One of Helen’s mutton chops? Had he been in love with her? Well, he must be discreet himself: it would never do to betray too great an intimacy with Helen.
“I hope,” said the young man, offering a cigarette, “you’re not joining the expatriates over there. Are you coming back?”
“Good Lord yes. I’m just going over for a—” Demarest laughed.
“Drink?”
“Yes, a drink! put it that way.… No, I’m too old to transplant. Too many roots to be broken, too much underground bleeding. Ten years ago — well, that would have been a different story.”
“I see … I’m glad to hear it. We don’t like to see our best men running away from us.”
“Oh! Best men!” Demarest felt a little idiotic.
“Your last book — I hope you don’t mind my saying so — I liked enormously.”
“I’m glad you liked it!”
“I certainly did … Hello! There’s the bugle!”
The bright brass notes came from a steward, who blew solemnly, facing the dock. The donkey engine had become silent. There was a rattle of chains, an air of poised expectancy.
“Well, so long,” said the young man, putting out his hand. “I hope you’ll have a good trip.”
“Thanks. So long!”
Roscoe disappeared down the deck stairs. Well, well — how remarkably pleasant. He was beginning to be a kind of celebrity. How fatuous it was! Pursers would bow to him, stewards would sing — Captains and second mates dance in a ring!.. And all because he was slightly, but uncontrollably, mad. Damned decent of Helen, too. He wished now that he hadn’t parted with her at eight o’clock on the subway stairs, last night — or had arranged to meet her later, at the hotel … Would she have come?… Perhaps not. An unaccountable, brooding, witty, perverse creature. “I’m becoming unduly agitated, Helen.” “Very well, then! — I’ll remove the immediate stimulus.” And she had withdrawn her hand, which, under the restaurant table, lay on his knee … Just like her!
A devastating roar came from the siren: it was prolonged, shook the ship, and he noticed that the dock had begun to glide away. They were being blasted away from America. Handkerchiefs were waved, then dashed at tears; there were calls and cries; children were held up, their puppet arms wagged by enthusiastic parents. Good-by, New York, city of cigar shops and marble towers! The sight of the hysterical crowd was painful to him, and he walked to the other side of the deck.
They were not a very promising-looking lot of passengers. He might, after all, have to look up Dr. Purington in the first class — a snob, but intelligent. Two solid prelates, with kind eyes and soft beards, stood talking to a girl, perhaps their niece. She, at any rate, was pleasant to look at — tall, straight, graceful, with innocent gray eyes and a mouth just amiably weak. Still, one couldn’t have a flirtation with the niece of two Irish prelates. Or was she merely a comparative stranger — traveling, by some remote arrangement, under their protection — and anxious, for other purposes, to be dissociated from them?
“Well, what kind of voyage we going to have?”
The old-middle-aged man with the gray mustache and cigar: he leaned on the railing, gently revolving the cigar in his mouth with thumb and finger, staring exophthalmically at Staten Island.
“Looks all right now,” said Demarest, with a little laugh. “Still, you never know.”
“No. You never know … Not very exciting, I guess — ship’s half empty.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s what they say. Off season.… Can’t go on too long for me though! Let her rip.”
“Good God, don’t suggest it.”
“Don’t you like a voyage? Nice ship, nice people? — just suits me. Yes, sir, it just suits me.”
“No. I’d like to be chloroformed, and called when we get to Liverpool … You heard about the man who said he wanted the easiest job on earth — calling the stations on an Atlantic liner?”
“Ha, ha. That’s good … Yes, that’d be a nice job for me … just let it go on forever.”
The old-middle-aged man turned a humorous beam on Demarest. An oblique purple scar cleft his mustache near the left nostril.
“Only one thing I regret,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Didn’t get myself a cap. I meant to do it — remembered it, too, last night on the train, when I was taking off my shoes. ‘Frank,’ I said to myself, ‘don’t forget that cap!’ But I did. It went clean out of my head. I don’t feel just right in this tweed hat. I hardly ever use it. Does it look all right?”
“Looks all right to me!”
“Well, guess it’ll have to do … Been over before?”
“Yes. This is my tenth trip.”
“Tenth! My Lord. You’re a fish.”
They both laughed lightly. A red ferryboat passed them, crowded with faces, the waves swashing under its blunt bow; a golden eagle flashed on the pilot house, where they could see the pilot shifting the easy wheel.
“Was that a reporter talking to you?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. I heard him mention the News … Well, there goes the Statue of Liberty — what’s she waving at, I wonder? Long may she wave. It’s about all she does … Fine piece of work, all the same … I’d like to have had the time to go out and see it.”
A flock of gulls sailed in the blue high over the Goddess; the towers of Manhattan began to soften in the October haze. The ship throbbed more palpably, the wind freshened. How quickly one forgets the sound of sea, thought Demarest — the death of a wave, the melancholy chorus of subsiding drops when wave breaks against wave, flinging white water into the air! There was Midland Beach — where he’d so often gone swimming, swimming among flotsam, old bottles and butter boxes. Was that the island he had swum across to?… Not so much of a swim after all. There, for the last time, he had seen Alan — Alan carrying a soiled towel, and grinning. Inconceivable vitality and charm: dead now, turned to ashes, fit to scatter on an icy sidewalk. He saw Alan leaning over the back of the sofa in the London boarding house, smiling amorously, with all his freckles, at the Welsh manageress. “What’s your hurry, Bill?… Mrs. Porter wants to talk to me — don’t you, Mrs. Porter!” And in the Underground, smirking ridiculously at the Great Lady, who blushed and smiled in answer. And in Piccadilly Circus, while waiting for a bus, bowing so elaborately to the girl who stood in the doorway. “Miss Simpkins, allow me to introduce my old friend Prince Schnitzkipopoff, sometime of Warsaw!..” Sometime of Warsaw! And where was Alan now, sometime of — life? Or was it Indiana?
“Have a cigar?” said Frank.
“Thanks! I don’t mind if I do. Have you got plenty?”
“More than I can smoke. I bought two boxes myself, and then the Boss, Mr. Charlton, gave me another. Pretty decent of him, wasn’t it? Havana too — expensive cigar. Well, it’s only natural — I’ve been in his employ for thirty years: Yes, sir, thirty years. A long time.” The old man looked wistfully at the water. “Yes, sir, thirty years. I felt bad about leaving — guess everybody felt bad about it. The Charltons gave a farewell party for me — I know them well, like one of the family. They know I’m crazy about cigars — and they had a little practical joke on me. You know those cigars that are loaded — explode? They gave me one after dinner—Bang! Gee whillikins, I was startled. And you know, even Selina, the old nigger cook, had been tipped off. She came to the door to see me light it. You ought to have heard her laugh!.. Well, you know, they’re nice people, fine people, and New Orleans seems like home to me; but you can’t go on forever. I thought I’d like to see the Old Country again … There goes Coney Island.”
“You were born in England?”
“Devonshire. Left it thirty years ago; went straight to New Orleans; and been there ever since.”