breed
of cat."

Cécile shivered.  "Uncle Chris told me one day that this would happen
to me."  She sighed.  "What shall I do, Hermione?"

"Nothing," said Hermione.  "Leave it to me."

"To you!"

"Yes.  I will settle the matter."  Hermione's pretty mouth assumed
the austerity of a school-marm's.

"What will you do?"

"I will request his resignation."

"Do you think that he will obey?"

"Of course.  He is a gentleman, and he has assured us right along
that whenever we got tired of him we had only to say the word.  I
will say it."

Cécile looked at her sister doubtfully.  Hermione, returning the
glance, observed that Cécile's eyelids were heavy.  It was evident
that she was feeling the reaction of her outburst and would now
sleep.  The recital of her woes had relieved the pressure within.
But she was not entirely content with Hermione's solution.

"Do you think that he is in love with me, Hermione?" she asked, with
an odd shyness.

"No.  He is in love with nobody but himself.  This thing amuses him.
He is a natural-born seafarer with a soft streak in him, and nothing
pleases him more than to sail around and lead a hard life and write
mushy verse.  He sent me fathoms of the same sort of harmless slush
before transferring his delicate attentions to you.  I chucked them
back at him.  Now go to bed."

Cécile arose, wearily.

"I knew that he had sent you verses," she said, "but I thought that
maybe he had got our names mixed up."

The irony of this almost extorted a true statement of the case from
Hermione.  But she saw that Cécile had plainly had enough emotion for
one séance.

"Go to bed, dear," said she.  "It's nearly five bells.  Papa must be
making a night of it.  You will sleep now, I am sure."

Cécile kissed her, then drifted, like a very lovely and dishevelled
ghost, out into the dim-lit corridor.

A few hours later, when Hermione went on deck for her morning row,
the fog was so dense that it gave her an impression of being under
water, and very soapy water at that.  Heldstrom, who never appeared
to sleep, greeted her with a shake of the head.

"Not this morning, yoong lady," said he.  "Go back to bed."

"Oh, please..." begged Hermione.  "I love to row around in the fog."

Heldstrom assumed an expression of severity.

"Und I love not to haf you!" said he.  "Vat if you r'row str'raight
out to sea, and keep on Growing?  Vat vould your fadder say to me for
losing der skiff?"

Hermione laughed.  "You are not very flattering to yourself as a
teacher, Uncle Chris," said she.  "If I were to do a landlubber trick
like that, I'd deserve to get lost!  What do you take me for, a
Sunday picknicker?  Give me a dory-compass."

Heldstrom was evidently shaken.  He took tremendous pride in
Hermione's nautical abilities.

"You are forever saying that I'm a better sailor than anybody
aboard," said Hermione.  "Now prove it.  You have sent the dinghy
ashore...."  She glanced at the boat-boom.

Heldstrom grinned.  "That proves nodding.  If a square-head gets lost
who gifs a hang?  Dere are plenty more.  Und dinghys, too.  But dere
iss only von Hermione in all der vorld."

Hermione saw that the old sailor was weakening fast.  She slipped to
his side, threw one arm over his shoulder, and raising herself on
tiptoes, dropped a light kiss on the weather-beaten cheek.

"Please, Uncle Chris," she whispered, "or I'll think that all you say
about my seamanship is just a bluff!"

Christian Heldstrom threw up his great arms like a drowning man.

"By Jingo!" growled he, "vat's der use?  Take your boat.  Take all
der boats...."  He turned to the grinning and delighted
quartermaster.  "Miss Hermione's skiff!" said he, gruffly.

He himself placed the dory-compass in the sternsheets.

"Der landing bears sout'east by sout'," said Heldstrom.  "So we bear
from der landing ... what?"

"Nor'east by nothe..." said Hermione, with a laugh.  "Would you like
to hear me say my letters?"

"You try to sass me?  Ven you hear _dong ... dong ... dong ... dong_
... steady like dis on der ship's bell, that iss we."

"And when you hear _bang!_ and a square-foot of paint off the ship's
side," laughed Hermione, "that am I...!"

"Off wit' you...!" growled Heldstrom, and made a feint to dash at
her.  Hermione's light oars took the water, and her laugh came back,
merry though muffled, as she slipped like a wraith into the fog.
There was really no danger, as traffic was at a standstill and one
could tell by the swell when opposite an entrance leading out to sea.

Hermione was wearing a green flannel shirtwaist and her green plaid
homespun skirt.  Hunting-green and deep shades of crimson were
Hermione's colours, just as the yellow tones belonged to Applebo.
This morning her colour-scheme extended even to her tam, while the
reflection of the drab-grey water in her violet eyes did its best to
carry out the prevailing tone.  The only alien note was the crimson
ribbon, wound like a fillet about her black hair, which she wore
twisted around her pretty head, as tightly as she could draw it.

So dense was the fog that Hermione rowed slowly, fearful of bumping
some of the many craft at anchor.  From time to time she glanced at
her compass, and occasionally she twisted about on the thwart and
tried to pierce the opacity which appeared to hang like a soft,
fleecy blanket directly before the bow of her skiff.  Once she heard
the chug-chug of a motor-boat, apparently approaching, but at her
musical hail it sheered off and she heard voices talking loudly,
against the din of the engine.

"If I don't look out," thought Hermione, "I will run slap into the
_Daffodil_.  She is hung up squarely in my course to the landing."

At the thought of this possibility it occurred to Hermione that, were
she to run onto the yawl, she might leave her note in person, with
perhaps a few supplementary words.  This practical idea, while not
particularly discreet, gave her a decided thrill.  The heavy fog
would prevent her call from being observed, and in any case she would
conduct the interview from her skiff.

Wherefore, when Hermione estimated that she must be very close aboard
the yawl, she rested on her oars and tried to stare into the
enveloping fog.  There was not a breath of air, and the moisture was
not chill, but warm and humid like steam.  It was so thick as to be
almost palpable, following any motion in swirls, and making one's
breathing slightly laborious.  The little harbour was full of yachts,
and from all sides there came to the girl's ears the muffled and
random sounds of the floating community; a snatch of song, the creak
and whine of blocks, the splash of a packing-box most slovenly thrown
overboard, a laugh, the chunk-a-chunk of oars, and the hail of a
voice calling out to locate the vessel sought.  Hermione felt herself
to be in a mystic, sightless, and elusive world.

She altered her course slightly, and took a dozen strokes, then
rested again.  She was looking and listening when suddenly, out of
the fog and spoken almost in her ear, there came a resonant bass,
which announced to any who might wish to hear:--

  "_Her eyes are blue as the violet's hue,
  Her voice is a carol of bliss,
  Her teeth are pearls from the deep-sea worlds,
  Her mouth is the throne of a kiss._


"To take her hand is to ... to ... to ..." (sudden changing of the
recitative tone) "to ... oh, dammit ... what is it to take her hand?
Hanged if I haven't forgot ... hand, sand, fanned, land ... damned
... oh, poison!  What is it to take her hand...?"

"Fresh, cheeky, presumptuous, and undesired...!" supplied Hermione,
invisible in the fog.  "You might take her painter, though, if you
don't mind interrupting the lecture in anatomy!"

She heard a gasp and the sound of something which evidently dropped
upon the deck, then bounced overboard, for there was a tiny splash.

"Oh, wap!" complained the resonant voice.  "There goes my
fountain-pen...."  The tone changed to one of invocation.  "Cécile,
is it thou or thy spirit out there in the mist?"

"Neither!" snapped Hermione.  "Look out ...!"

The high freeboard of the yawl rose suddenly before her bow; she held
water with one oar, and the skiff came rubbing gently alongside.
There was the scuffle of feet above her, and Hermione glanced up to
see a figure in flannels and sweater, looming titanesque through the
white fog.

"Cécile...!" said the rich voice.

"Take the painter," replied Hermione.  "No, I'm not going aboard.  It
would be stretching my elastic conventionality too far to visit a
young man aboard his boat at seven-thirty of a foggy morning.  I have
a note for you and a few words to add to it."

Applebo caught a turn with the painter and dropped into a primitive
crouching position on the yawl's deck.  Hermione observed that his
face had assumed its sleepy look, while the voice took on the lazy
drawl which she so well remembered.  His eyes, which looked yellower
than ever in the colourless fog, blinked at Hermione almost with
appreciation.  Their swift scrutiny passed from her green tam to her
costume of the same colour, vivid against the white mist.

"You look like an emerald packed in cotton," he observed.

"Always a poet.  Am I all green?"

"No; you are set with rubies, coral, and a pair of rare sapphires.
To fancy your being poetic also!  You seem to be such a practical
maid.  I don't know whether I am glad or sorry."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your verses, of course.  I wear them here."  He laid his hand over
his heart.  "Just at this moment, however, they are below.
Unfortunately, a sweater has no pockets.  I was deeply touched,
Cécile, and have already mailed you the answer.  But, if you do not
mind, I might point out certain technical errors ..."

"What are you driving at, anyway?" Hermione demanded.

"Don't be piqued.  Art should come before personal vanity.  There are
a few errors ... of a trifling sort.  That is nothing.  I make them
myself.  But there are also one or two ... eh ... banalities...."

"Banalities...!"

"Let me point them out.  I am sure that you will agree with me...."

Applebo plunged into his companionway, leaving Hermione completely
mystified.  A moment later he emerged, holding a piece of note-paper
which Hermione was quick to recognise as the _Shark's_.  To her
amazement and disgust, she saw that this was covered by Cécile's
stylish penmanship.

"I will read it through," said Applebo, "and then point out to you
what I mean."

In his deep, sonorous voice he proceeded to read as follows:--


  TO A PILOT-FISH

  _The billows flee from the shriek of the wind
  And the scud from the lash of the gale,
  But the "Shark" swims away and naught behind
  But one poor little tossing sail.
      Tell me, surges, ere you go,
      Should a Pilot-fish be treated so?_

  _The sky-line darkens as night draws near,
  From the sea strikes the East Wind's chill,
  For the sturdy "Shark" there is naught to fear,
  But how for the "Daffodil"?
      Tell me, moon, from your heights above,
      Sails the "Daffodil" to the Port of Love?_

  _Is it for Love that my viking roves,
  Or doth he despise the shore?
  Shall we meet in the Port of Missing Loves,
  Or shall we meet no more?
      Tell me, breezes, ere you part,
      Can true love warm a fish's heart?_


"Do you mean to tell me," cried Hermione, "that Cécile actually wrote
and sent you that slush?"

"Eh ... what...?"  Applebo appeared startled out of his habitual
repose.  His yellow eyes opened very wide.  "What do you mean?
Cécile?"

"Oh!" cried Hermione.  "You make me sick!  Both of you!  If possible
you make me the sicker ... because you began the whole silly
business!  In the first place, if you must pose as an enamoured
swain, and bombard innocent folk with sickening slop, why don't you
take the trouble to recognise your inamorata when you see her?  I am
not Cécile.  I never was Cécile.  Cécile is my sister ... the one who
went with papa to thank you for helping me.  I am Hermione!"

Applebo stared and his lean jaw dropped.  He sank into a sort of heap
upon the dripping deck.  Mouth and eyes were generously open, and he
stared at the angry beauty in the boat with an expression of such
utter imbecility that Hermione lost her temper.  She wished that
Cécile could have seen him.

"You look like a fool!" she snapped.

Applebo gulped and shut his mouth.

"I have the perfect right!" he answered, sepulchrally.  "But why
didn't you tell me?"

Hermione's chin went into the air.  "I suppose that when you told me
in your naïve way that you were in love with Hermione, I should have
put my finger in my mouth, dropped my shy head, plucked bashfully at
the hem of my high-water bathing skirt, and murmured, 'I am it!'"

Applebo groaned as one in pain.

"Do you mind if I say what I think of myself?" he asked.

"Not in the least.  I might even help."

"I am a blithering ass, idiot, fool, dolt, imbecile, chump, ninny
lump, and I ought to put my head in a bag and jump overboard.  A
hydrocephalic child cutting out paper-dolls on the floor of an asylum
is a font of intelligence compared to me."

"You are letting yourself off easily," observed Hermione.

"I shall die of this.  And so your sister must have been receiving
the verses intended for you!"

"Every mail adds to her vocabulary of soul-talk," replied Hermione.

Applebo looked very ill.  All of the feline drowsiness had been swept
from his face, leaving it of an actually human intelligence.

"I shall never write another poem!" said he, with solemnity.

"When you talk like that," said Hermione, "you make me believe that
there is still hope for you.  But there is still more that you must
do.  That is why I am here."

"What must I do?" asked Applebo, hopefully.  "I promise to do it."

"Stop following us about."

The face of the poet fell.  For a moment he regarded Hermione in
gloomy silence.

"As bad as that?" he asked.  "Very well.  I have promised.  I will
start for New York as soon as the weather clears, lay up the
_Daffodil_, and go into outlawry.  Perhaps later, when I have done my
penance, you may graciously permit me to meet your charming family in
the conventional way."  He looked at her eagerly.

Hermione dropped her eyes.  "I will consider it," she answered.

"Are you offended with me?" asked Applebo.

