And yet, as he began to change for luncheon, into the neatly pressed uniform that his steward had laid out for him, Dick still felt miserably sad and wished that he hadn't written that note to Lady Diana; and wished, above all, that he hadn't arrived at her stateroom until ten minutes later, or better still, ten minutes earlier.
"D-d-diana," he lamented to himself in the mirror.
At a quarter after twelve, on the inquiry of Maurice Peace, Second Officer Ralph Peel announced that during the twelve hours preceding noon, the Arcadia had officially covered 636 nautical miles.
"Are you sure?" Maurice asked him, stunned. "In spite of the fact that we turned back and spent an hour looking for that drowned officer?"
"That's what it says here," said Ralph, and handed Maurice the small sheet of paper on which the navigator had written "636.02 naut. miles."
Maurice glanced across the smoking lounge at George Welterman, who was standing not far away with a whisky in his hand. George Welterman saw him looking and gave him a long, slow wink.
'Well, congratulations,' Maurice told him a few minutes later, as they met in the corridor on their way to luncheon. "It looks like you've got yourself a new car."
George stopped and wagged a finger. "You mustn't think of it that way. I don't. I have two cars already, not that I drive. Only chauffeurs and mechanics drive."
"So how do you think of it?" asked Maurice.
"I think of it," said George, "as having got my revenge on Mark Beeney."
"You gamble for revenge?" said Maurice.
George turned his head and eyed him narrowly. "Don't you?" he asked.
Maurice said, "No, never. I never gamble for any reason at all."
"But you must get something out of it, or you wouldn't do it."
"Wouldn't I?" said Maurice. "I'll tell you something, George—you don't object if I call you George—I gamble because it's the only thing I ever knew how to do, and the only thing I'm ever likely to know how to do. Can you see me farming fifty acres of land in Iowa? Or picking oranges in California? I've done those things, but they're not what I do. What I do is gamble. Not for revenge. Not for profit. Not for anything, except one thing: I gamble because there's nothing else for me to do."
"You're bullshitting me," George told me.
Maurice couldn't bring himself to smile at all. "Would I bullshit a seasoned campaigner like you?"
"I expect so," said George.
They went into luncheon. The lounge had been decorated for the amusement of Keys' Irish bankers with green satin shamrocks and white lilies; and the orchestra, dressed in green tailcoats and high green hats with buckled hatbands, were playing "Killarney" and "What Do You Think of O'Hooligan?"
"I sometimes wonder how the Irish can bear this kind of thing," said George Welterman sourly.
"No sign of Mark Beeney," remarked Maurice.
"Well, that's good," said George. "I can't wait to tell him the news myself."
"Do you have any money on that pair of eaters?" asked Maurice. "I reckon that one or the other of them is going to keel over today."
George shook his head. "Contests for the sake of contests don't interest me, Mr Peace. I'm only interested in contests that have some crushing result."
"Like taking Mark Beeney's beloved Marmon away from him, so that you can drive it into a brick wall?"
George slapped Maurice's back. "You've got it."
"Like taking five thousand pounds from me, too, I suppose?"
George nodded with malicious happiness.
"Now you've got the car, you couldn't perhaps see your way clear to—well, no, perhaps not."
"No," agreed George. "Perhaps not. But as a consolation prize, I'll let you come down to the hold and look the car over."
The chief steward came up to them and nodded his head respectfully. "Gentlemen ... you wish to be seated for luncheon?"
"I have an invitation to join the captain's table today," said George.
The steward's smile stayed fixed to his face, but the welcome in him eyes died away. "Ah, Mr. Welterman, I'm sorry. It appears that there has been some mistake."
"Mistake? What are you talking about?"
"I regret the captain's table is a little overbooked. You are to sit at Mr. Charles's table today."
George Welterman's face was thunderous. "Who gave you that instruction?" he demanded.
"Sir Peregrine Arrowsmith, sir. I'm sorry."
George was plainly finding it almost impossible to contain his rage. He took one long deep breath that filled his lungs, and held it. Then he said in a voice that was shaky but controlled, "You may take a message to Sir Peregrine for me. You may tell him that I am going to sit at his table whether he likes it or not. You may also tell him that when White Star take over this ship, I will do everything I can to find him a room in the home for retired seafarers. And that will be in spite of the fact that he hasn't had the courtesy to find a place for me."
The chief steward was white-faced. "Please wait a moment, sir," he said and hurried off.
Maurice Peace said with quiet satisfaction, "Do you ever get the feeling that you're not too popular around here?"
But George was too furious to answer. He was gnawing at his knuckles and staring across the room at Sir Peregrine with an expression of utter fury.
At that moment, Catriona made her entrance, escorted by Mr. Charles Schwab, of Bethlehem Steel, and closely followed by Lady Cressworthy and Mr. Paul Hartley, the fifth son of the banking Hartleys, who had once bought the Ingestre Hotel in Vancouver for the sole purpose of sacking the elevator operator, who had irritated him with his glumness.
Catriona was wearing an emerald green crepe dress by Martial et Armand, very simply cut, with long lapels, and a front trimmed with embroidered black crepe. She wore a wide-brimmed white hat with green scalloped silk bands on it to match her dress, teardrop earrings, and green crocodile shoes with T-bar straps. Mr. Schwab wore a suit cut from pearl-grey English wool which had been "built" for him, as he liked to say, by Henry Poole & Sons, at 37 Savile Row. The suit didn't fit, for a gentleman's suits never fit. They make the best of a gentleman's attributes, and subtly disguise his shortcomings.
George looked at Catriona keenly, and then bowed his head to her. "Miss Keys," he said.
Catriona slowly and disdainfully turned her head towards him. Her slanted eyes, when she finally caught his stare, were like cold chips of some dark and adamant mineral. "Why," she said. "It's Mr. Waterman."
George, at that moment, had no choice. Boorish and crude as he could be, he was still a man of his time, and of the etiquette of his time. He had been openly refused a place at the captain's table, and now Catriona had purposely mispronounced his name. He said, "Excuse me," and walked out of the dining lounge with abrupt mechanical strides.
Charles Schwab said, "What's eating him?"
Catriona smiled. "I don't know. I think he just saw a ghost."
Charles Schwab happily drew Catriona's arm closer. "Do you know something?" he said. "There are two things hi this world that make me feel happy. The sight of a furnace chimney at night when the red fire's pouring out of it like hell itself, and a pretty girl."
"In that order?" put in Paul Hartley. He was skinny, and his moustache was wispy and blond, but in five years' time he would undoubtedly grow up to be more than passably handsome.
"What are you?" Charles Schwab demanded. "Some kind of philosopher or something? Plato maybe? Who cares what order? A furnace is a furnace, and a girl is a girl. They're both hot stuff. Who cares what order? What order! You're going to tell me whether your a prefers your mother to money? How do you know? How does he know?"