The Honorable Percival Part 12

"But how can you like me when I'm all wrong?"

"I like you because of your possibilities. You've probably never met any one before who understood you as I do. Quite extraordinary the way you've improved since you came on board."

"And you've got fourteen days more to work on me! Do you think anybody will recognize me when I get back to Wyoming?"

"Now you are chaffing!" complained Percival. "You never take me seriously."

"Then you want me to be serious, and believe everything you say?"

He paused in awed contemplation of the direful consequences if she should, but for the life of him he couldn't stop.

"I want you to believe me," he said tenderly, "when I say that you've been most awfully sweet, and that I wouldn't give half a sovereign for any other girl's chances if you were within ten miles. I want you to know that I consider you the prettiest girl I've ever seen, and the most--"

Bobby tightened the rope about her waist.

"It's time for me to be going," she exclaimed in mock alarm, "If you keep on saying things like that, I may furnish another scalp to that collection you were telling me about. I don't dare stay another minute."

Neither did Percival. He followed her down the ladder as if he had been escaping from quicksands.

That night the crow's-nest was added to the prow on the list of places about a s.h.i.+p which the captain felt young ladies should stay away from.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You will have to join the crowd." suggested Bobby when Percival complained of not seeing her as often as he wished]

"You will have to join the crowd," suggested Bobby when Percival complained of not seeing her as often as he wished. "We sing up on the boat-deck every night, and now the moon is up, it's perfectly gorgeous."

But Percival's abhorrence of crowds made him hold out resolutely until the day before they were to land in j.a.pan. Everybody was making plans for the few days to be spent in port, and small parties were being formed to leave the steamer at Yokohama and join it three days later at Kobe. Percival was annoyed because the steamer had to stop at all.

Any interruption in the present routine was a nuisance. He vacillated between the inconvenience of going ash.o.r.e and the stupidity of remaining on board. An invitation from Mrs. Weston to join her party, and an insistent demand from Bobby Boynton, decided him. He made his preparations accordingly.

But an unforeseen incident occurred the night before the _Saluria_ landed which caused him suddenly to change his plans. He was just ready to go below for the night when an overmastering desire for one more word with Bobby seized him. By a bit of Machiavellian strategy he had outwitted Andy that afternoon, and had her entirely to himself for three blissful hours.

It was in their old haunt behind the wind-shelter, and he had taken the opportunity, if not to "shatter her to bits," at least "to remold her nearer to the heart's desire." He had done it with consummate tact, and she had responded with adorable docility. He never admired himself more than in the role of cicerone to a young and trusting maid. By the subtlest methods he knew how to convey approval or disapproval of anything from a beaded slipper to a moral sentiment. He could stir dormant ambition, rouse lagging courage, inspire patience, and all he demanded in return was unfaltering homage from the fair one.

In the present instance, however, the entire time was not devoted to correcting faults of manner and speech or to acquiring the higher Christian virtues. It was incredible how many things they found to talk about, considering the fact that art, literature, music, the drama, foreign travel, and London gossip were not among them. Bobby's way of diving unexpectedly from the general into the personal made a tete-a-tete with her peculiarly exhilarating.

The trouble was that the more one had, the more one wanted, and going to bed now without a parting word seemed to Percival really more than he had a right to ask of himself. He circled the deck several times in indecision, then he ascended the companionway and made his way aft.

A full moon hung high in the heavens, and a flood of silver poured in a dazzling stream across the level surface of the sea. The quarter-deck, the white boats amids.h.i.+ps, and all the bra.s.s work abaft the funnels reflected the radiance.

"See who is here!" cried the irrepressible Andy from an indistinguishable group that huddled together under steamer-rugs against the big blue-and-white smoke-stack.

"May I speak to Miss Boynton for a moment?" asked Percival, icily.

"I'm afraid I can't get out," said Bobby. "Elise is sitting on my feet, and Andy and I've got on the same sweater. There's a place for you here, if you will come."

It is really too undignified an act in the life of the Honorable Percival to chronicle, but before he had time to contradict his impulse, he had actually doubled up his long legs and crawled into the small s.p.a.ce Bobby made for him beside her. If she persisted in preferring this noisy bunch of inanity to a quiet stroll on the promenade-deck with him, then he supposed for the time being he must humor her.

Youth and love and moonlight at sea are a magic combination, however, and Percival soon decided that even though it was deuced uncomfortable to be huddled up like that, with both feet asleep, yet there were compensations.