"Not offended exactly," said Hermione, looking at him frankly.  "But
you have made an awful lot of trouble.  Poor Cécile thinks that you
are madly in love with her.  Of course, she does not return the
sentiment, but it has worked on her romantic sensibilities apparently
to the point of inspiring the stuff that you just read.  When she
finds out that your delicate attentions were intended all of the time
for my humble self, I'm sure I don't know what will happen."

Applebo stared at her wildly.

"Good Heavens!" he gasped.  "Then she must never know!  Oh, what an
awful mess!"

Hermione, watching him with more intentness than her supercilious
expression betrayed, saw an entirely new and unknown Applebo.  All of
the indolent pose was swept away in the rush of sincere and honest
regret for what had occurred.  The poet, thus revealed in his true
nature, became a very normal and penitent young man.  Hermione was
conscious of a sudden rush of liking for him, he was so sincerely
sorry.

"What shall I do?" he asked.  "Simply clear out?  That's the hardest
of all.  Perhaps if I were to go over and meet your sister and let
her see what an ordinary, every-day sort of ass I am, it might do
some good.  I'll do whatever you tell me to."

Hermione gave him a pitying smile.

"You need not feel so tragic about it," said she.  "Cécile does not
really care, of course..."  She watched him narrowly.  Applebo's face
expressed relief.

"Of course she doesn't," he replied.  "I can see just how it is; she
was rather taken by the romantic idea of my rotting around in the
wet, just to be near.  Her verses show it.  Or maybe she was just
trying to get a rise out of me," he added, most unpoetically.

"No," said Hermione, "she was a little touched.  It will do her no
harm, and might even do her some good.  She has been a bit of a
flirt, I'm afraid.  You really haven't done anything so terrible...."
Hermione found herself getting a little bored with the subject of
Cécile.

Said Applebo: "I would rather set fire to my tub, and sail her
straight to sea ... as my forbears used to do, than give unhappiness
to any living soul.  That is the beginning and end of my religion ...
at least of the negative side of it.  To think that I should have
given you this trouble!  If you will accept her as a gift, I will
present you with the _Daffodil_ here and now, and shoulder my kit,
and clear out on foot.  I have never been so sorry."

Hermione was, for the instant, tempted to close with this extravagant
offer, just to see what would happen.  But a glance at Applebo's face
told her.  He was undeniably in earnest.  Hermione began to feel
sorry for him.

"It is not as bad as that," said she.  "Once you are gone, Cécile
will soon forget about you.  Next time you play at knight-errant,
take my advice and identify your damsels.  Now I must go.  Good-bye."

Applebo gave her a hopeless look.  "Good-bye," he answered, in a dull
voice, and threw off the turns of the painter.  Hermione handled her
oars.  For some reason she felt a disinclination to pull off into the
fog, leaving him there, unhappy, alone, forsaken.  It seemed so
dreary an end to their peculiar association.  She thought of the many
weeks that the little yawl had so bravely and blithely followed them
through rain and gale and fog and calm.

Her skiff drifted clear of the yawl's side.  Hermione looked back at
Applebo.  He was sitting disconsolately on the sodden deck, back
bent, shoulders hunched, his hands clasped in front of his knees.

"Good-bye," repeated Hermione, more gently.

"Good-bye," said Applebo, in a sepulchral tone, and without moving.

Hermione thought that he might at least have got on his feet.  She
dipped her oars for a lusty stroke, then did not take it.  It seemed
quite impossible to leave him there in that state of dejection.  If
he had been sleepily and blinkingly inscrutable in his habitual way,
Hermione would not have cared.  But the feline pose had been
ruthlessly torn away, leaving only the direct, childish nature
underneath.  There was plenty of the maternal in Hermione, and
Applebo, at that moment, seemed to her a big, unhappy little boy.

"I wonder if I can find my way back to the _Shark_..." she said,
uncertainly.

"I'll send the Finn with you if you will wait a few minutes.  He has
gone ashore to mail a poem to Cécile."

Hermione bit her lip.  Applebo slightly roused himself and reached
for the blade of the oar which she extended to him.

"Before I go," said Hermione, "would you mind telling me your real
reason for following us about?  I am not such a fool as to think that
it was because of a sentimental attraction to one of us girls" ...
she laughed ... "when you did not so much as know us apart.  Was
there any other reason?"

Applebo's eyes narrowed.  He gave her an intent look.

"Why do you ask?  Curiosity?"

"No.  Interest."

"That is better.  Well, then, I will tell you.  I am only too glad to
be able to tell you and to ask your advice.  But if you are really
enough interested to care to hear all about it, you are in for the
story of my life."

"I want to hear it," said Hermione, "but I haven't a great deal of
time.  When we hear the _Shark's_ bell, I will have to go."

"Then I'll make it short," said Applebo.  "Do you remember my telling
you that day at Shoal Harbour that my mother was a cousin to the King
of Sweden?  She married a Norwegian boat-builder; a good enough man,
of a very respectable family.  Her family made an awful row about it,
and tried to have the marriage annulled, for she was almost royalty.
The two left Norway and went to America.  They were not happy, and
shortly after I was born they separated.  My mother would not return
to Norway, but lived in Brooklyn, supported by a small annuity she
had from a brother.  My father enlisted in the United States Navy."

Hermione, listening, absorbed in this tale, let her eyes rest on the
face of the narrator.  She wondered that she had ever thought it
feline and baffling.

"When I was ten years old," said Applebo, "my mother died.  An uncle
of hers, named Applebo, who had come to America years before, made me
his heir.  He was an old man and died not long ago.  I was sent to
school, and afterwards to college.  In the vacations I always went to
sea, usually on sailing ships.  It was on a ship that I met a man,
the captain, who had known my father and who told me all about the
affair, not knowing who I was.  He told me that my father had left
the Navy and was the sailing-master of a yacht, and that the yacht
was the _Shark_."

Hermione's oars dropped from her hands.  She gripped the gunnel of
her skiff.

"Uncle Chris Heldstrom?" she gasped.

Applebo nodded.  "There seems to be no doubt that he is my father,"
he said, "although he too has taken a different name.  There goes
your oar...."  He sprang to his feet, whipped a boat-hook from its
slings, and rescued the oar.

Hermione watched him dumbly, but her thoughts were revolving fast.
She had often suspected some romance in the life of Heldstrom, from
slight things let fall now and then.  Like a flash there occurred to
her mind Heldstrom's remarks after seeing Applebo the day they had
undertaken to swim out to the schooner.  "An echo..." Heldstrom had
said, of the young man.  Again, it was only the night before that
Captain Bell had commented on a certain resemblance between Heldstrom
and Applebo, and this Hermione had been quick to appreciate.

Her heart beat furiously and she felt the blood rushing into her
cheeks.  Applebo was rather pale.  He had secured the oar and
returned it to her.

"But why have you not declared yourself?" cried Hermione.

"Stop to think.  The situation is extremely delicate.  To begin with,
he left my mother before I was born.  I believe that their separation
was conditional to her receiving this annuity, and they were very
poor.  I am rather a sensitive person and I find it embarrassing to
go up to a strange, stern-looking man and inform him that he is my
father."

Hermione gave a nervous, excited laugh.

"He might not care to admit the relationship," said Applebo, "and
then think what a fool I would feel!  And yet, I am certainly drawn
to him.  I have been following the _Shark_ for no other reason ... up
to some time ago.  Heldstrom seldom goes ashore, so I have not seen
him many times.  It seemed better not to act hastily.  For all I
know, he might be the very last person whom I would care to claim as
a parent.  I have been horribly perplexed."

"Then you needn't be!" cried Hermione.  "Let me tell you that
Christian Heldstrom is as splendid a man as ever lived.  I don't know
anything about his early life, but I know this much, that no kinder,
braver, truer-hearted sailor ever walked a deck!  And he is no common
man!  He is a gentleman!  I don't know what your mother may have been
like, but I hope, for your sake, that you inherit your father's
traits!"

Applebo stared at her with shining eyes.

"You make me happier than I can say!" he cried.  "But I have not
worried about that aspect of the case.  The question is, would he
care to acknowledge me?"

"Anybody might be glad to acknowledge you if you would chuck your
silly, mocking pose!" retorted Hermione.  "Why do you not stand out
in your true nature instead of blinking at people like a cat?"

Applebo smiled.  "A sort of shield," said he.  "It puzzles people,
who might otherwise consider me an ass."

"Not always.  But the question is, what are you going to do?"

"That is exactly what I have been trying to decide for the last three
months.  What would you advise?"

Hermione hesitated.  Applebo watched her, with an expression which
the casual observer would not have ascribed entirely to his interest
in an unknown parent.  Hermione, in that moment, was very lovely.
The romantic excitement of the situation had brought her warm soul
into her face, which was radiant in the colourless light.

About them swirled the fog, thicker than before.  It beaded
Hermione's dark eyebrows and softened her brilliant cheeks.  She was
thinking deeply, when out of the mist came the distant _dong ... dong
... dong_ ... of a ship's bell, patient and monotonous, muffled and
lifeless of note, yet with an insistence, partly anxious, partly
peremptory.

Hermione looked at Applebo and smiled.

"What a situation!" said she.  "Yonder is your father ... striking
the bell to guide me home!"




CHAPTER XIII

Applebo looked at her and nodded.

"My _father!_" he said.

His hand was lying on the yawl's low rail.  Hermione reached up and
touched it with her own.  It was a quick, impulsive little gesture,
friendly and sympathetic.

"Would you like to have me tell him?" she asked.  "Because if so, I
will."

Applebo's strong hand turned, caught hers in his firm grip, and
carried it to his lips.

"That would be the act of a real friend!" he cried.  "Will you?"

"Of course I will.  In fact, I think that Uncle Chris would rather
learn it from me than from anybody in the world."

"I'm sure he would!  Tell him then, Hermione."

"When?"

"Choose the time as seems best to you.  I will go away as soon as the
weather clears.  Write me to the New York Yacht Club.  And you are
sure that it's not asking too much?"

"No.  You see, it is for Uncle Chris as much as for you.  More,
perhaps, for he is getting on in years and must feel his lack of the
ties of blood.  Now I must go.  Hear that patient bell!  It reminds
me of Uncle Chris ... steady and constant and so dependable!"

She glanced up at him with her vivid smile.  Applebo's face was
transfigured ... as Hermione thought, at the prospect of finding a
father.  It is more probable that his radiant expression was at
finding something else.  At any rate, all of the sleepy, baffling
expression was absent; might never have been there.  The amber eyes
were wide and alert; clear, steady, looking into hers with a rich
golden light in their depths which set Hermione's pulse a-tingle.  In
fact, Hermione was unconsciously aware of some peculiar rich, warm
glow all about the poet, and, like a brilliant green moth, she found
great difficulty in leaving it for the chill, surrounding gloom.  But
the patient bell was calling steadily, so she said, with regret:

"I should like to talk with you some more about all of this, but I
don't want to worry ... your father."  She smiled; then, a sudden
idea striking her, she added:

"Why not get in my skiff and I will row past the schooner and sing
out to say that I am all right, but not quite ready to go aboard.
Then we can have a few minutes more ... to discuss the matter."

"Very well," said Applebo, and stepped down into the skiff, placing
the dory-compass under the sternsheets.

"We don't need that," said he.

"How about finding the yawl again?"

"We can find her.  That is one of my few natural gifts."

Hermione picked up her oars and began to pull in the direction of the
bell.  Applebo, lounging in the stern, watched her long, vigorous
strokes.  Her green tam was frosted with the mist; the thick black
hair had also a silver rime, but cheeks and lips and sapphire eyes
defied the sad grey of the humid world through which they drifted
like alien spirits, seeking their own place.

Hermione, looking at Applebo as she pulled along, found him very
pleasing to her eyes.  He, too, wore the badge of the warm,
comforting earth which claimed them both, however much they might
adapt themselves to the sea.  The colourless gloom, filtering out
above all of the reds and yellows from the generous sun-rays, those
in which the poet was so rich, glowed like autumn leaves of a
November day.  His hair shone like a marigold and his skin was of the
luscious tint of a russet orange.  Also, there was a radiance of
expression which Hermione ascribed to filial devotion, long
suppressed.  No doubt some of it was.

The steady ringing of the _Shark's_ bell grew louder.  Suddenly
Applebo raised his hand.  His trained eye had caught the straight,
slim column of a mast rising into the thinner atmosphere aloft.
Hermione caught the water with her oars and shoved vigorously astern.
The way of the skiff fully checked, she rested on her oars.

"_Shark_ ahoy...!" she hailed.

"Hello!" came the voice of Heldstrom.  "So dere you are!"  There was
a note of great relief in the heavy bass.

"I am not coming aboard just yet," called Hermione.

"Yes, you must!" called Heldstrom.  "Your fadder has yoost sent vord
... 'Stop ringin' that bell!'"

"Stop it then," retorted Hermione.  "I don't need it.  The weather is
clearing.  I can see your spars."

"You can see nodding!" growled Heldstrom, "but I can see fere you go
out no more ven der vedder iss t'ick!  Next time you get no boat,
yoong lady!"

"I will be back in a few minutes," said Hermione.  "_Au revoir_..."

She dipped her oars and pulled off into the fog, leaving Heldstrom
growling impotently on the schooner's deck.

"My parent," Applebo observed, "appears to be a bit of a despot."

"He is a dear," said Hermione.

"You will catch it when you go back."

