The Girl on the Boat

Through the curtained windows of the furnished flat which Mrs. Horace Hignett had rented for her stay in New York, rays of golden sunlight peeped in like the foremost spies of some advancing army. It was a fine summer morning. The hands of the Dutch clock in the hall pointed to thirteen minutes past nine; those of the ormolu clock in the sitting-room to eleven minutes past ten; those of the carriage clock on the bookshelf to fourteen minutes to six. In other words, it was exactly eight; and Mrs. Hignett acknowledged the fact by moving her head on the pillow, opening her eyes, and sitting up in bed. She always woke at eight precisely.

Was this Mrs. Hignett the Mrs. Hignett, the world-famous writer on Theosophy, the author of “The Spreading Light,” “What of the Morrow,” and all the rest of that well-known series? I’m glad you asked me. Yes, she was. She had come over to America on a lecturing tour.

About this time there was a good deal of suffering in the United States, for nearly every boat that arrived from England was bringing a fresh swarm of British lecturers to the country. Novelists, poets, scientists, philosophers, and plain, ordinary bores; some herd instinct seemed to affect them all simultaneously. It was like one of those great race movements of the Middle Ages. Men and women of widely differing views on religion, art, politics, and almost every other subject; on this one point the intellectuals of Great Britain were single-minded,

Sam, balancing himself on the narrow, projecting ledge which the chart in the passenger-office had grandiloquently described as a lounge, began to feel the depression which marks the second phase. He almost wished now that he had not been so energetic in having his room changed in order to enjoy the company of his cousin Eustace. It was going to be a tight fit. Eustace’s bag was already in the cabin, and it seemed to take up the entire fairway. Still, after all, Eustace was a good sort, and would be a cheerful companion. And Sam realised that if the girl with the red hair was not a passenger on the boat, he was going to have need of diverting society.

A footstep sounded in the passage outside. The door opened.

“Hullo, Eustace!” said Sam.

Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag, and emitted a deep sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale, intellectual face. Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He looked like a man who would write vers libre, as indeed he did.

“Hullo!” he said, in a hollow voice.

Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but, going by his recollections of him at the University, he had expected something cheerier than this. In fact, he had rather been relying on Eustace to be the life and soul of the party. The man sitting on the bag before him could hardly have filled that role at a gathering of Russian novelists.

There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a bowler hat, and from time to time, as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and adjust this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer.

Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of the girl he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away, leaning out over the rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like everybody else, she was staring into the water.

As Sam looked at her, the thought crossed his mind that here was a wonderful chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl. What would she not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety, dived in and went boldly to the rescue? And there were men, no doubt, who would be chumps enough to do it, he thought, as he prepared to shift back to a position of greater safety.

At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been jostled out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been crouching, the better to spring. Now he sprang.

“Jane,” said Billie, “have you ever been in love?”

Jane Hubbard knocked the ash off her cigarette.

“Not since I was eleven,” she said in her deep musical voice. “He was my music-master. He was forty-seven and completely bald, but there was an appealing weakness in him which won my heart. He was afraid of cats, I remember.”

Billie gathered her hair into a molten bundle and let it run through her fingers.

“Oh, Jane!” she exclaimed. “Surely you don’t like weak men. I like a man who is strong and brave and wonderful.”

“I can’t stand brave men,” said Jane, “it makes them so independent. I could only love a man who would depend on me in everything. Sometimes, when I have been roughing it out in the jungle,” she went on rather wistfully, “I have had my dreams of some gentle clinging man who would put his hand in mine and tell me all his poor little troubles and let me pet and comfort him and bring the smiles back to his face. I’m beginning to want to settle down. After all there are other things for a woman to do in this life besides travelling and big-game hunting. I should like to go into Parliament. And, if I did that, I should practically have to marry. I mean, I should have to have a man to look after the social end of life and arrange parties and receptions and so on, and sit ornamentally at the head of my table. I can’t imagine anything jollier than marriage under conditions like that.

“I’ve brought the revolver,” said Mr. Peters.

“So—so I see!” said Billie.

Mr. Peters nursed the weapon affectionately in his hand. He was rather a shy man with women as a rule, but what Sam had told him about her being interested in his revolver had made his heart warm to this girl.

“I was just on my way to have a little practice at the range,” he said. “Then I thought I might as well look in here.”

“I suppose—I suppose you’re a good shot?” quavered Billie.

“I seldom miss,” said Jno. Peters.

Billie shuddered. Then, reflecting that the longer she engaged this maniac in conversation, the more hope there was of Sam coming back in time to save her, she essayed further small-talk.

“It’s—it’s very ugly!”

“Oh, no!” said Mr. Peters, hurt.

Billie perceived that she had said the wrong thing.

“Very deadly-looking, I meant,” she corrected herself hastily.

“It may have deadly work to do, Miss Milliken,” said Mr. Peters.

Conversation languished again. Billie had no further remarks to make of immediate interest, and Mr. Peters was struggling with a return of the deplorable shyness which so handicapped him in his dealings with the other sex. After a few moments, he pulled himself together again, and, as his first act was to replace the pistol in the pocket of his coat, Billie became conscious of a faint stirring of relief.

“The great thing,” said Jno. Peters, “is to learn to draw quickly.