The Girl on the Boat Part 20

"Never mind," said Sam coldly, "where I had got to! Where did you get to and why? You poor, miserable worm," he went on in a burst of generous indignation, "what have you to say for yourself? What do you mean by das.h.i.+ng away like that and killing my little entertainment?"

"Awfully sorry, old man. I hadn't foreseen the cigar. I was bearing up tolerably well till I began to sniff the smoke. Then everything seemed to go black--I don't mean you, of course. You were black already--and I got the feeling that I simply must get on deck and drown myself."

"Well, why didn't you?" demanded Sam with a strong sense of injury. "I might have forgiven you then. But to come down here and find you singing...."

A soft light came into Eustace Hignett's eyes.

"I want to tell you all about that," he said.

"It's the most astonis.h.i.+ng story. A miracle, you might almost call it.

Makes you believe in Fate and all that kind of thing. A week ago I was on the Subway in New York...."

He broke off while Sam cursed him, the Subway, and the city of New York in the order named.

"My dear chap, what is the matter?"

"What is the matter? Ha!"

"Something is the matter," persisted Eustace Hignett. "I can tell it by your manner. Something has happened to disturb and upset you. I know you so well that I can pierce the mask. What is it? Tell me!"

"Ha, ha!"

"You surely can't still be brooding on that concert business? Why, that's all over. I take it that after my departure you made the most colossal a.s.s of yourself, but why let that worry you? These things cannot affect one permanently."

"Can't they? Let me tell you that, as a result of that concert, my engagement is broken off."

Eustace sprang forward with outstretched hand.

"Not really? How splendid! Accept my congratulations! This is the finest thing that could possibly have happened. These are not idle words. As one who has been engaged to the girl himself, I speak feelingly. You are well out of it, Sam."

Sam thrust aside his hand. Had it been his neck he might have clutched it eagerly, but he drew the line at shaking hands with Eustace Hignett.

"My heart is broken," he said with dignity.

"That feeling will pa.s.s, giving way to one of devout thankfulness. I know. I've been there. After all ... Wilhelmina Bennett ... what is she?

A rag and a bone and a hank of hair!"

"She is nothing of the kind," said Sam, revolted.

"Pardon me," said Eustace firmly, "I speak as an expert. I know her and I repeat, she is a rag and a bone and a hank of hair!"

"She is the only girl in the world, and, owing to your idiotic behaviour, I have lost her."

"You speak of the only girl in the world," said Eustace blithely. "If you want to hear about the only girl in the world, I will tell you. A week ago I was on the Subway in New York...."

"I'm going to bed," said Sam brusquely.

"All right. I'll tell you while you're undressing."

"I don't want to listen."

"A week ago," said Eustace Hignett, "I will ask you to picture me seated after some difficulty in a carriage in the New York Subway. I got into conversation with a girl with an elephant gun."

Sam revised his private commination service in order to include the elephant gun.

"She was my soul-mate," proceeded Eustace with quiet determination. "I didn't know it at the time, but she was. She had grave brown eyes, a wonderful personality, and this elephant gun."

"Did she shoot you with it?"

"Shoot me? What do you mean? Why, no!"

"The girl must have been a fool!" said Sam bitterly. "The chance of a lifetime and she missed it. Where are my pyjamas?"

"I haven't seen your pyjamas. She talked to me about this elephant gun, and explained its mechanism. She told me the correct part of a hippopotamus to aim at, how to make a nouris.h.i.+ng soup out of mangoes, and what to do when bitten by a Borneo wire-snake. You can imagine how she soothed my aching heart. My heart, if you recollect, was aching at the moment--quite unnecessarily if I had only known--because it was only a couple of days since my engagement to Wilhelmina Bennett had been broken off. Well, we parted at Sixty-sixth Street, and, strange as it may seem, I forgot all about her."

"Do it again!"

"Tell it again?"

"Good heavens, no! Forget all about her again."

"Nothing," said Eustace Hignett gravely, "could make me do that. Our souls have blended. Our beings have called to one another from their deepest depths, saying.... There are your pyjamas, over in the corner ... saying 'You are mine!' How could I forget her after that? Well, as I was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she was sailing on this very boat! But just now she came to me as I writhed on the deck...."

"Did you writhe?" asked Sam with a flicker of moody interest.

"I certainly did!"

"That's good!"

"But not for long."

"That's bad!"

"She came to me and healed me. Sam, that girl is an angel."

"Switch off the light when you've finished."

"She seemed to understand without a word how I was feeling. There are some situations which do not need words. She went away and returned with a mixture of some description in a gla.s.s. I don't know what it was. It had Worcester Sauce in it. She put it to my lips. She made me drink it.

She said it was what she always used in Africa for bull-calves with the staggers. Well, believe me or believe me not ... are you asleep?"

"Yes."

"Believe me or believe me not, in under two minutes I was not merely freed from the nausea caused by your cigar. I was smoking myself! I was walking the deck with her without the slightest qualm. I was even able to look over the side from time to time and comment on the beauty of the moon on the water.... I have said some mordant things about women since I came on board this boat. I withdraw them unreservedly. They still apply to girls like Wilhelmina Bennett, but I have ceased to include the whole s.e.x in my remarks. Jane Hubbard has restored my faith in Woman.

Sam! Sam!"

"What?"

"I said that Jane Hubbard had restored my faith in Woman."