"No.  He will say nothing, but wait until next time.  Before then I
will have told him why I prolonged my leave.  Now tell me just what
you would like to have me say.  Do you wish me to tell him all that
you have told me?"

For it had occurred to Hermione's practical mind that Applebo was
doing, from his standpoint, a very loyal thing in claiming as a
parent a man who, no matter how fine his personal qualities, was
after all merely the sailing-master of a schooner-yacht.  Viewed from
a purely worldly aspect, Applebo was the social superior of Christian
Heldstrom.  Applebo was a blood-relation to royalty, independently
well off, well educated, and a person to whom any society would be
glad to open its doors.  His father, on the other hand, was an
ex-enlisted man of the United States Navy, at present holding a
position which, if not exactly menial, was not far from it.  It were
not as though Applebo were drawn to his father by a tie of affection
or early obligation.  Heldstrom had never laid eyes upon his son, nor
did Applebo owe his father anything but the mere fact of his physical
existence, which can scarcely be recognised as a debt of gratitude.
On the other hand, so far as Applebo knew, his father was merely a
poor sailorman, dependent on his meagre pay, already advanced in
years, and a possible care and burden for years to come.  Impressed
as she was by the romantic aspects of the case, all of these things
occurred, nevertheless, to Hermione's practical reason and served
greatly to elevate her opinion of Harold Applebo.

To test him more thoroughly, she put forward, in a tentative way, a
little of what was in her mind.

"You are quite sure that you want to establish this relationship?"
she asked.  "Of course, while Captain Heldstrom is a very splendid
man, and all of that, you really owe him nothing.  And, socially,
there is some difference between you."

"Hermione!"  Applebo's voice was actually pained.

"But what is the particular advantage of it to you?" persisted
Hermione.

"Advantage!  Don't you think it's an advantage to have a father?
Especially, when he's as good a sort as you tell me that mine is?
You surprise me, Hermione!"

"But you are a young man of fortune and education and high
connections, while he..."

"Is my father," said Applebo, quietly.

The blood rushed to Hermione's face.  Her blue eyes filled.

"Forgive me!" she cried.  "I was just trying to ... to ... I wanted
to see if you had any snobbery about you...."

"But, my dear girl, how can one be snobbish about one's own father?
That would be so inconsistent!"

"Some people are," said Hermione.

"Then I am not that particular sort of fool ... which is lucky for
me, since I am so many others!  No.  I want my father.  You don't
know what it means to me to find that there is somebody so close to
me.  Hermione, I have been the most solitary person you can
imagine...."

In rapid, graphic words he told her of his lonely, friendless
boyhood; the long vacations, when other boys went to their homes and
he remained at the boarding-school; the envy with which he was wont
to listen to the recital of holiday sprees by his schoolmates.
Later, at college, his peculiar personality had marked him as one
apart, and, sensitive as he was, this aloofness he had accepted as a
quality of his destiny.  Always of a romantic, imaginative, and
sentimental nature, expansiveness where his emotions were touched had
brought only ridicule, hence the gradual adoption of the mocking,
inscrutable pose.

"There were so many times," he told her, "when I couldn't help
expressing what I felt.  People laughed at me.  At first I fought;
then I learned that it saved a lot of wear and tear to laugh back ...
a little harder.  So I took a pose that kept them guessing.  People
like to laugh at you, and they don't particularly object when you
laugh at them, as long as they know what you are laughing at, and
that you really are laughing.  But when they are puzzled to tell
whether you are really making fun of them, and if so at what, they
get shy of you and leave you alone.  So I was left alone.  How much
alone, nobody will ever know...."

The mist was in Hermione's eyes before he had finished.  Applebo
interrupted his own narrative to look up and say:

"Where are you going?"

Hermione came back to earth with a sudden shock.

"I'm sure I don't know," said she.  "To tell the truth, I don't even
know where we are.  Do you?"

Applebo dropped his head and peered into the fog, and raised his
hand.  Hermione stopped pulling and rested on her oars.  Applebo
slightly turned his head to listen.

"I hear the swash of water ahead," he said.  "That must be the far
side of the inlet."

"But I have been pulling more toward the mainland!" cried Hermione.

"I think that you have swerved a bit.  There is scarcely any air
stirring, but what there is strikes me on the other cheek.  Pull
ahead a little."

Hermione did so.  Presently the swash of water on the rocks grew
plainly distinct, and, a few minutes later, a dark, irregular outline
reared itself through the fog.

"Rocks," said Applebo.  "We are on the east side of the inlet."

"But I am sure that we are on the other side," said Hermione.  She
raised her hand.  "Listen...!"

From somewhere in the murk came the sound of eight bells.

"I must be getting back," said Hermione.  "Which way?"

"Let me take the oars..."

Hermione nodded, and they shifted places.  She was not tired, but she
wanted to see the strong, lithe body in action.  Applebo picked up
the light oars and, without so much as a glance over his shoulder,
pulled off apparently at random into the fog.  As he rowed, he told
her about his voyaging in pursuit of the _Shark_.  Hermione was
amazed to learn how arduous this had sometimes been.  Secure and
comfortable aboard the big, staunch _Shark_, it was not easy to
realise the conditions to be sometimes confronted by a little boat
like the _Daffodil_.

"You are like a gull..." she said.  "Hello ... there's a boat ahead!"

"The yawl," said Applebo, indifferently.

Hermione opened her violet eyes very wide.

"I must have been pulling in a circle!" she exclaimed.

"You described quite an arc."

"But how did you know?"

"I felt it.  Some of us have that instinct of the hound and the
sea-turtle and the gull.  It's not subject to analysis.  At sea, I
never take a sight ... but I use the lead a good deal."  He laid the
skiff alongside.

"Before I go," said Hermione, "I want to peep into the cabin.  May I?"

"If you like.  I'd be more hospitable, but something tells me that it
is not convenable, and, since you are Hermione, you are still a mere
child ... how old...?"

"Twenty."

"An infant in arms!  However ... so long as they are the proper arms
... and I'm so much older that it doesn't matter.  Come aboard."

He stepped out and extended one hand to Hermione, making fast the
skiff with the other.

"How old are you?" asked Hermione.

"Getting senile.  I have been out of college four years; that makes
me twenty-five.  At such an age there are no longer rules of
propriety; one thinks only of the grave.  How do you like my cabin?"

Hermione, with a delicious sense of wrongdoing, examined with rapture
the cabin of the _Daffodil_.  This inspection was brief to the point
of being cursory, and, as she came up through the companionway, she
heard the bell of the _Shark_ again tolling its insistent summons.

"And to think," she cried, "that you should have followed us all of
those weary knots on this little thing!  And just because you knew
that your father was aboard!"

"Hermione, filial affection was _not_ the lure of the last two
thousand miles."

"What was...?"

"Get in your skiff and I will tell you."

Hermione's heart stampeded furiously.  It was frightened less at
these discreet words than at a sudden flash in the clear eyes of her
companion.  Every sentient impulse warned her to get immediately into
her skiff and row away, just as fast as she could.  But other and
stronger impulses made this craven course exceedingly difficult.  She
did not want to row off into the cold, grey mist and leave new
problems to be solved by the lonely, romantic figure beside her.  She
felt that he needed her, and this need, to a person of Hermione's
rich nature, was a far more impelling force than any need of her own.

She looked a little fearfully at Applebo.  He was smiling at her with
the air of one about to say a conventional farewell ... or about to
try to do so.  Hermione thought of his loneliness ... the Finn was
still ashore ... and the tears rose to her eyes.  She lingered, and
from afar the _Shark's_ bell chided her.

"Good-bye..." said Hermione, tremulously, and held out her hand.

Applebo took it, raised it in his, and brushed it with his lips.

"Good-bye," he answered, almost brusquely.

Still Hermione did not go.  Perhaps it may have occurred to her that
inasmuch as she had been trying to go, without success, for the last
half-hour, an additional half-minute would not particularly matter.
This is feminine reasoning, and as sound as any such, and Hermione
was exceedingly feminine.  Perhaps, also, there flashed across her
memory the recollection of another farewell, and of something which
had happened, partly under water.  At any rate, she lingered.  This
was very wrong of Hermione, and if she had had a mother, poor girl,
instead of an elderly Norwegian sailorman impotently banging a bell,
it never could have happened.  But she lingered.  Some instinct
advised her that there was still something to be told; that she had
not heard the entire tale, and that there would be a singular
incompletion to the whole affair until she was told it.  In which she
was quite correct.  Long-lost parents have an undoubted value, but it
dwindles shockingly before that of new-found loves.

"Good-bye..." said Hermione, invitingly, and held out her hand.

Applebo had honestly meant to put her back in her boat and give her a
shove in the direction of the patient bell.  But there are limits to
all human self-control, and Hermione at that moment stood outside
them.  There was a sad little droop to her shoulders, and to the
corners of her pretty mouth, and the roses in her cheeks and violets
in her eyes were blazing through the fog like flowers in a neglected
garden.  In that moment Hermione's sweetness was certainly not
intended to expend itself on several cubic fathoms of fog, and, if
Applebo permitted this, he would have been a fool and not worth the
trouble of telling about.  He had been thinking not of himself, but
of Hermione, and, when he saw that Hermione was not quite content, he
forgot that she was a very young girl, and he a wise and world-worn
man of twenty-five, of whom the motto should have been--_memento
mori_.  Wherefore, he said:

"Hermione, I have told you the truth, and nothing but the truth, but
not the whole truth.  I followed the _Shark_ because I wanted a
father.  But, since we met on the beach at Shoal Harbour and swam off
together to the schooner, this splendid filial devotion has been
quite eclipsed by something else.  I have been able to think of
nothing but a girl in a green bathing suit, and, when your father
gave me that 'dare' to follow him all up and down the coast, I took
it up because I did not want to lose her out of my daily life.  The
verses that I have been sending from time to time during this chase
have been the only really sincere ones I ever wrote...."

"Then the 'Hermione' ones that you sent to me were not sincere?"

"They are not insincere, but their sentiment was directed towards the
Ideal.  After I met you on the beach, they were offered to the Real."

"And went to Cécile..."

Applebo bent his bushy brows upon her in a way curiously suggestive
of Heldstrom.  Hermione wondered that she had never noticed the
resemblance.

"Hermione," said he, "I have been a silly, careless fool and you do
well to remind me of it.  But do you remember having told me on the
beach at Shoal Harbour that you had never seen any of my verses?"

The blood rushed into the girl's face and she dropped her eyes.
Hermione had thought of that lie many times, but she was in the hope
that Applebo had forgotten it.

"Since you didn't know me when you saw me," she answered, with a
schoolgirl pout, "_I_ did not intend to put you right.  What made you
send the verses in the first place?"

"The idea appealed to my romantic nature.  I had seen you on Fifth
Avenue and admired your walk.  I saw you many times, but never face
to face.  I like to write verses, and one writes better when one has
a definite object.  They were harmless things, and I knew that you
would not take too seriously such an act of unasked devotion on the
part of one whom you had never seen.  Nor did you."

Hermione was silent for an instant.  Then she said, almost shyly:

"And afterwards..."

Her violet eyes wandered fearsomely from side to side, aloft, into
the fog, at her skiff, to rest finally on those of Applebo.  The
clear, amber ones, which seemed to have grown suddenly dark, were
waiting for them.  They telegraphed a message which so shook Hermione
that she gave a little gasp and reached for the wire stay.  The dense
fog wrapped them about in its protecting folds.

"Hermione," said Applebo, in his deepest voice.  "I think that you
had better get into your skiff and go back to the _Shark_ and tell
them to stop ringing that bell.  The 'afterwards' will wait until
another day."

"I want it now!" murmured Hermione, scarcely knowing what she said.

Her long lashes dropped on the rose-red cheeks.  Her heart was
fluttering wildly and she gripped the wet wire with all of her
strength.  She scarcely saw Applebo as he stepped quickly to her side
and took her hand in his big one, crushing it even more tightly to
the iron shroud.  Then she looked up in frightened questioning,
surprised to find him so close and marvelling at the breadth of the
big chest.  Her head came a little above its upper level, and
Hermione was a big girl.  Close as he stood to her, Hermione was
obliged to give her face an upward tilt to look into his eyes, which
she did, questioningly, yet with a swift, wild exultation.

One downward step and Hermione would be in her skiff, prepared for
flight and the security of the chiding bell.  But she could not take
it.  Her feet were glued to the deck; her body as though lashed to
the wire stay.  Applebo began to speak, and she scarcely knew what he
said, even while she thrilled at the deep, organ-noted voice.

"Hermione ... Hermione ... you are still a little girl and perhaps I
am doing wrong in telling you these things.  I have loved you,
sweetheart, from the moment I saw you that morning on the beach.  I
struggled against it, but it has been too strong.  You are my Ideal
quickened into life, and, though we scarcely know each other, all the
nature that is in me cries out for you.  When I say that I love you,
I say it all.  Now you must get into your skiff, dear, and go back.
From this time on our attitude shall be the conventional one.  I
shall try to win you, but first there are other things to do.  Go,
Hermione."