"Sing!" commanded Bobby, and he joined obediently in the chorus. As the night wore on a caressing coolness crept into the air, and the crowd gathered into a closer group. Percival could feel Bobby breathing near him, and could look down undisturbed into her upturned face as she sang with pa.s.sionate abandon to the moon. She seemed to have entirely lost sight of her surroundings and was off on some high adventure of her own, leaving him free to watch her to his heart's content.

It was a situation fraught with danger; yet he lingered. He did more: he slipped his hand beneath the rug and sought cautiously for hers. As their palms met, and her small fingers closed responsively over his, such a thrill of satisfaction pa.s.sed over him as he had never felt before. His old wounds were suddenly healed, life became a pa.s.sionate love-song on a languorous, moonlit sea. But his ecstasy ceased with the music. Bobby's voice broke the spell with frightful distinctness:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "If you want to hold my hand, Mr. Has...o...b.., you are welcome to it."]

"If you want to hold my hand, Mr. Has...o...b.., you are welcome to it.

Andy's got the other one; but if you don't mind, we'll put them all together, like that, on top of the steamer-rug."

During the laugh that followed he managed to got to his feet and make his escape. He had never been so angry in his life; he even included himself in his devastating wrath. Why shouldn't he have been insulted, laughed at, jeered at! When one allows oneself to a.s.sociate with such people, he ought to expect such behavior.

_"Plebeians!_" he snarled as he jerked together the curtains of his berth and turned his face to the wall.

IX

DRAGGING ANCHOR

Of course, after what had happened, nothing could induce Percival to join the Weston party in j.a.pan. He left a note of formal regret, and hastened ash.o.r.e on the first launch in the morning. His one desire was to avoid those detestable young Americans, whose diabolical laughter had rung in his ears all night. The wounds received by vanity are never serious, but they are very hard to heal, and as Percival stopped ash.o.r.e in this strange land he felt that he was the most unhappy of mortals.

"Call a hansom," he demanded impatiently of Judson, who stood grinning at the queer sights on the hatoba.

"There ain't none, sir."

"Of course; I forgot. But how are we to get to the hotel?"

"Carn't say, sir, unless we go in a couple of them perambulators."

Percival took an instant dislike to a country that forced him to ride in a ridiculous vehicle, pulled by a small bare-legged brown man in a mushroom hat. All the way to the hotel he was unhappy in the conviction that he was making a spectacle of himself.

The rooms which he had engaged in advance were not satisfactory, and it was not until he had inspected all the suites that were unoccupied that he decided upon one that commanded a view of the bay. Once established therein, he despatched Judson for his mail and for any English papers that might be found, then took up his position by a front window and sternly watched the bund.

The picturesque harbor, full of sampans and junks, the gay streets, full of color and movement, the thousand unfamiliar sights and sounds, held no interest for the Honorable Percival. His whole attention was focused upon the jinrikishas that constantly arrived and departed at the entrance below.

He wanted to see Bobby's face and read there the signs of contrition, which he felt sure must have followed her unfeeling conduct of the night before. But he intended to punish her before he forgave. Such a violence to their friends.h.i.+p could not go unrebuked. Even when he received the note of apology which he felt sure she would send up the moment she reached the hotel, he would delay answering it. She must be made to suffer in order to profit by this unhappy experience.

His reflections were interrupted by a rap at the door, which called him away from the window. It proved to be a sleek Chinaman, who proffered his card, bearing the inscription:

"G. Lung Fat, Ladies' and Gents' Tailer."

G. Lung Fat, it seemed, had beheld Percival in the lobby and been greatly impressed with his bearing. It would be an honor, he urged, with the fervor of an artist craving permission to paint a subject that had captured his fancy, to cut, fit, and finish any number of garments for such a figure before the s.h.i.+p sailed on the morrow.

Percival was impressed. He examined the samples with the air of a connoisseur. Like most Englishmen, he had a weakness for light clothes and sun-helmets. The regalia suggested English supremacy in foreign lands. He had ordered his fourth suit and was earnestly considering a white dinner-jacket when familiar voices from the street below made him spring to the window.

It was Bobby Boynton and Andy Black, who were evidently setting forth in jinrikishas alone, Mrs. Weston and the other young people remaining to inspect the fascinating array of curios that were being displayed on the pavement. If any sorrow for past misdeeds dwelt in Bobby's bosom, there was certainly no trace of it on her face as she called gaily back over her shoulder:

"We are off for a lark; you needn't look for us until you see us."