She realized that thoughts like that alone were dangerous. You could think anything—yes, and fear anything, if you let yourself be conquered by such thoughts and such fears. She took a long breath and opened the door.
The passage was lighted and narrow and perfectly empty. No one moved anywhere along it; no one stepped furtively out of sight into some doorway; there was no sly flicker of motion anywhere.
There were doors all along the passage. She had an impression, although she was not then sure, that the cabin was in a section of the ship reserved for women patients, military or Red Cross workers, and that it adjoined or was in the same section with the nurses' quarters. In any event the doors were closed and no one was there.
She would go to Mickey.
She dropped the coat on a chair and then, leaving the lights on, closed the door quietly behind her and started along the passage to the right, in the direction of the main, square corridor and the nearest stairs. Up on deck. Josh Morgan had said, on the port side, the third door this side of the officers' lounge.
The ship seemed very large, after the tiny Portuguese ship, and again, very bewildering with its multiplicity of doors and passages. Any ship is at first confusing; but while passenger ships conform to a certain pattern, a hospital ship has its own pattern and to Marcia that pattern was new and strange. She knew that she was now in the forward portion of the ship, and that when she had entered the ship to find help for Mickey, she had been aft. There were offices here too, but this forward passage seemed to be a lively and frequented portion of the ship. She came out into the lobby, and there were bulletin boards, a divan, a door opening upon a lounge, heavy doors at each side leading to the deck. The offices here were not quite deserted, even at night. From somewhere along a lighted corridor branching likewise from the main corridor, but back along the port side, came the subdued sound of some machine, a typewriter or a teletype, working away in the night.
It was a heartening small sound, indicating the presence of other people.
The Magnolia appeared to be a converted passenger liner. A closed wide desk opposite Marcia was like the desk of the purser; the cabins were exact duplicates of small passenger staterooms; probably most of them had been torn out to make wards; the large salons and lounges would have been easily adaptable as wards. It was now literally a floating hospital.
All hospitals at night have a certain atmosphere, a hush and stillness, indefinable yet almost tangible. It touched her now, so she thought, climbing the stairs, what feet have climbed these stairs, what hands have slid over this railing, what hopes and fears and tangled human destinies have lived for the space of a voyage within these solid bulkheads? Only a hospital ship was different in that the patients were soldiers, men who had gone to war in order to give people like her and Mickey a chance to live in peace and freedom.
She reached the top of the stairs. The port side, Josh Morgan had said, and forward.
She turned, moving very quietly as one does in a hospital at night. There was a faint, clean hospital smell of antiseptics and medicine and soap. Through a distant opening she caught another glimpse of a night-lighted ward. Two corpsmen in white were standing in the light of a doorway near at hand, drinking coffee. Beyond them a nurse put a capped head from a ward office and glanced at her questioningly. She had a field jacket and the chart the small envelope contained in her hand. Marcia turned again, crossed to the left, found a narrow, lighted passage there and went along it.
There were again rows of closed doors, and at the very end of the passage an open doorway and a lighted room beyond showing red lounge chairs and a table stacked with magazines. This then, must be the officers' lounge, so Mickey's cabin was very near. She walked on lightly, but Josh Morgan apparently heard her footsteps. He appeared in the doorway of the officers' lounge, put down a cigarette quickly and came toward her. He'd changed to pajamas and the crimson bathrobe in which she had first seen him; one sleeve of the bathrobe hung empty. "I was waiting for you," he said. "Messac's room is here." He knocked at one of the narrow gray doors.
There was a feeling of sudden stillness in the cabin. He knocked again, more firmly. There was the sound of quick movement and Mickey opened the door. He was still in the uniform that had been loaned him; there was a white gauze dressing across his temple.
"Marcia!" He gave a surprised glance at Josh Morgan and said: "Come in . . ." and stood aside so they could enter. Gili was sitting on the bunk opposite, perfectly composed, her long, beautiful legs crossed, her slanting green eyes bright and curious.
"I expect you don't remember me," said Josh Morgan to Mickey. "You were in a pretty dazed condition. The doctor and I helped you to the dispensary."
"Oh, of course, Colonel Morgan. The doctor told me." Mickey closed the door. "Gili—Miss Duvrey, Colonel Morgan."
Gili's eyes were suddenly very luminous and warm. She tossed back a lock of her long golden hair and smiled slowly and leaned forward to put her hand in Colonel Morgan's. He said rather briskly: "How do you do," and let go her hand. "Did Major Strong fix you up, Messac?" he inquired of Mickey. "He was just starting to work on you when I left."
Mickey's scarred fingers touched the dressing on his face. "Oh, yes, I'm okay. I've only got a thumping headache. Stupid of me! I was looking for you, Marcia. I got back to the deck where I'd left you. The Captain was busy and I couldn't bother him just then so I wasn't gone very long, really. You weren't there and ... Do sit down. Here's a chair."
"There's room here. Sit by me, Colonel Morgan," said Gili. She put her large white hand invitingly on the bunk beside her.
"Thanks," Josh Morgan sat down, leaning forward, below the upper bunk. Marcia took the chair Mickey had pulled out. She said: "I had walked around to the port side. I met Colonel Morgan and we talked a while. Then I came back and you weren't there. After a few minutes I walked aft and found you."
"I don't see how I could give myself such a knockout blow. I certainly wasn't tight," said Mickey with a shrug. "It's as if somebody hit me."
The ceiling light cast a white illumination directly down upon them, so every face and every detail was very clear and sharp. Gili seemed to have moved imperceptibly nearer Josh Morgan. Her shoulder almost touched his. She was sitting crouched forward a little too, to miss the upper bunk, but relaxed and graceful with her long legs stretched out, and one hand spread out on the bunk backward so as to support her. She had loosened her hair from its heavy knot and it fell now over her shoulders, bright gold at the ends and darker along the part. Her eyes were not made up as usual but were brilliant and green and her mouth crimson. The severe neatness of the nurse's uniform that she was wearing seemed foreign to her, as if she were dressed for a masquerade. She was at ease, yet, as always with Gili, there was a suggestion of latent power, of muscles able to spring at an instant's notice, as with a slumberous cat. She was watching now and listening—and shifted just then, gracefully and deliberately, and a little nearer Josh Morgan.
The officer under that strong, downward light looked rather white and ill. His mouth was tight, with a curious look of tension and his gray-blue eyes rather narrow and dark. He shifted his own position, only perceptibly, appearing to move in order to give his arm, supported by its sling, more comfort. The move was, however, a little away from Gili. Marcia thought quite sharply and unexpectedly, some time I'm going to slap Gili—which was an absurd thing to think; a fleeting, childish bit of irritation, altogether silly. Josh Morgan eased his arm again, his shoulders looking very wide and solid under that crimson bathrobe, his hair very black and curling upward a little over his ears. He said to Mickey: "Did anybody hit you?"