Just as when he had kissed her in the water, Hermione felt all of her
personal volition leave her.  She could only cling to the stay and
stare at him dumbly with vague, dark violet eyes.  So she looked up
into his face, her own colourless, except for a crimson splash in the
centre of either cheek, and her coral lips trembling.  Her black hair
was veiled in the grey, clinging mist.  She suffered from no lack of
strength, but her mind and body were filled with the pleasant
lethargy which might come of a rare old wine, and which would quickly
pass.  Hermione felt no hurry for it to pass.

So she clung to the stay and stared at the poet, and muffled in the
fog came the notes of the bell, querulous and complaining, with a
hint of impatience in its quickened beat.  Applebo looked at her
questioningly ... and Hermione's eyes shouted the exultant answer to
this query.  A golden flame leaped from the amber depths so close to
her face, and, for some strange reason, Hermione felt the hot tears
obscure her vision and the fog became a swirling chaos of grey.  Her
body swayed as she stood.  She tried to say "Good-bye," but the
quivering lips brought no sound.

And then she felt a strong, encircling arm about her, while her
yielding body was drawn close and her pale, tear-stained, upturned
face fell forward against the man's broad chest.  Her hand loosed its
hold on the stay, of which she no longer had any need, and with its
mate stole up to rest on the strong shoulders.  Hermione gave a
little gasp; her arms went about his neck.  There was a torrent of
words in her ears, crashing like deep, glorious chords, and she heard
her own voice saying: "Yes ... yes ... I love you, I love you...."

[Illustration: And then she felt a strong, encircling arm about her]

All was swift and wonderfully rapturous.  Kisses smothered the words
pouring from her lips, and these lips quickly found a far more potent
manner of expression.  Scarcely any time this lasted, if one is to
figure time in moments such as these by stupid seconds, which might
be each an eternity.

Hermione's scattered senses were rallied by the _chunk-a-chunk_ of
oars close at hand.  She felt Applebo turn to glance over his
shoulder, and looked up to see him peering into the fog.  Hermione
drew herself away and stood for a moment, dazed and panting, for she
had need of breath, poor girl.

"Here comes the Finn," said Applebo.  "Now you must go, darling...."

Scarcely knowing how she got there, Hermione found herself back in
the skiff staring blindly at the compass which Applebo placed on the
thwart again.  "Good-bye..." she murmured, and thrust at the yawl's
side with her oar.  She held up her hand, and Applebo leaned far down
to kiss it.  Hermione dipped her oars, and was wafted into the
swimming mist.

Applebo stood looking after her, his face like ivory, but his eyes
like yellow diamonds.  The fog swam and eddied in a faint puff of
air, striking down over the high bank on the shoreward side of the
harbour.

The sound of Hermione's oars grew fainter and fainter, until his ear
could no longer follow it.  Then, as he listened, the _Shark's_ bell
stopped ringing.




CHAPTER XIV

As Hermione came over the side of the _Shark_, Heldstrom stepped
forward to give her a bit of a "dressing-down" for the anxiety which
she had caused him.  But, at sight of her face, he stopped short in
his tracks and stared.  The next instant he glanced quickly about, as
though fearful that some other person might see what he beheld.
Olesen, the quartermaster of the watch, was busy with the skiff,
however, and none of the cabin party had as yet appeared.

For Hermione, an uncommonly pretty girl at all times, was
transfigured.  Her face was still pale, with the crimson patch on
either cheek, but the treatment which they had just received appeared
to have given a new and wonderful expression to her lips.  The
flagrant tell-tales were, however, her eyes, still shot with a flame
which the damp fog was utterly unable to quench.  They held, also, a
warm tenderness and a sort of knowledge which is the distinguishing
feature between the eyes of a girl and those of a woman.

"Heffens...!" rumbled Heldstrom, in a voice so like that to which she
had just been listening that Hermione's pulse raced off afresh.
"Fere you been?  You look like a yoong br'ride!"

Hermione dropped the long lashes over her tell-tale eyes.

"I ... I have been rowing around in the fog...."  She tried to slip
past him and gain the companionway, but his big bulk was planted
directly in her course.

"R'rowing ar'round in der fog ... r'rowing ar'round in der fog..." he
repeated, slowly.  He shook his massive head and the deep-lined face
was flooded with anxiety.  The clear blue eyes bored like gimlets
into hers.

"Hermione ... Hermione ... my little ger'rl..." the big voice was
very tender.  "You did not get dose eyes nor dose cheeks from der
kiss of der fog!  Do you tell me that you haf been r'rowing ar'round
in der fog ... _alone_?"

Hermione hung her pretty head.  The colour on her cheeks deepened.

"No, Uncle Chris ... I was not alone.  I will tell you all about it
... but not now.  Let me pass, please."

There was an imperious note in the last words which brooked no
denial.  Heldstrom moved aside without a word.  Hermione walked to
the companionway and went below, while Heldstrom stared after her.
His eyes were lit with the blue flame of the sun on an iceberg and
his forehead was ominous as a storm-cloud.  He glanced quickly about
to see that no one was lurking near, then turned with a fierce Norse
oath, and shook his head in the direction of the _Daffodil_.

"Ah, I t'ink I understand!  It's that Pilot-vish!  Ven I saw his
yellow eyes blinking at me from der sea I knew dere vas no goot
behind dem!  It vas like ... like ... anodder face ... I vonce knew
... to my gr'rief!"

For a moment he stood stiff and silent, staring in the direction of
the _Daffodil_.  He cursed again.

Suddenly he raised his voice and hailed the quartermaster.

"Der gig at der gan'vay...!" said he.

The order was quickly executed.  Heldstrom got into the boat and gave
the order to "give way."  The fog was thick as ever, and, at the end
of a few moments, he commanded--"Oars."

The boat glided silently through the still water.  Heldstrom turned
his massive head slightly to one side and listened intently.  On the
starboard bow there came the sound of voices.  All at once he heard
the somewhat peculiar remark, in Danish, which is to say, Norwegian,
although a Dane would put it the other way about.

"Yes.  Two days in every month you may get drunk.  Between these
periods, not a drop...."

"Gif way, poort...!" growled Heldstrom.

As he drew near the yawl, the answering voice became suddenly
muffled, and Heldstrom knew that the speaker had gone below, while
still talking.  There was an excited note to this voice which
suggested the babble of a fever patient.  Heldstrom saw his bow oar
furtively cross himself.  This man had one day encountered the Finn
when both were the worse for drink, and the warlock had opened his
lips and delivered himself of informations which had sobered the
Irishman as a sluicing with ice-water might have done.

Close aboard the yawl, Heldstrom gave the order--"Way enough!"  As
the gig shot alongside, Heldstrom saw Applebo standing in the
cockpit, staring down at him.  The face of the old man grew stiff and
cold as ice.

Applebo's features were like a clay death-mask and the only live
quality was in the eyes, these barely visible between the double
fringe of dark lashes.

"Good-morning," said he, in a voice as expressionless as his face.
"Captain Heldstrom of the _Shark_, I believe?"

"Der same," answered Heldstrom, and added: "I haf come to pay a
visit.  I am curious to see der little yawl vich haf followed me for
so many miles of sea."

"Pray come aboard," said Applebo.  "There is really not much to see.
I am about to breakfast.  Perhaps you will do me the honour to join
me."

"T'anks..." said Heldstrom.  He stepped aboard the yawi, then turned
to the stroke-oar, who was shifting aft to take the yoke lines.

"Go back alongside," said Heldstrom.  "I vill ask you..." he turned
to Applebo, "to set me back on my ship."

"Certainly."

The gig glided off into the fog.  Heldstrom, standing by the main
rigging, stared under lowered brows at Applebo.

"We have t'ings to say to each odder," he remarked, in a heavy voice.
"Dis fella of yours ... does he oonderstand English?"

"Yes," answered Applebo.  He motioned to the Finn, who was eyeing the
two with his shaggy head at its curious slant.

"Get in the dinghy and hang off and on," said Applebo, in Danish.
"When I want you, I will whistle.  Keep away.  I do not wish to be
interrupted."

The Finn appeared to hesitate.

"Go..." said Applebo, "... at once!"

The Finn tugged at his cap.  Without a word, he stepped into the
dinghy and pulled off into the fog.  As soon as he was lost to sight,
Applebo turned to Heldstrom.

"Come below," said he, and led the way.

In the cabin of the yawl, Applebo motioned his guest to a transome
opposite.  The old man was too great of bulk for one of the
camp-chairs.  For a minute the two men eyed each other in silence.
Heldstrom was breathing heavily; Applebo was as pale as it was
possible for his peculiar ivory tint to become, but, aside from the
singular glow of his eyes, his manner was free of all emotion.

Heldstrom spoke first.

"I know you," he said, in English.  "You are my son."

Applebo slightly inclined his head.

Heldstrom gave him another piercing look.  "You haf all of your
mudder ... und more!" he said.  "You haf also somet'ing of me.  Der
vorst of me."

Applebo's brows came lower.  He did not reply.

"I haf never said it to anybody," continued Heldstrom, "und I vould
knock der man down vat said it to me.  But I vill say it to you.
Your mudder vas royalty, but she vas no goot.  Und you are like her."

Applebo raised his eyebrows.

"If you were not my father," he said, "I would knock your brains out.
But after all, when one stops to think, you are throwing mud
principally at yourself."

Heldstrom's expression became terrible.

"I t'row mud at nobody!" he cried, and leaned forward, gripping the
gravity table until his great finger joints creaked.  "I tell you
only vat you ar're!"

Applebo hunched up his shoulders, leaned back, crossed his strong
hands in front of one upraised knee, and eyed his father through
half-opened eyelids.

"When did you discover my identity?" he asked.

"That iss my affair!  I knew alvays dere was a son.  All my life,
since your mudder left me...."

"I beg your pardon ... since you left my mother...."

"Since your mudder left me ... for..."

"Since you left my mother..." interrupted Applebo, in a voice which,
for all of its silky tone, sheared its way through that of Heldstrom.

Heldstrom struck the gravity-table a blow with his great fist.

"Since your mudder left me...."

"Please don't break my furniture!  I need it.  I don't need a father,
particularly...."  Applebo's voice was smooth and yet appeared to
overtone and undertone that of Heldstrom.  "But I do need my table.
I need certain ideals, also, that you are trying your best to break
down ... like any other coarse brute of a Scandinavian sailorman!
You ... you lived a whole lifetime in a few weeks, didn't you ...
_didn't you?_ ... Don't begin to glare!  And now ... you come over
here aboard of my little boat ... _to kick about the bill!_"

Few men would have cared to face Christian Heldstrom at that moment,
but the one facing him was of the same fierce, viking breed.  Applebo
guessed at the motive for the visit, which was very far from being
one of parental interest.  There was no doubt in his mind that it had
to do with Hermione, but of that, later.  At present it had to do
with himself and this father, whom for weeks he had followed through
a deep-seated filial instinct of affection.  He was very glad that he
had waited before declaring himself.  Applebo felt shame and a hot
resentment in his heart that this father, about whom he had built so
many splendid ideals, should thus prove himself merely a harsh and
violent Norwegian sailor.

Heldstrom was glowering at him across the table.  His eyes were like
the blue tips of icicles.

"Pay der bill...?" he rasped.  "Vat do you mean?"

"Just that," answered Applebo.  "You might have known what to expect,
if you were not altogether a fool.  My mother was a young and
beautiful woman, the only daughter of rich and noble parents, a
favourite of the King.  You were the son of a poor but respectable
farmer, at the time engaged in the trade of boat-building.  Is that
not true...?"

Heldstrom's lips moved, but no sound came from them.  A terrible rage
was gathering on his heavily bearded face.  Applebo saw it, but
continued in the same dispassionate tone:

"You were years older than she, and you should have known better.
You sold her uncle a yacht and sailed her one season for your client.
My mother was aboard the boat a good deal, and so you met and became
infatuated with one another.  Then you eloped and were married, and
brought her to America as a poor emigrant.  Do you consider that to
have been an act of affection...?"

"Stop!"  Heldstrom's voice was choked and strangling.  "Not anudder
vord!  Dis iss not your affair...."

"Pardon me, it is very much my affair ... seeing that I was the
result of the folly!  Of your blind selfishness!  Do you think that I
have had a happy life?  It has been one long record of loneliness ...
for I am not of the sort to make friends, readily!  And there has
been a good deal of terrible monotony about it, too!  Not until
Harold Applebo died and left me a small income, four years ago, did I
commence really to live."

Heldstrom's face was livid, but the devastating rage had left it.  He
swallowed once or twice.

"Und you say I kick about der bill!" he growled.  "Vat you vant, den?
Somet'ing froom me?"

A fierce gleam shot from the pale eyes of Applebo.  Leaning forward,
he shook his finger in Heldstrom's face:

"No.  I want nothing from you ... now that I know the sort of man you
are!  I did want a little paternal sympathy and interest and to feel
that I was not entirely a stray spar washed from the wreck of two
lives and left to drift where the current carried me!  Now that I
know you, I want nothing!  Formerly, I thought that you might
possibly contain a spark of paternal instinct.  I thought, also, that
you might welcome the thought of one of your own blood to be the
companion of your declining years.  It was for this that I have been
following your schooner all summer long...."

Heldstrom raised his massive head, which had been slightly drooping,
and stared intently at his son.

"You tell me it vas for me that you haf followed der _Shark_?" he
demanded, harshly.

"Yes.  I wanted to learn precisely what I have learned this morning
... but not exactly in this way!"  Applebo smiled ironically.  "That
was my whole object in trailing you about!"

