The White Mice Part 14

"Roddy," he asked, "what sort of a girl is Inez Rojas?"

His eyes still seeking the figure on the rocks, and without turning his head, Roddy answered with startling directness:

"What sort of a girl?" he growled. "The sort of a girl _I_ am going to marry!"

More moved than he knew, and thinking himself secure in the excited babel about him and in the fact that the others spoke in Spanish, Roddy had raised his voice. He was not conscious he had done so until, as he spoke, he saw a man leaning on the rail with his back toward him, give an involuntary start. Furious with himself, Roddy bit his lip, and with impatience waited for the man to disclose himself. For a moment the stranger remained motionless, and then, obviously to find out who had spoken, slowly turned his head. Roddy found himself looking into the glowing, angry eyes of Pino Vega. Of the two men, Roddy was the first to recover. With eagerness he greeted the Venezuelan; with enthusiasm he expressed his pleasure at finding him among his fellow-pa.s.sengers, he rejoiced that Colonel Vega no longer was an exile. The Venezuelan, who had approached trembling with resentment, sulkily murmured his thanks. With a hope that sounded more like a threat that they would soon meet again, he begged to be allowed to rejoin his friends.

"Now you've done it!" whispered Peter cheerily. "And he won't let it rest there, either."

"Don't you suppose I know that better than you do," returned Roddy miserably. He beat the rail with his fist. "It should not have happened in a thousand years," he wailed. "He must not know I have ever even seen her."

"He _does_ know," objected Peter, coming briskly to the point. "What are you going to do?"

"Lie to him," said Roddy. "He is an old friend of the family. She told me so herself. She thought even of appealing to him before she appealed to us. If he finds out I have met her alone at daybreak, I have either got to tell him why we met and what we are trying to do, or he'll believe, in his nasty, suspicious, Spanish-American way, that I am in love with her, and that she came there to let me tell her so."

Roddy turned on Peter savagely.

"_Why_ didn't you stop me?" he cried.

"Stop _you_--talking too much?" gasped Peter. "Is that my position? If it is, I resign."

The moon that night threw black shadows of shrouds, and ratlines across a deck that was washed by its radiance as white as a bread-board. In the social hall, the happy exiles were rejoicing noisily, but Roddy stood apart, far forward, looking over the s.h.i.+p's side and considering bitterly the mistake of the morning. His melancholy self-upbraidings were interrupted by a light, alert step, and Pino Vega, now at ease, gracious and on guard, stood bowing before him.

"I do not intrude?" he asked.

Roddy, at once equally on guard, bade him welcome.

"I have sought you out," said the Venezuelan pleasantly, "because I would desire a little talk with you. I believe we have friends in common."

"It is possible," said Roddy. "I have been in Porto Cabello about four months now."

"It was not of Porto Cabello that I spoke," continued Vega, "but of Curacao." He looked into Roddy's eyes suddenly and warily, as a swordsman holds the eyes of his opponent. "I did not understand," he said, "that you knew the Rojas family?"

"I do not know them," answered Roddy.

Vega turned his back to the moon, so that his face was in shadow. With an impatient gesture he flicked his cigarette into the sea. As though he found Roddy's answer unsatisfactory, he paused. He appeared to wish that Roddy should have a chance to reconsider it. As the American remained silent, Vega continued, but his tone now was openly hostile.

"I have been Chief of Staff to General Rojas for years," he said. "I have the honor to know his family well. Senora Rojas treats me as she did her son, who was my dearest friend. I tell you this to explain why I speak of a matter which you may think does not concern me. This morning, entirely against my will, I overheard you speaking to your friend. He asked you of a certain lady. You answered boldly you intended to marry her." Vega's voice shook slightly, and he paused to control it. "Now, you inform me that you are not acquainted with the Rojas family. What am I to believe?"

"I am glad you spoke of that," said Roddy heartily. "I saw that you overheard us, and I was afraid you'd misunderstand me----"

The Venezuelan interrupted sharply.

"I am well acquainted with your language!"

