After a long time, time for the world to be remade, time for a ship to go on and on upon its journey, he lifted his face.
The long deep blast of the foghorn sounded, breaking in waves around them, prolonging the moment, holding them both suspended in time and space, searching each other's eyes.
The last echoes dwindled in the fog. He said slowly: "I didn't know I was going to do that. I didn't mean . . ." He broke off abruptly and said: "That's not true. I did mean it. I meant it since I saw you there in the Captain's cabin. I meant it since . . ." Again he stopped; this time he released her so she lay back against the chair. He got out another cigarette, turned it in his fingers and went on: "So you see, I can't let anyone hurt you like that. Besides, I don't think he's worth it."
Her breath was uneven; all the stillness inside her had been driven away. She was suddenly and poignantly aware of the smallest details—the wet cold air, the crimson fold on her knee where her coat had fallen back, the throbbing of the ship's engines, the distant clear sound of a ship's bell, the level blue-gray eyes of the man sitting on the foot of her chair, his tanned face, the way his black eyebrows curved. The little half smile on his mouth that had so lately touched her own.
But it was all wrong, confused. This was a man she did not know. It was Mickey she loved.
He said again: "Believe me. He's not worth it. I mean Mickey, Andre"—he paused and added quite slowly, quite deliberately—"or whoever he really is."
She had said Mickey. She remembered it clearly. "Did I call him Mickey? It's a—a nickname. . . ."
"I see." He looked at the cigarette in his hand and said: "Do you want me to find him now?"
Now? she thought. Face Mickey now, ask him about Gili, hear what he might say? She took a long breath. "Yes, please."
"Shall I tell him to come here?"
"Yes."
He looked at her again, his eyes intent and dark. "You're sure?"
He waited a moment, as if to give her a chance to change her mind, then briskly he got up. "All right. I'll not be long," he said briefly and walked rapidly away along the deck.
She watched his tall figure, the coat swinging, striding along the deck into the fog. He turned abruptly at some door and went inside without looking back.
The fog, after he'd gone, seemed to come closer.
It was extremely quiet there on the deserted deck. She thought the decks were forbidden to patients that day owing to the fog. The white planks were slippery and wet, the brass and metal glistened with moisture.
She wondered where Josh Morgan would find Mickey and what she would say and why she had let Josh Morgan undertake such an errand. When she heard footsteps coming slowly along the deck she looked up quickly, thinking it was Mickey.
It was, however, Luther Cates strolling along toward her, his hands in the pockets of an army overcoat which was much too large for him, and a black beret he had got from somewhere pulled rather drearily over his forehead. He looked tired and ill, with heavy pouches under his faded blue eyes and a purplish tinge to his lips, but smiled when he saw that she was looking at him and hastened his pace to stop beside her.
"Hello," he said. "Not down at lunch?"
Again she said she did not want lunch. He sighed and leaned against the bulkhead looking, somehow, extraordinarily concave because of his thinness and the loose bulk of the coat. "I hear there was some excitement last night," he said. "I got back to our cabin just after you'd gone. Found Andre all bandaged up." He looked at her sharply and anxiously. "Are you all right?"
"Yes . . ."
"I can't imagine . . ." He broke off to cough and then got out cigarettes and offered them to her. His hands were thin and unsteady as they held a match for her. He lighted his own cigarette and went on: "Daisy Belle told me all about it, too, this morning. Marcia, you couldn't have just imagined that attack on you, could you?"
She shook her head and, watching her, he said, apologetically: "No, no, I'm sure you couldn't have. But it seems so inexplicable, somehow. I don't understand why anybody would want to attack you. Do you have any possible explanation for it?"
Again she shook her head and again rather apologetically he answered for her: "No, I'm sure you can't have. But it"— he rubbed his eyes wearily—"it makes no sense. Who was it? Who was it that knocked out Andre, and why? Of course, he says he's not sure whether anybody hit him or not. But it seems reasonable to think that somebody did. I suppose he might know more than he's admitting. ..."
There was a question in his hesitation. Marcia said quickly: "He doesn't know what happened. He thinks he may have slipped. I'm sure if he knew anything about it he'd tell the Captain."
"Well," said Luther rubbing his eyes again, "I think so, too. The Captain naturally thinks it was somebody from the Lerida, if it was anybody. I mean," he amended it quickly, "I believe you; I know you. He seems a little skeptical. However, he had me up this morning to question me. I think I convinced him that I hadn't gone around all night bopping my friends." He laughed and then coughed again, and Marcia, unwillingly, yet irresistibly driven by some impulse she would not have wished to name, said: "How did you convince him?"
"By being in the engine room with his first officer all the time the ruckus was taking place, apparently," said Luther, with another thin chuckle. "Daisy Belle prowled the ship, she says, looking for me. She was furious; bless her. She thought I ought to have been in bed. But it was warm down there. And worth the climb up again; but then I'm all right if I take things slowly. I'm crazy about engines," said Luther simply. "Always have been. I might have done something about it if I hadn't had so much money. Oh, well," he sighed, "you can't live life twice. I suppose I'd go along exactly the same way if I had it to do over again. Only next time I'd pick a better heart and a better pair of lungs. Not," he added hurriedly, "that I've anything to complain about. Well, well, I'll just go along and get a bit of exercise before Daisy Belle catches me and sends me inside." His tone warmed, as it always did, when he spoke of Daisy Belle. He gave another thin chuckle, which again turned into a cough and straightened up. "See you . . ." he said, and started back along the deck again. Marcia gratefully watched him go. So Daisy Belle had prowled the ship looking for him.
It explained the dampness on her coat. It gave her an alibi which, to Marcia, at least, was a very real and complete alibi, for Daisy Belle cared for Luther as if he were a child. She was loving, stern and indefatigable. And in speaking to Marcia, obviously, she had simply never thought of mentioning so usual and probably so brief an errand.
Marcia's own short return to the cabin on B deck had happened to coincide with Daisy Belle's search for Luther. That was all. It might not have satisfied the Captain; it did satisfy Marcia.
She would put everything else out of her mind, including Gili's story. Gili was unpredictable, Gili was emotional, Gili could twist this way or that, like a cat, without the slightest warning. She would put everything Gili had said out of her mind.
Even what she had said of Mickey.
Again she thought of that, incredulously, yet lingering, in spite of herself, to explore every word and look. Yet Gili's words were merely words, certainly without a basis of any sort of fact. Everything about it was absurd and confused and—and all wrong.