Heldstrom thrust himself suddenly forward.

"You are a liar!" he almost shouted.

[Illustration: "You are a liar!" he almost shouted]

Applebo slightly recoiled.  For an instant it seemed as though the
older man were about to hurl himself upon him.

"That iss vat you are ... yoost like all your mudder's kinfolk!  Dey
vas liars all!  Und you inherit froom dem; not froom me, t'ank God!
You haf learned but a little part of dis history, und that wr'rong!
I took your mudder avay because her fadder vas going to marry her mit
a man dot vas known to be der vor'rst blackguard in Europe, und she
hated him, too.  But I make me no excuses...."

"Then," Applebo interrupted, "suppose you make me one for having so
far forgotten yourself as to call me a liar.  Otherwise, this
interview must come to an end."

Cried Heldstrom, in his great bull-whale voice: "Dis interview vill
coom to an end ven I haf said my say!  Do not enr'rage me, yoong man,
or, son or no son, you may haf cause to be sorry.  I call you a liar,
und you are that!  If you follow de _Shark_ because of me, vy do you
not coom forward like a man long ago, and say, 'You are my fadder; I
am your son!'  I do not say that I vould be glad ... but, at least, I
vould do my duty und you vould do yours!  Vy do you follow und
v'vatch und look und peer und pr'ry like a yellow cat v-vatching der
cage of a bird?  Vy do you anchor off und neffer coom aboard, der
more so ven you vas invited by Captain Bell und Mr. Wood?  Vy do you
send dose sickening werses to my yoong ladies ... for I learn
yesterday you do?  Answer me, you fella ... vy do you do all dis if
it iss for me dot you follow der _Shark_?"

All of the colour faded from Applebo's face.  He began to understand.
But, while he caught the ugly reflection of what was in the mind of
Heldstrom, he did not see how he was to answer him.  How was he to
make this rough sailor understand his silly sentimentality?  And how
could he explain his own sensitiveness in approaching him on the
subject of their relationship?  He hesitated, and Heldstrom, of
course, took this hesitation as a sign of guilt, and the endeavour to
search for some explanatory lie.  His face grew black, and in
contrast the piercing blue eyes appeared to pale.  Perhaps they did
actually pale as a consuming wrath contracted the pupils.  He leaned
forward and shook his heavy forefinger so close to Applebo's face
that it almost struck him.

"I tell you vy!  Now I understand!  It vas because of my little
ger'rl ... Miss Hermione!  Dot mor'rning at Shoal Harbour!  Dis
morning in der fog!  Und how many mornings besides, I do not know...!"

"_Silence!_"  Applebo sprang to his feet.  For all of his height,
there was head room in the yawl's cabin to permit him to stand erect.
The face which he turned to his father was bloodless, tense, with
white teeth bared to the molars, while the heavy cords and
muscle-bands of his neck stood out under the ivory skin.

Heldstrom, too, hove himself upon his feet, and, for an instant, the
two big men faced each other across the little table.  Then Applebo
sank back to his seat.

"You are my father," he said, "and you are aboard my boat.  Also, you
are in the wrong, as you will discover when you talk with the lady in
question.  I have seen her but twice: once by accident at Shoal
Harbour; once this morning, when she came to ask me to follow you no
longer.  She will tell you the rest.  As soon as the weather clears,
I shall sail for New York, to lay up the yawl.  This is all the
explanation that you will get from me.  In fact, there is nothing
more to be said."  He arose and, stepping up into the cock-pit, blew
a wailing note on a siren boat-call.  Almost immediately there came
the sound of oars, and the Finn appeared propelling the dinghy over
the flat grey surface of the water.  It was apparent that the man had
not been far from the yawl.

Applebo turned to Heldstrom.

"Here is the boat," he said.

Heldstrom gave him a fierce, questioning look, which Applebo did not
appear to see.  The face of the older man was haggard as he came up
through the hatch.  For an instant he seemed to hesitate, as if on
the point of speech.  Applebo gave him no opportunity.

"Set Captain Heldstrom aboard the _Shark_," he said to the Finn, who
vigorously nodded his wild, dishevelled head.

Heldstrom glanced down at the boat, then at his son.  The old sailor
had the expression of a very aged man who has overtaxed his waning
strength and is about to bend beneath the weight of years and
trouble.  Again he hesitated, as if trying to speak.

"Good-morning...!" said Applebo, curtly.

The words acted like a bucket of cold water on Heldstrom.  His great
frame appeared to stiffen.  He stepped down into the dinghy and
seated himself heavily in the stern.  Applebo raised his hand in
salute.  Heldstrom ignored it.

"Gif vay...!" he growled to the Finn.

The warlock dipped his oars.  The boat glided off into the fog, which
appeared to have suddenly darkened.  A damp air was fanning in from
the sea.




CHAPTER XV

For several minutes Applebo stood erect, arms folded across his
chest, staring into the fog.  Presently he shrugged, smiled cynically
to himself, and, turning on his heel, went below, where he seated
himself on the edge of his bunk.

"An interesting morning," he observed, aloud.  "I am richer by one
Ideal, and poorer by the loss of another.  On the whole, however, I
am 'way ahead on the break!  If my father is a rough old brute of a
pig-headed Scandihoovian sailor, then my sweetheart is the darlingest
and loveliest of women, although she is scarcely more than a child.
Nothing shall keep me from marrying her!  I am mad about her!  I
would like to write her fathoms on fathoms of verse, but I will not!"

He opened the locker at the head of his bunk, took therefrom a large
pile of manuscript, which he proceeded to tear into small fragments.

"I have sung my swan-song as a bard," Applebo observed.  "Poetry can
make a d---- fool of a man.  'Sickening verse,' quoth my paternal.  I
shall write no more sickening verse."  He stared absently at the
yellow bulkhead, then as absently set about to steep some tea.
"Perhaps, when I get something in my tummy, I will look with a less
saddened retrospect upon my 'family quarrel.'  What an old brute!  I
wonder why Hermione is so fond of him?  There is a jolt coming to him
when he learns that his accusations were all creatures of his
prejudiced and unreasonable imagination.  The old beast actually
thought that I had been putting her up to secret rendezvous ... when,
as a matter of fact, upon the only two occasions when we have met, I
have been the one to bring the interview to a close and send her
home!  Shucks!"

A quart or two of tea, with some dozen and odd macaroons, had a
decidedly cheering influence upon the spirits of Mr. Applebo.  This
breakfast achieved, he wrote a letter to Hermione, telling her of his
unfortunate interview with his father.  After this, he took the Finn
and went ashore, in quest of certain things needed for the run to New
York.  Most important of these was a fresh supply of macaroons.

At noon the fog had slightly thinned and there was a little air from
the northeast.  Nobody but Applebo would have thought of putting to
sea in such weather, but he had an idea that his father, after
interviewing Hermione, might return to express his regret at certain
things which he had said, and Applebo had, for the time being,
completely changed his views in regard to the desirability of a
paternal parent in the scheme of his careless life.  Not only had the
romantic anticipations of the poet been dealt a severe blow by this
brutal introduction to his father, but, what was worse, his
hypersensitive mind had almost immediately parodied it, so that, even
while smarting from the interview, he was cynically laughing at it.
Like many poetic natures, Applebo's had its keen appreciation of the
ridiculous, and it was because he was conscious that his
sentimentality often enticed him out upon the thin ice of the absurd
that he had, as a sort of self-protection, acquired the veiled,
mocking pose which left the unsympathetic world in doubt as to
whether he was making a fool of himself or of it!

In his interview with Heldstrom, Applebo had been quick to appreciate
the futility of a pose of any sort.  The sturdy Norwegian would have
torn through it like a shark through a gill-net.  Applebo had found
himself always quite well-equipped to meet force with force, and so,
when his father had brought to the onslaught sheer weight of
personality, his son had met him with the same backing.  The issue
had been a draw, and Applebo felt that, if he had frankly won, he
would be far less content.

Half an hour later he was feeling a secret admiration for his sturdy,
one-ideal old father, and wishing that they had parted friends.

"After all..." said Applebo to his barometer, "the old coot was only
carried into breaking water by his devotion to Hermione.  What he
thought, I'm sure I don't know ... nothing very bad, or he would not
have left me alive.  It was apparently that I had been enticing her
from the path of conventional behaviour.  Dammit!  I wish I knew what
he really _did_ think!  I'll go to sea and dope it out under way.
The narrow environs of this puddle constrict my intellectual flight."
He raised his voice, and the Finn came squattering aft.

"Get the anchor," said Applebo.  "We are going to sea."

Twenty minutes later the _Daffodil_ stole wraith-like through the
entrance and laid a course across Massachusetts Bay for Cape Cod.
The wind was steady, if light, and its direction enabled Applebo to
make a broad reach for the Cape.  In the middle of the afternoon the
fog blew off, while the breeze freshened, hauling steadily to east,
then east by south.  At dark Applebo sighted the Highlands Light and,
soon afterwards, Race Point, and, as the wind was beginning to haul
ahead and the general aspect of the weather was unpromising, he
decided to run into Provincetown.  This he did, dropping anchor in
the midst of a fleet of fishermen who were trailing in, one after the
other, as the night advanced.

At two o'clock in the morning Applebo was awakened by the hum of his
main rigging, the hiss of driving rain, and the short, angry slapping
of little waves against the bow of the yawl.

"Good thing we ran in..." he thought, contentedly, and went to sleep
again.  Two hours later he was again awakened, this time by a
clanking and clattering up forward.

"The Finn is giving her the other anchor," he thought.  "Must be
blowing up...."

At seven in the morning, when he awoke, Applebo shoved his tawny head
up through the hatch, to find that it was blowing a southeasterly
gale.  Crowded close on all sides was the fishing fleet, many other
vessels having run in for shelter during the night.  Fine, staunch
schooners they were, with the big spars and sleek lines of yachts.

Applebo slipped on his bathing-suit and took a dive overboard, to the
unconcealed amusement of the crew of an adjacent smack.  Finding
himself the target for many witticisms, Applebo decided to shorten
the range and swam alongside, when, finding a sea-ladder down, he
climbed sleepily aboard and blinked at the jovial crew.

"How's fishing?" asked Applebo, hauling his long, wet body over the
rail.

The men regarded him with that swift yet searching scrutiny peculiar
to their kind.  Finding him a "college feller" and locating him at
once aboard the _Daffodil_, there seemed to be nothing strange in his
wandering half-naked through the wind and rain.

"Fishin's all right," replied an elderly man, who appeared to be the
captain of the vessel, "but the weathure ain't.  You off'n the ketch
yander?"

"Yes.  She may not look it, but she is my yacht."

The captain gave her a keen, assaying glance.

"Say," he observed, "that thing looks like the critter we see last
week at Hampton Roads.  We was in there ketchin' crabs...."

"I was there, too," said Applebo.  "I sneaked back up here inside in
that easter."

The men looked at him with interest.  The captain--a lean, lanky
citizen of the State of Maine--shifted his tobacco.  He was politely
dressed in a nautical costume befitting his rank and consisting of a
derby hat with a dint in the left side, a rather tired-looking "biled
shirt," a black vest ... for he wore no coat despite the drizzle ...
a heavy gold-plated watch-chain, black trousers, and patent-leather
shoes, whereof the "patent" was putting up a losing fight against the
salt water.  This costume would have identified him anywhere along
the coast as the captain of something; at first guess, a coasting
schooner.  The men called him "Dave," despite the fact that he was
captain and old enough to have fathered any of them.

"That boat o' yourn looks like a sword-fisher," said he.

"She was built for that," said Applebo.

"She won't never drowned ye.  Might starve ye, though."

"She won't do that either," said Applebo.  "You will find a lot of
yachts that are duller than that yawl of mine."

"I know one that's duller," said the skipper, "'n that's the old
_Shark_.  We come in abaout daylight this mornin'.  It was blowin'
toll'ble fresh.  M'yeah ... not so peart as what it is now, but there
was wind a-plenty.  Jibin' raound the Stellwagen Bank we nigh pitched
onto that 'ere old wagon...."

"The _Shark_?" cried Applebo.

"It was her.  They wa'ant much light, but I seen that behind o' hern
wallowin' off into the muck.  There ain't no mistakin' that critter!
She's been bangin' 'round this coast most as long as what I hev ...
'n' that's consid'able time."

One of the crew, an Irishman, spoke up.

"'Twas the _Shark_," said he.  "She was waddlin' out around the Cape
like an ould duck.  Phwat she was doin' in shwill like this I dunno!"

"We wa'ant lookin' fer nothin' goin' that way," said the captain.
"Mercy o' hell we didn't spile her paint!  Tearin' chunks off'n the
sea, we was!"

"Funny that the _Shark_ should have been out there," said Applebo.
"I left her in Marblehead yesterday noon."

"'Twas her," said the Irishman.  "There's no mistakin' the nose-pole
av her.  'Tis like a pug-nosed girl wid a slate-pencil in her mout'.
She was flounderin' to sea like a cow in a bog ... just as graceful,
sor.  There was a big man wid whuskers a-shtandin' be the wheel.  I
knaw him.  'Tis ould Heldstrom."

"Who's the owner o' the _Shark_?" asked one of the men.

"'Tis a navy man ... wan Bell...."