"You speak it perfectly," Roddy returned, "but you did not understand it as I spoke it. The young lady is well known in Willemstad. Our Consul, as you are aware, is her friend. He admires her greatly. He told me that she is half American. She has been educated like an American girl, she rides, she plays tennis. What my friend said to me was, 'What sort of a girl is Senorita Rojas?' and I answered, 'She is the sort of girl I am going to marry,' meaning she is like the girls in my own country, one of our own people, like one of the women I some day hope to marry."

Roddy smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"Now do you understand?" he asked.

The Venezuelan gave no answering smile. His eyes shone with suspicion.

Roddy recognized that between his desire to believe and some fact that kept him from believing, the man was acutely suffering.

"Tell me, in a word," demanded Vega sharply, "give me your word you do not know her."

"I don't see," said Roddy, "that this is any of your d.a.m.ned business!"

The face of Vega checked him. At his refusal to answer, Roddy saw the look of jealousy that came into the man's eyes and the torment it brought with it. He felt a sudden pity for him, a certain respect as for a fellow-sufferer. He himself had met Inez Rojas but twice, but, as he had told her, he knew now why he had come to Venezuela. This older man had known Inez for years, and to Roddy, arguing from his own state of mind regarding her, the fact was evidence enough that Vega must love her also. He began again, but now quietly, as he would argue with a child.

"I see no reason for making any mystery of it," he said. "I did meet Miss Rojas. But I can't say I know her. I met her when she was out riding with her groom. I thought she was an American. She needed some help, which I was able to give her. That is all."

Vega approached Roddy, leaning forward as though he were about to spring on him. His eyes were close to Roddy's face.

"And what was the nature of this help?" he demanded.

"You are impertinent," said Roddy.

"Answer me!" cried the Venezuelan. "I have the right. No one has a better right."

He flung up his right arm dramatically, and held it tense and trembling, as though it were poised to hurl a weapon.

"You were watched!" he cried hysterically. "I _know_ that you met. And you tried to deceive me. Both of you. She will try, also----"

The moonlight disappeared before the eyes of Colonel Vega, and when again he opened them he was looking dizzily up at the swaying masts and yards. Roddy, with his hand at Vega's throat, was forcing his shoulders back against the rail. His free hand, rigid and heavy as a hammer, swung above the Venezuelan's face.

"Yesterday," panted Roddy, "I saved your life. If you insult that girl with your dirty, Latin mind, so help me--I will _take_ it!"

He flung the man from him, but Vega, choking with pain and mortification, staggered forward.

"It is _you_ who insult her," he shrieked. "It is I who protect her.

Do you know _why_? Do you know what she is to me? She is my promised wife!"

For a moment the two men stood, swaying with the gentle roll of the s.h.i.+p, staring into each other's eyes. Above the sound of the wind in the cordage and the whisper of the water against the s.h.i.+p's side, Roddy could hear himself breathing in slow, heavy respirations. Not for an instant did he doubt that the man told the truth. Vega had spoken with a conviction that was only too genuine, and his statement, while it could not justify, seemed to explain his recent, sudden hostility. With a sharp effort, Roddy recovered himself. He saw that no matter how deeply the announcement might affect him, Vega must believe that to the American it was a matter of no possible consequence.

"You should have told me this at first," he said quietly. "I thought your questions were merely impertinent."

Roddy hesitated. The interview had become poignantly distasteful to him. He wished to get away; to be alone. He was conscious that a possibility had pa.s.sed out of his life, the thought of which had been very dear to him. He wanted to think, to plan against this new condition. In discussing Inez with this man, in this way, he felt he was degrading her and his regard for her. But he felt also that for her immediate protection he must find out what Vega knew and what he suspected. With the purpose of goading him into making some disclosure, Roddy continued insolently:

"And I still think they are impertinent."

Roddy's indignation rose and got the upper hand. He cast caution aside.

"With us," he continued, "when a woman promises to marry a man--he does not spy on her."

"We spied on _you_," protested Vega. "We did not think it would lead us to----"

Roddy cut him off with a sharp cry of warning.