Mark looked up from his toast and smiled. "I'd rather you didn't scream," he said. "Too many people have hangovers around here. What I was going to say was that I don't want this voyage to be the last I see of you. In fact, I'd like you to get off the Arcadia when she docks in New York and spend a week or two with me in Boston. You could take Alice along as your chaperone."
More seriously, Mark said, "I'm stuck on you, Catriona, if you want to know the truth. It sounds too sudden. It sounds absurd. It probably sounds like a whole lot of applesauce. But that's the way I feel. I love you. You're the cat's miaow."
- Catriona hesitated for a moment, but then she touched his hand again, and said, "What happened last night—"
Mark made a face. "To some people, what happened last night may make a difference. I don't know. It doesn't to me. I know what George Welterman is like and I know that it wasn't your fault. I just hope that you can forgive me for not getting there earlier."
Catriona said, "You'll have to give me some time to think."
"I know. Well—maybe I shouldn't have asked you at all. I didn't want you to get the wrong idea."
"How could I possibly get the wrong idea about you?" asked Catriona.
"Well—"
"You said you love me. I believe you. All I have to think about is what I'm going to do about it."
Mark raised his hands as if he were being stuck up in a bank robbery. "You've got me, Miss Keys, just any way you want me. But let me know soon, won't you?"
As Catriona leaned across the table to kiss his cheek, Mark lifted his eyes for just a fraction of a second, and saw Marcia Conroy appear in the doorway of the dining lounge, dressed in pink and white. Marcia's face was open and expectant for a moment, until she caught sight of Mark and Catriona together. It was too late to do anything; too late to pretend. So Mark reached up and held Catriona's cheek with his fingertips, delaying the kiss, and that was in spite of the murmur of gossip all around them, and in spite of the fact that Marcia turned around and stormed angrily away, pushing aside a steward carrying a tray of cocktails, and tearing away a whole green tendril of baby tears from the anteroom.
Life on an ocean liner thrives on gossip, and society scandal, and everybody saw what had happened, even if they didn't understand the full implications of it. Only one first-class passenger wasn't there as a witness, because he felt that he had something far more important to do. Harry Pakenow had returned to third class.
FIFTY-ONE
Harry had already tried once that morning to gain access to the after hold, next to the ship's laundry and immediately beneath the swimming pool, where the motorcars were stored during the voyage. The hold was below the water-line, and the only door was marked NO ENTRY WATERTIGHT DOOR. He had asked one of the crew if it was possible for him to see inside, but the crewman had shaken his head and said that it was more than his life was worth to let a passenger into the hold. "Just supposing she rolled, and you got yourself crushed to death," the seaman had said. "What the 'ell would I do then?"
The purser had a key, the seaman had told him. If the purser said it was all right for him to take a look, then it was all right for him to take a look, but otherwise no.
It simply hadn't occurred to Harry that he would find it almost impossible to get into the motorcar hold. He stood for a long while in the passageway outside the hold, his hand held over his mouth, looking like a character from a Mack Sennett house party in his borrowed morning suit with rumpled trousers and sausage-tight vest. It was just his luck that the one man who could give him admission to the hold was the one man aboard the Arcadia whom he disliked the most, and who was least likely to assist him. What would a third-class passenger like you want with all those first-class motors, squire? he would ask. No good ogling them, squire. You'll never be able to afford even one wheel off one of them.
That was why Harry went back to the steerage deck and looked for Philly and Lydia.
It was breakfast time in the third-class dining room. The passengers sat at long tables covered with red and white gingham cloths, while the stewards served them with a choice of fruit juices, bacon, eggs, porridge, kippers and toast. For an extra threepence you could have a meatball, or kotleti; and for sixpence you could have black pudding, baked beans, and tried potatoes. The surcharges were not company policy, but the stewards and the chefs made a regular practice of offering the steerage a few little extra tidbits at reasonable prices. If any of the teachers or students or Polish immigrants had been able to afford it, they could have had glasses of champagne at three shillings the glass, or poached turbot (damaged during serving, but otherwise perfect) for two and twopence.
Most of the third class, however, were travelling on a tightly restricted budget, and those who had few extra shillings to spend were either too embarrassed to eat a plateful of black pudding and potatoes in front of those who only had a small kipper in oatmeal, or preferred to save their money for tonight's beer.
Harry bumped into Philly just as she was coming out of the women's room with her nose and her knees powdered, and her lipstick freshly painted. She was wearing a short emerald-green frock and a cheap green feathery hat.
"Harry!" she said, "I thought you were travelling with the nobs now."
"Well, I'm supposed to be," Harry told her. "But the trouble is that I need some help."
"Help?" said Philly suspiciously, lifting up one leg so that she could adjust her rolled-down stockings.
"It's nothing difficult," said Harry. "It's just that it's slightly shady. Do you know what I mean?"
"Shady?" asked Philly.
"Ssh," Harry told her, sealing his lips with his finger. "The fact is, I'm something of a bootlegger. I'm trying to ship some contraband liquor into New York. I was given a contract to supply a speak called Hoyle's Homelike Club on Second Avenue. They're a top-class place, and they asked me for some good Scotch whisky and London gin."
"Well, so?" asked Philly. Like most American college students, she was unimpressed by hooch, or the men who dealt in it. Hooch was a way of life.
"Well, the fact is that one of the fellows in first-class is a contraband agent. I wouldn't have known about him unless they'd let me go up there. He's had a tip-off from someone in Liverpool that I hid the liquor in one of the automobiles which is parked in the hold, and when we dock at New York he's going to be waiting beside that car to arrest me."
"Is it really beautiful in first class?" asked Philly irrelevantly.
"It's wonderful," said Harry impatiently.
"But is it really beautiful?"
"It's the bee's knees. But, please, will you help me?"
"You're worried because some cop is going to be waiting by some no to pull you in? Well, you're ridiculous. You shouldn't. All you have to do is walk straight off the ship, and leave the cop to wait by that car until his beard grows. How can he ever prove it's yours?"
Harry took Philly's arm. "Philly," he said, "you don't understand. I spent all of my money on that liquor. Everything I made in three years of hard work is invested in it. If I can't hide it, and sell it in a York, then I'm going to be down on my backside again. Nothing between me and the sidewalk except a red cotton patch."
"But what can I do?" asked Philly.
"It's very easy," said Harry. "All you have to do is distract the purser while I slip into his office and borrow his key."
"Distract?" asked Philly suspiciously.
"You know what I mean. Act all vampish. Seduce him."