"Wa'al..." said the captain, "likely he knowed what he was a-doin'
on.  Chances air he put into Chatham when he see what was goin' on.
Ye kain't tell nothin' 'baout the weathure this time o' year.  The
day starts in ca'am 'n' peaceful, 'n' the glass nailed tha'ar, 'n'
afore sundaown it's blowin' the paint off'n her.  Got a heap o'
respec' fer saou'easters this time o' year, I hev."

Applebo chatted for awhile with the old man, the crew regarding with
much curiosity the nearly nude, beautifully muscled figure standing
by the rail apparently indifferent to the gusty wind and the drizzle
driving against his gleaming limbs.  It was about the end of August
and not cold, but a gale off Cape Cod is never really tropical in
temperature, and the fishermen were in heavy oilskins over their
working-clothes.

Applebo finally wished them good-day, then made a clean dive off the
rail, and swam back to the yawl.  He found the Finn squatting on the
forward deck, staring straight into the wind's eye.  A gale always
excited this peculiar individual.  The dangers of fog, tide, and reef
had no apparent effect on the Finn, but as soon as it began to blow
he underwent a notable change.  It made no difference whether the
yawl was hove to in a squall, riding to a sea-anchor, or safely
moored in a snug, land-locked harbour; the result upon the Finn was
the same.  During a storm he had always the intent, expectant air of
one awaiting some momentous event.  Often he would pause in what he
was doing, as though to peer and listen, always watching the
direction from which the wind came, sometimes talking to himself,
nodding his head, and at times bursting into strange, wild little
snatches of song, chanted in a beautiful tenor voice.  Applebo once
asked him what he heard in the wind, and he answered--"The voices of
the newly dead."  This, and the peculiar and uncanny way the man had
of cocking his head and peering suddenly with one of his divergent
eyes at some object either in the sea or sky, might have affected
some people most disagreeably.  Applebo was merely amused and found
his behaviour rather entertaining.

As he swam alongside and hove himself aboard, the Finn did not appear
to see him.  The man was squatting like a frog against the windlass.
He had on an old oilskin overcoat, but his head was bare, the long
black hair tossing in the wind and the fine drizzle beating into a
face which was of the pale drab of the belly of a fish.  The lips
were muttering a steady patter.

"What are you doing there?" Applebo demanded.

The beautiful, lustrous eyes turned to him slowly.

"Praying, master," came the soft-voiced answer.

"For whom are you praying?"

"For those about to die."

Applebo dressed, and was refreshing himself with tea and macaroons
when he heard a roaring sound close aboard, and poked his head up
through the hatch to see a fisherman foaming in, her foresail in
rags.  Behind her came another, and a little later still another.

He wrote a letter to Hermione, and went ashore to mail it.  The gale
was harder than ever, and he wondered how the _Shark_ was getting
along.  But he felt no anxiety, and decided that she had undoubtedly
put into Chatham.

He went to bed early that night, in a mood of deep depression.  About
midnight he was awakened by a pressure on his chest and, as his eyes
flashed open, for he was a light sleeper, he saw a dark figure
leaning over him and felt the sudden disagreeable trickle of water on
his face and neck.  Springing up, he thrust at the dark shape, and
that so violently as to send the Finn, for it was he, staggering back
against the table.

"What do you mean by dripping water over me like that, you fool!"
cried Applebo, thinking that the Finn had roused him to say that they
were dragging, or something of the sort.  A little standing-light was
burning, and Applebo saw by its feeble flame that the face of his
Finn was working spasmodically and his manner was wild.

"Master," he cried, "I have had a vision!"

"What sort of vision?"

"I saw a white vessel, dismasted and sinking.  Her people were
clinging about the decks and the sea was washing over them."

Applebo leaned forward, gripping the edge of his bunk.

"What was this vessel?" he cried.

The Finn shook his wet, shaggy head, and again the drops sprinkled
Applebo's face and neck.

"I cannot say, master.  She was buried in the smother and the vision
was not a clear one.  It was not like when I saw my father clinging
to the bottom of his fishing boat in the Finskii Zalif."

"What happened then?"

"He was never heard of again."

Applebo moved uneasily.  He had his full belief in much of the
phenomena not to be explained by known physical laws and, therefore,
dubbed "superstition."  That night he had gone to sleep in a most
unusual state of depression, and once or twice he had awakened to
listen to the gale humming through the rigging.  His first thought
had been of the _Shark_, and he had been inquiet, even while his
reason told him that to be so was absurd.  Wherefore, awakened by the
Finn with this lugubrious tale of a vision of shipwreck, his first
thought was naturally of the _Shark_.

"What do you think this vessel was, and where?" he demanded,
impatiently.

"I could not say, master."

"Then why do you come here and waken me and spatter me with cold
water to tell me about it?" Applebo demanded, angrily.

"I thought that I ought to do so."

"But why?"

"God does not give us these visions for nothing, master."

"Then what do you want me to do?  Go to sea and wait for an angel to
take the wheel?"

The Finn did not answer.  He knew quite well that, were the
_Daffodil_ at sea, she would be hove to under a storm trysail or
riding to a sea-anchor.

"Well...?" snapped Applebo.  "What do you advise?"

The man pushed back his dank hair and shook his head.  Applebo lost
his patience.

"Any fool might dream of shipwreck on a night like this," he said.
"Now clear out and let me sleep."

The Finn muttered some excuse and hove himself up through the
companionway.  Applebo turned over and tried to sleep, but it was a
vain effort.  The Finn had quite banished all drowsiness for the
time, and his little ship's clock had struck two bells, then three,
then four and five before he lost consciousness again.

At eight bells ... four of the morning, he awoke with a start.
Turning up his lamp, he reached for his barometer and found that it
had risen two-tenths.  He slid out of his bunk and shoved his head up
through the hatch, to discover that the wind had hauled southerly.

"Wind's going around..." he said to himself.  "It'll be westerly in
the morning and clear, with a hard nor'wester.  If it's any way
possible, we'll go out about eight."

For several minutes he hung through the hatch, staring into the murk.
Some hard puffs struck the yawl, swinging her a trifle on her hawsers.

"Wind's getting westerly now..." said Applebo.  "It's not such an
awful blow, anyway.  We've been out in worse...."

The rain had stopped and the air was comparatively clear.  Applebo
breathed it deeply.  He cocked his head and stood for a moment
listening to the roar of the surf on the beach across the neck.

"Some sea out there ... this wind is hauling right around...."

All at once he sprang up through the hatch and started forward along
the deck.  The fore-hatch was open and he saw the shoulders of the
Finn, halfway through it.  Then, the man's pallid face was turned up
to him in the vague light.

"Heave in your chain," said Applebo.  "We are going out."




CHAPTER XVI

Christian Heldstrom returned from the interview with his new-found
son, shaken to the core of his strong but simple being.

On boarding the _Shark_, he went at once to his room, where he seated
himself on a big, iron-bound sea-chest and remained for some minutes
staring absently straight in front of him.  The lines of his face
were haggard; under its tan the weather-beaten skin looked drawn and
faded as old leather, and there was a droop to mouth and eyes which
told not only of fatigue, but a sense of defeat.

He was still sitting in the same position when there came a familiar
little tap on the door.  Heldstrom pulled himself together.

"Coom in, Hermione..." he said.

Hermione entered and closed the door behind her.  For a moment she
stood by Heldstrom's shoulder, regarding him in a half-shy,
half-anxious way.

"You have been to see Applebo, Uncle Chris?"

"Yes," answered Heldstrom, heavily.  "He is my son.  He told you?"

Hermione clasped her hands and leaned toward him.

"Yes ... this morning.  Oh, Uncle Chris!  Aren't you delighted?"

"Not altogedder.  Vat else did he tell you?"

"He told me that his greatest dread was just this; that you might not
wish him for a son ... as he wanted you for a father.  That was why
he has followed the _Shark_ all summer.  He wanted to be near his
father, but shrank from revealing himself before he could feel more
sure that you would be pleased."

Heldstrom gave her a piercing look.

"Und you say it vas for that he has followed us?  For that alone?"

The crimson came into Hermione's cheeks, but her eyes never wavered
from his.

"Until we met, he and I, on the beach, that morning at Shoal Harbour.
Since then it has been partly ... for me..."

"Ho!" growled Heldstrom.  "Because of you!  Den vy has he been
sending sickening werses to Cécile?"

"He got our names mixed and thought _I_ was Cécile.  Did he tell you
that he had been sending verses to Cécile?"

"No.  It vas your fadder."

"And Applebo told you this morning that he was your son?" asked
Hermione, a little breathlessly.

"I haf suspected.  Since I saw him in der vater I haf been t'inking a
great deal.  His face vas always before my eyes; den last night I had
a dr'ream of der voman who spoiled my life, und her face was der face
of dis yoong man.  I vill show you her photograph; I haf not looked
at it myself since more dan twenty years."

He rose massively from the chest, unlocked it, and rummaged in the
many little drawers and lockers within.  Presently he handed a small
package to Hermione.  She unfastened the ribbon which secured the
faded yellow paper, and, as the portrait came to light, Hermione's
blue eyes opened very wide.  The face was that of a very beautiful
and unusual-looking woman, but what startled the girl was the
extraordinary resemblance to Applebo.  There were the same wide
forehead, flat cheeks, and straight nose, the mouth slightly pushed
out, full-lipped but strong, while the expression was that of Applebo
when he assumed his impassive, blinking pose.

"Were her eyes the same amber colour?" Hermione asked, studying the
photograph intently.

"Like der eyes of a cat.  Dey called her 'der tigress,' und she vas
von, too...."  His tone changed, brusquely.  "How many times haf you
spoken to dis yoong man?" he demanded.

"Only twice.  At Shoal Harbour and this morning."  Hermione handed
back the portrait.  "That is unmistakable, isn't it?  Oh, Uncle
Chris!  Why are you not happy?  Isn't it comforting...?"

"Vat did he say to you dis morning?" Heldstrom interrupted, curtly.

"First I asked him to stop following us, which he promised to do.
Then he told me about his being your son, and I offered to tell you
myself ... because I thought that it might be easier for you..."

"What did he tell you about yourself, Hermione?"  Heldstrom's eyes
were watching her steadily.

Hermione raised her head, proudly.

"He told me that he loved me."

Heldstrom, who was standing, thrust his hands into his side pockets
and looked at her keenly.

"I t'ought so!  Und how many times you haf met?  Twice!  Und he tells
you that he loves you!  Der scoundrel!"

"You are not very flattering to me..."

"No!  I am not!  Und dis fella is!  Und you like it!"

"Yes," said Hermione, hotly, "I do like it!  Harold Applebo is a
splendid, big, strong, true-hearted gentleman, and, if I can love him
after seeing him but twice, I don't see why he shouldn't be able to
love me!"

"It is not der loving," said Heldstrom, slightly softening, "it is
telling it out dere in der fog."

"He wouldn't have told it if I hadn't dragged it out of him.  As it
was he tried to put me back in my boat...."

"Vat!"  Heldstrom wheeled upon her so suddenly that Hermione shrank
back, startled.  "He _put you in your boat_!  Hermione, do you dare
to tell me that you haf been aboard dis fella's yawl?"

Hermione, having come expressly to give sympathy, rebelled against
this utter lack of it.  The hot blood rushed suddenly to her head.

"Yes," said she, "I _did_ go aboard the yawl and I went below.  I was
curious to see what it was like.  A woman can tell when she is
dealing with a gentleman, and Harold Applebo is all of that!  No
doubt he inherits it from his mother!  You ought to be proud to have
such a son ... and proud to have me love him, too!  You may have had
a bad time of it, Captain Heldstrom, but so has he!  As for me, I
came here to try to help you, and you have all but insulted me!  I am
not a little girl any more; I am a woman, and I have a woman's
feelings ... and ... if you think you can trample over them with your
big sea-boots, you can ... can..."

"Hermione!"  Heldstrom's compelling voice silenced the outburst on
the part of the girl.  "I am sorry if I hurt your feelings, my dear
little ger'rl," said he, very gently.  "Dis circoomstance has given
me a bad list to poort.  But you are a very yoong girl und dis fella
should know better dan to make love to you.  Yoost der same, perhaps
I haf not been so fair as I might be.  I am sorry.  I moost t'ink it
over by myself.  For der present, please do not say anyt'ing to
anybody, my dear."

"Of course not, Uncle Chris."  Hermione saw that he evidently wished
to be alone, so she turned and stole quietly out, leaving Heldstrom
sitting upon the big sea-chest, his eyes fixed upon the bulkhead.

In the saloon Hermione found her father, somewhat the worse for the
wear and tear of his poker party, but ferociously devouring ham and
eggs.

"Been thinkin' it over," said he, crossly, "and I've come to the
conclusion that we've had about enough o' this fool Applebo.  Folks
are beginning to talk.  The boys were joshing me last night about my
pilot-fish.  I'm goin' to tell him to chuck it."

"You needn't bother," Hermione answered; "I have already told him to."

"Huh..." growled Bell, staring at her over his plate.  "When did you
do that?"

"An hour or so ago.  I ran into him out there in the fog."

Bell frowned, hesitated a minute as though undecided whether to be
relieved at having the duty taken off his hands or resentful of
Hermione's forwardness.  Not feeling quite up to a row,
intellectually, he said nothing, but attacked his eggs with increased
savagery.

"Well, then," said he, presently, "there ain't any use in making the
run to Bermuda.  Let's go around to Newport; I'm sick of this hole.
I've got to run into town this morning, but I'll be out early, and,
if the muck has blown off, we'll start right out."

Hermione agreed.  Cécile was indifferent, and all places looked alike
to Paula and Huntington Wood.  And so it was that midnight found the
_Shark_ beating out across Massachusetts Bay against a fresh gale
from the southeast.  Slow she might be, but it had to blow very hard
to keep the old schooner from getting to windward, while her great
beam and high sides made her comfortable under any weather condition.

Rather to Bell's surprise, for he had expected opposition, Heldstrom
made no demur about going to sea in what looked like the start of a
hard storm.  In fact, the old Norwegian seemed impatient to get under
way.

"Yoost a little vind und r'rain..." said he.  "Double r'reef der
mainsail."

Daylight found the schooner snoring along well off the Cape.  It was
blowing hard, very hard, and many big fishermen had passed them,
flying for the shelter of Provincetown, but so far the only
shortening of canvas aboard the _Shark_ was the two reefs in her
mainsail.

"It does not look very goot," Heldstrom observed to Bell, who
relieved him to take the morning watch.  "Der fishermen are all
getting in out of it."

"It's blowin' too hard to fish," said Bell, "but it's a fine breeze
for a sail.  This is just our meat.  I'll keep on standin' out on
this leg so's to make a reach of it into The Vineyard.  It's clear
enough."

Heldstrom went below, and Bell, toward the end of his watch, deciding
that he was far enough to windward to make a good slant of it into
Nantucket Sound, gave the order, "Ready about," and a minute later,
when the scant crew had scrambled aft to trim the mainsheet and one
hand was standing by to hold the forestaysail aback, Bell turned and
made a circular motion with his hand to the quartermaster at the
wheel.

"Hard-a-lee...!" he bawled, in his fat, husky voice.

The schooner was by this time in a very nasty, choppy sea-way, the
tide setting her strongly against the hard southeaster and the water
all about combing and frothing almost like a tide-rip.  The old yacht
was plunging heavily, and altogether the conditions for bringing her
smartly about were far from favourable.  To begin with, every pitch
of her bluff bows checked her headway; again, the three reefs in her
mainsail gave her a bit of a lee helm, while the watch was not strong
enough to trim her mainsheet smartly, but merely gathered in the
slack of it as she swung up to meet the wind.  But, worst of all, the
hand who was holding the forestaysail aback let it get away from him
just as the sail was about to fill and swing the schooner's head.
And so it befell that the schooner missed her stays.

Pitching and bucking and jerking her big, heavy spars, the _Shark_
hung in irons, while the gale thundered through her slack sails and
the breaking water all about roared and lashed and flung its
wind-driven spray high into the volleying canvas.  The big main-boom
was lashing up and down in a terrifying manner, and the slackened
sheet-ropes rattled and banged their big blocks as though to snatch
the heavy iron travellers out by the roots.

Bell was furious.  "Missed stays, by the eternal!" he roared.  "Who's
the scrub that let that headsail go?"

The uproar had brought Heldstrom on deck.  There was no particular
danger, beyond the straining to the gear one may always expect when a
big, heavy sailing-vessel gets in irons and thrashes around in a
sea-way.  But this has always to be considered.

"Oop here, you lubbers!" thundered the old Norwegian to the watch
below.  The hands were tumbling up when from forward there came a
most appalling crash, and the next instant Bell's horrified eyes saw
the bowsprit jerked suddenly upward.  The jib-boom was springing like
a whip, then snapping its martingale-stays it followed the bowsprit.
A sickening, grinding, splintering roar followed.

Heldstrom's great voice rose above the crash and clamour.

"R'run forvards ... all hands...!" he roared.  "Here's come der
spars!"

Hardly had he spoken when the foremast swayed for an instant,
drunkenly, and then came roaring down, the foresail ballooning under
it.  Heldstrom's warning had not been needed.  What was happening was
plain to every man on deck.  The vicious plunges of the old yacht had
carried away the bob-stay, from the terrific strain of the jerking
spars.  The masts, left thus with no forward stay and no lateral
strain from the sails to be shared by the shrouds, were doomed to
destruction.

Heldstrom blared out afresh.

"Forvards!  All hands r'run forvards...!  Forvards, zir!"

His voice was lost in the uproar.  The foremast had fallen at a
slight angle, which took it across the port rail, a little abaft the
beam.  Bell, as he watched its descent, had sprung to the starboard
side.  Olesen, the quartermaster at the wheel, stood fast.  He was
holding his helm hard up, nautical instinct telling him that, if he
could only get the wind over the starboard bow, the wreckage would be
carried clear of the hull.

"Leave der v'veel!" bawled Heldstrom, for the mainmast was swaying
with every plunge.

Olesen, seeing his efforts of no avail, sprang clear.  Even as he did
so down came the mainmast, straight aft, its fall at first checked by
the forward spread of the shrouds.  It demolished everything on the
quarter-deck, its upper fragment smashing from the lower across the
stern.

A sudden hush followed.  That is to say, the hush was a comparative
one, for the fallen masts were rolling and grinding back and forth
across the decks as the hulk wallowed in the sea.  But, while the
wind was shrieking and the big combers crashing on all sides, there
was no longer the thundering of slack sails nor the slamming and
wrenching of heavy gears.  And then, as the schooner began to broach
to, a new menace arose.

The foremast had broken itself across the vessel's side and the upper
fragment, held by a mass of wreckage and the attached sail, floated
on the sea and with each successive roll began to batter at the
schooner's side.  Heldstrom saw that planking and frames could not
long withstand such mauling.  He rushed aft and secured an axe.

"Catch some turns on that spar!" he thundered.

The foremast, inboard, was quickly secured.  The hull had swung
slowly, the wreckage abeam acting as a drag.  Heavy seas began to
break over the port bow, while at each instant the battering of the
floating fragment of the foremast became more appalling.

Heldstrom, axe in hand, swarmed out upon the spar.  Heavy, crumbling
seas threatened to carry him off bodily, and at times, when the
schooner rolled into a combing wave, he would quite disappear from
sight.  In spite of this he continued to work himself out by inches
until at the end of the broken spar, where, watching his chance, he
hacked through the tangle of ropes, when the floating wreckage
drifted astern.  His work was barely done when a brimming sea hurtled
up abeam, tore the spar from its lashings, and, lifting it bodily,
flung it across the schooner's deck.

Bell was the first to reach Heldstrom as he lay crushed beneath the
spar.  With the aid of Olesen and another man he carried him below,
where, at the foot of the companion, he found the three girls with
Wood, who was trying to reassure them.

"Dismasted!" panted Bell.  "Heldstrom's badly hurt.  Look after him."

He went on deck and told the carpenter to sound the well.  The hulk,
held by the wreckage which had drifted astern, was swinging slowly.
All hands on deck were driven forward by the wash of the sea, finally
taking refuge on the t'gallant forecastle, for, as has been said, the
_Shark_ was of old-fashioned design.  Her stern foul of the wreckage
and the high bows offering a purchase to the wind, she finally lay
stern to the sea, which came in a little on the starboard quarter.

For the moment there seemed no immediate danger, so Bell went below
again through the galley hatch.  He found Heldstrom unconscious,
lying on a transome, his head pillowed on the lap of Hermione, who,
very pale but quite composed, was wiping away the blood as it
trickled from his lips.  Wood was talking in a soothing voice to
Cécile.  Paula was crouched on the transome, her hand in that of her
lover.  As Bell was telling them what had happened, the carpenter
came in.

"She is leaking badly, zir," said he.  "Und der boats vas all smashed
to splinders."

"Man the pumps," said Bell, briefly.  "There's no danger," he added,
in a quiet voice.  "There's timber enough in her to float us if she
fills flush-up."

All had occurred so quickly as to be almost impossible of
realisation.  Ten minutes before the ancient yacht had been ploughing
staunchly to windward in the teeth of what had become a hard blow.
The tearing out of a cubic foot or so of dry-rotted stem and she was
become a dismasted, sinking hulk.  Even her boats were gone, those
not crushed by the falling spars having been torn to splinters by the
writhing shrouds.

Of all her people it was hardest, perhaps, for Huntington Wood to
appreciate this violent change of condition, the others having lived
most of their lives afloat.  Cécile, after her first frightened
outburst, had got herself in hand and was huddled among the cushions
of the transome, white but silent.

"You say she will float?" Wood asked of Bell.

"Yes ... but she's goin' to be deuced uncomfortable, once she's
a-wash.  She must have spewed out her caulking from the wrenchin' on
the maststeps, and like as not she's opened up along the
garboard-strake.  But we don't need to worry.  Somebody'll sight us
through the day.  This place is like the corner of Fifth Avenue and
Twenty-third Street.  Cheer up, girls ... and Heldstrom is goin' to
pull around all right, you see.  I'll take a peep below.  Steward,
push your eyes back into your head and get me a lantern!"


But nothing did sight the _Shark_ throughout the day, and nightfall
found her very deep.  She was drifting sluggishly in a northwesterly
direction, but, waterlogged as she was, this drift was very slight.

All hands had slaved unceasingly at the pumps.  Bell, the grouty
valetudinarian, was the pillar of strength upon whom all had come to
lean.  He had got a wipe across the forehead from a wire shroud and
this had plentifully bled him and done him a world of good.  Certain
ones of the crew had wished to knock together a life-raft, but Bell
answered:

"This hulk is the best raft.  She'll float you till this place
freezes, and then you can skate ashore.  Carpenter, empty all the
fresh-water tanks.  The scuttle butt will last until we leave her and
the tanks will float a lot of weight."

After dark Heldstrom regained consciousness.  He was still lying in
the saloon, and Hermione was crouching at his head.  Heldstrom's
first words were:

"Are ve filling?"

"Yes," answered Hermione, gently, "but there is no danger.  Papa says
that she will float."

Heldstrom fought for a minute to get his breath.

"She vill or she vill not.  Your fadder figured it out, und he is a
navy expert und dey are generally wr'rong.  T'eoretically she might
float; practically, she might not.  Your fadder figures on der
floating power of vood, not of punk.  Tell him to fire some
rockets...."

And he lost consciousness again.

A little after midnight the water drove them from below.  A shelter
was rigged on the t'gallant forecastle and all hands took refuge
there.  The wreck was lying stern to sea and the combers were
breaking across the waist.  The gale had not abated, but the wind was
hauling, and now and again there would come a lightening of the sky
and a breaking in the scud, through which an old moon shone pallidly.

"Beginnin' to clear," said Bell, cheerfully.  "Bet you what you like
we will be sighted before first-drink time.  Any takers?"

There was no answer.  Captain Bell took a few turns on the slippery
deck, then paused by the windlass to stare out into the storm-driven
murk.

"Too bad the _Daffodil_ went out ahead of us," said he, turning to
Hermione.  "If ever a shark stood in need of her pilot-fish, then
this one does."

At the word "pilot-fish" there came a stir from the tarpaulin-covered
figure of Heldstrom.  Then the low but resonant tones of the dying
Norseman reached the ears of Bell, who was still leaning against the
windlass.

"What's that?" asked Bell.  "What does he say?"

Hermione raised her pallid face and looked steadfastly into the gloom
to leeward.

"What was that he told you, my dear?" asked her father.

"Uncle Chris told me something which I already knew," she answered,
in a steady voice.  "We have only to wait a little longer.  Our
Pilot-fish is coming."




CHAPTER XVII

The glass was rising and the dawn coming faintly when the _Daffodil_
stole from the shelter of Provincetown and headed out into the
turmoil of Massachusetts Bay.  The yawl was under her forestaysail, a
storm gaff-trysail, and a scrap of mizzen.  Applebo's plan was to
reach out to sea, shaping his course around the Cape as the wind
hauled, which he felt certain that it would, and not try to beat
against the gale with its nasty swell.

For such a boat as the _Daffodil_ there was no great danger.  She was
solid as a wooden shoe, with an uncommonly high freeboard, a generous
beam, and deep enough to stand up against the sling of the foaming
crests.  Although but thirty feet on the water-line, she was "all
boat" and the equivalent of much larger vessels of a different type.
Also, she had been constructed for water of this sort, and had a low
cabin-trunk and a small, shallow, self-bailing cockpit.  Really, the
only thing exposed to damage was the man at the wheel, and his first
duty was to so handle her as to keep out of danger.

The scud was rapidly breaking away as the _Daffodil_ slipped down
past Race Point Light and headed out for the open.  The wind was
harder, if anything, but as the yawl encountered the first bad water
the sun pushed over the horizon and a long, rich beam of
golden-yellow flashed out between the sea and the low-flying
storm-clouds.  It found the little scraps of sail on the _Daffodil_
and bathed them in a golden light.

"An augury...!" said Applebo.  "I like that.  It cheers me up."  And
he called to the Finn to take the wheel while he prepared some
macaroons and tea.

Well clear of Cape Cod, the yawl got her first taste of what was
coming, when Applebo was greatly reassured at her splendid behaviour.
Luckily, the tide had turned and was running with the sea, which had
lengthened out and, though of dismaying size, appeared to be kindly
disposed.  A landsman and many deep-sea sailors would have said that
every moment was fraught with great peril for the little _Daffodil_,
but Applebo and the Finn were of that species of human amphibian
which lives in the closest and most intimate association with the
sea--the offshore, small-boat sailor.  Such know the sea as none
other.  The big-ship mariner knows it only as a sailor, but he who
goes down to the deep in the little shallop knows it as does the
gull; knows each flaw of the breeze as it strikes up from the flank
of some mammoth surge; knows the cross-slap of a brimming wave and
the upward throw as it mounts to comb.

The day lightened.  Suddenly the sun blazed out again to reveal the
wind-torn waste as a seething cauldron.  The spouting billows leaped
to flash their jewelled tiaras in the vivid brilliance of the
streaming light.  Storm gulls wheeled and wove and darted and
screamed their greetings to the day.  Petrels darted like swallows.
The ocean grew joyous in a wild and lawless abandon, leaping with
drunken frenzy, the billows playing like titan creatures of the deep,
flashing and flinging their silvery scales, and their shoutings arose
in a revel of hoarse clamours that might have been song or curse.

Through this wild carouse drove the _Daffodil_, and seemed to enjoy
her rough handling by these sea-runners, as some buxom wench might
take pleasure in a romp with rough sailormen.  The wind roared more
westerly and cocked aslant the white bonnets of the staggering seas.
Spindrift, glittering like gems strewn with a wanton hand, flew clean
to the truck of the little yawl, and a rainbow blazed and faded and
blazed again under her plunging bows.  Brighter grew the sun and
harder blew the wind, while back rolled the grey blanket of the storm
and showed a patch of sky blue and purple and amethyst, still fringed
about with a ragged veil.  The sea suggested snow falling on a field
of sapphires.

Now, the yawl wallowed in a maelstrom of mad water, while the day
grew more and more glorious.  All in an hour's time.

Applebo had taken the wheel again, and the Finn was crouched at the
foot of the mainmast.  He had taken the end of a halliard and caught
a turn around his body and the spar, for several times the little
vessel had been swept by the heavy crest of a comber.  Applebo was at
times sitting in water waist-deep.

Suddenly the Finn burst into a wild, inspiring chant and his
beautiful, throaty tenor reached Applebo to send the warm blood
coursing through his body.  He knew the lay.  The Finn sang it often
at sea when the wind blew.  Rising as it did above the deep diapason,
Applebo found it good and lent his bass to the chant, and so, to the
accompaniment of wind and sea, these two sang their chantey
full-throated against the gale.  They sang in the Norwegian tongue,
and their pæan translated would be thus:--

  "_We have quenched our winter fires, and our faces turned away
  From the land of dead desires to a new and glorious day;
  Now the deep unfolds before us; cloud and sun-band score the sea;
  In our ears a wind-wave chorus, far astern a darkening lea...._"


Seaward plunged the _Daffodil_, exulting as those she bore.  Joyous
and full-throated sang Applebo and his Finn, while the high west wind
drove back the lowering storm-clouds, as Michael and his angels might
have sent fleeing the hosts of Satan.  Triumphantly sang Applebo,
and, as he sang, a scant ten miles away his father lay dying while
Hermione looked upon his death and wondered how long it would be
before she met him, just beyond, and if her dear Uncle Chris would
guide her steps in that Life as he had in this.

And the Finn, with his second-sight?  Perhaps the Finn, warlock that
he was and dwelling a little in both worlds, knew that things were as
they should be.  Perhaps he knew nothing, and all was coincidence.
At any rate, it happened that a little later Applebo's eye was caught
by a flash of colour that had no part in the chromatic scheme of sky
and sea.  He saw a flash of red, then lost it, then saw it again.

"What is that?" he bawled, and pointed to leeward.

The Finn looked at him, his head turned far to the side.  Applebo
noted his odd, flashing smile.

"It is a vessel dismasted and sinking, master.  Her people are
clinging to her decks, and the sea is washing over them."

* * * * * *

There are a number of nautical problems more simple than that of
transferring passengers from a waterlogged hulk to a little yawl in a
heavy sea.  But Applebo and the Finn belonged, as has been said, to
the gull breed, and they went about their task quite naturally.

On sighting the capsized ensign and the wreck beneath it, Applebo
dropped down and hove to the yawl as close under the lee of the
schooner as he dared.  Olesen then drifted astern to the yawl a buoy
with a line attached.  This line was fast to a snatch-block, riding
the hawser and holding in its sister-hooks a bowline in a bight.
When Applebo presently got the signal to haul in, there arrived a
Swede in a life-preserver, slung in the bowline.  The sailor had been
sent first to test the apparatus, and from him Applebo quickly
learned the details of the disaster.

"You say that Captain Heldstrom is badly hurt?" asked Applebo.

"He iss dying, zir," answered the man.

Paula arrived next, and then Cécile, both badly spent from strain and
exposure, Cécile semi-unconscious from her ducking _en route_, so
that, after she had been got clear of her lashings, two of the men
had to carry her below.  Hermione came next, her blue eyes blazing
like sapphires from her colourless face and her high spirit undaunted.

"They tied me in this thing by force!" she cried to Applebo.  "I
wanted to stay with Uncle Chris.  He is conscious now and refuses to
be moved."


When only Bell, Olesen, and Heldstrom were left aboard the hulk,
Applebo swung himself into the bowline and signalled to Olesen to
haul in.  The hawser led over the cat-heads, which were a-wash as the
sea welled up under them.  Applebo swung himself aboard.

Heldstrom was lying on a grating rigged up so that it was clear of
the swash across the deck.  As Applebo looked over him he opened his
eyes.  They were bright and intent as ever, but it needed but a
glance at the waxy face to see that the end was very near.

"My son..." he said, and closed his eyes again.

Bell, who thought that his mind was wandering, looked at Applebo.

"How are we to move him?" he asked.  "Every bone in his body must be
broken!"

Heldstrom's eyes opened again.

"You moost not move me," he said.  "I vill go down wit' der schooner.
It does not matter.  Efery bone in my body iss broken, but I do not
care, because my hear'rt vas broken long ago.  Now leave me, for der
wessel iss wery deep."

The three men stared at each other, perplexed.  To lash a man in
Heldstrom's condition into a life-preserver, sling him into the
bowline, and drag him through the sea to the yawl seemed a useless
cruelty.  Yet, how could they leave him?

"Are you floating or sinking?" asked Applebo.

"We've been like this since daylight.  Olesen says she's still
settling a little...."

For several minutes they stood there, irresolute, unable to decide
what they should do.  As long as Heldstrom lived there was no thought
of leaving him.  To try to move him, on the contrary, would be merely
to kill him outright.  No doubt it occurred to all three that the
wreck might suddenly refuse to rise from one of her slow, heavy
plunges and that in that case there would be no time for them to gain
the yawl!  Applebo had thought of this when he went aboard her, and
had instructed the Finn to stand by to slip the hawser if he saw the
hulk about to sink.

"You two go aboard the yawl!" said Applebo.  "I will stay until the
end ... or till she sinks."

Bell turned to Olesen.

"Get in the bowline...!" said he.

Olesen hesitated.

"Obey orders, my man!" snapped Bell.  Olesen, trained to discipline,
climbed sulkily into the apparatus and, scorning the life-preserver,
was hauled aboard the _Daffodil_.  Once aboard, Applebo hauled back
the sling.

"You go, sir," said he.

"Go yourself!" snapped Bell.  "Think I'm goin' to leave an old friend
like that?  Go yourself."

"He is my father," said Applebo.

Leaning on the windlass, with the fresh nor'wester roaring out of a
sky like crystal, the spray flying over them, and the water swashing
about their feet, Applebo told his story to Bell while the two waited
for Heldstrom to die.  And, as he finished and Bell was staring at
him with round goggle eyes, his fat face haggard and colourless,
there came from somewhere in the water-soaked hull an odd, jarring
explosion and a mass of froth welled up into the waist.

"There goes one o' the water-tanks," said Bell.  "I had 'em emptied
and plugged, to buoy us.  She may sink now."

The concussion seemed to have aroused Heldstrom.  He opened his eyes.

"Go...!" said he.  "I t'ink she vas settling."

Neither man moved.  And then it seemed as though Heldstrom for the
first time understood.

"Ho!" he cried, and the strength came into his voice again and the
brightness into his eyes.

"So it vas because of me that you wait?  Ha ... that it is fine!  But
you must not!"  He looked at Bell.  "You have dose little ger'rls..."
The blue eyes softened.  "Go, my old friend.  Gif me your hand und
go...!"

Bell, the tears gushing from his eyes, took the bloodless hand in
his, squeezed, then dropped it.  Heldstrom looked at Applebo.

"Kiss me ... my son," said he.

Applebo knelt and kissed him.

A sea broke in the waist and the wash boiled thigh-deep over the
quarter-deck.  It splashed over Heldstrom as he lay on the staging.
The cold water seemed to rouse him.  He hove himself upright and
flung both arms aloft.

"To God....!" he cried, and fell back, dead.


Bell looked at Applebo.

"We've no time to lose..."  said he.  "She's going."

"I'll take his body with me to the yawl," said Applebo.  "I suppose
you want to be the last to leave your ship."

"Of course," said Bell, quietly.




CHAPTER XVIII

Our saga closes far from the sea and the sad tales it has to tell.
Here were fresh odours of moss and fern in place of the salt ones of
brine and sedge.  The murmur of the wind in the tall pines is sweeter
far than wave-talk ... but there were other murmurs of which we must
take account.

At the foot of a tall pine were Hermione and Applebo.  Behind them
the late autumn woods and at their feet a small expanse of crystal
water, smooth as a mirror except where broke by the rush of some avid
trout.  A glorious jewel of a lake was this, rimmed about with
emeralds and rubies, set in gold and reflecting an azure as pure as
it is possible for an Adirondack sky to hold.

On the far shore nestled a little camp in a clump of beeches and a
thin column of blue wood-smoke rose straight into the still, spicy
air.  From the shadowed bank to the right came the flash of a
canoe-paddle and a splash of crimson colour.

If Hermione and her lover were Nereid and Triton when we saw them
down there by the sea, here, then, they were of the forest.  A Diana
in hunter's green was the girl; a little green felt hat with a
partridge feather, green flannel blouse, short skirt, gaitered as to
her shapely limbs, bright of cheek and eye, and the red ribbon in her
glossy hair.

Applebo, for his part, smacked more of the Engadine than of the North
Woods, being, as was usual with him, slightly overdressed.  He had
arrived at the camp but two hours before, driving a badly treated
motor-car, of which the Finn was the inefficient mechanician.  Nor
did it appear to the occupants of the camp, watching them arrive,
that there existed between the fabric and its crew that perfect
sympathy to be found when they were aboard the _Daffodil_.  The name
of this voiturette was the "Cowslip," but as Wood, standing with his
arm around Paula, whispered in her coral ear, a better name would
have been the "Side-slip."

"Just what did papa say," enquired Hermione, "when you told him that
you wanted to marry me?"

"He said: 'The...'  Well, you can imagine what he said ... hand me
the pepper; these trout are just _au point_!"

"What did you say?"

"I did not say anything.  I should have known better than to have
tackled him when he was cooking.  But, as he seems to do nothing but
cook, that would mean to hang about indefinitely, and I've got to
start back in two hours."

"Well ... what did he say, finally?" demanded Hermione, with
impatience..

Applebo gave her his laziest and most maddening look.  Hermione
reached for her stick, and he proceeded more briskly.

"He said, after the trout were finished, 'Huh ... h'm ... so you want
to marry Cécile, do you?"

"'No, sir,' said I; 'Hermione.'

"'Why,' said he, 'Hermione!  What are you talkin' about?  Why, you
cradle-robber, Hermione's only a kid!"

Hermione snorted.

"I told him," continued Applebo, with maddening languor, "that I
quite agreed with him; that you were a simple, untutored child, quite
too young to know your own mind, impulsive, undisciplined..."

_Thwack!_

"Ow...!"

"What else?" demanded Hermione, ominously.

"I explained to him that, while in the majority of cases it was a
very undesirable thing for a girl to be married as young as nineteen,
yet in our case there might be certain advantages...."

"Such as..."

"Well..."  Applebo regarded her warily, edging a little away.  "I
pointed out the fact that, if a man ever expected to live in peace
with a lady of such violent disposition as his youngest daughter's,
it was of inestimable advantage to catch her young and then train
her...."

_Thwack!!_

"Ouch!  Do you think that is a nice way to treat your fiancé?"

"What did papa say to that?"

"He heartily agreed with me.  After that he gave his consent and we
had a drink on it.  He had several.  Then he happened to think of a
partridge that he'd left in the oven, and bolted off.  I had a
feeling that, if anything had gone wrong with the partridge, he might
blame me and withdraw his favour, so I escaped and came here to tell
you the glad news.  And you whack me with a stick..."

_Thwack!!!_

But the lady who tames lions must not forget that, after all, they
are far stronger than she, and the next second Hermione found herself
in an embrace which left her not so much as the power to wriggle,
while her breathing was momentarily suspended by certain processes
which, while damaging to the respiration, are never fatal, owing to
their stimulating effect upon the heart.

And this no doubt was precisely what she wanted!



THE END









*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76293 ***