“Hideously,” he assented.
“And yet,” she continued, still watching him in a puzzled fashion, “you made that extraordinary voyage through the air to catch this steamer. That doesn’t seem to me to be at all the sort of thing a nervous person would do.”
“It was for a bet,” he explained confidentially. “The only occasion upon which I forget my nerves is when there is a bet to be lost or won. At the time,” he went on, “my deportment was, I think, all that could have been desired. The sensations of which I was undoubtedly conscious I contrived to adequately conceal. The after-shock, however, has, I must admit, been considerable.”
“Was it really so terribly important,” she enquired, “that you should be in London next week?”
“The War Office made a special point of it,” he assured her. “Got to join up, you know, directly I arrive.”
“Do you think,” she enquired after a brief pause, “that you will enjoy soldiering better than pseudo-diplomacy? I don’t exactly know how to refer to your work. I only remember that when we were introduced I was told that you had something to do with the Secret Service.”
They were leaning over the side of the steamer, and she glanced curiously at his long, rather sunken face, at the uncertain mouth, and at the eyes, carefully concealed behind a pair of green spectacles. He seemed, somehow, to have aged since they had first met, a year ago, in Washington.
“To tell you the truth,” he confided, “I am a little tired of my job. Neither fish nor fowl, don’t you know. I took an observation course at Scotland Yard, but I suppose I am too slow-witted for what they call secret-service work over here.”
“America wouldn’t provide you with many opportunities, would it?” she observed.
“You are quite right,” he replied. “I am much more at home upon the Continent. The Secret Service in America, as we understand it, does not exist. One finds oneself continually in collaboration with police inspectors, and people who naturally do not understand one’s point of view. At any rate,” he concluded, with a little sigh, “if I have any talents, they haven’t come to the front in Washington. I don’t believe that dear old Sir Richard was at all sorry to see the last of me.” “And you think you will prefer your new profession?”
“Soldiering? Well, I shall have to train up a bit and see. Beastly ugly work they seem to make of it, nowadays. I don’t mind roughing it up to the extent of my capacity, but I do think that the advice of one’s medical man should be taken into consideration.”
She laughed at him openly.
“Do you know,” she said, “I can’t picture you campaigning in France!”
“To tell you the truth I can’t picture it myself,” he confessed frankly. “The stories I have heard with reference to the absence of physical comforts are something appalling. By-the-by,” he went on, as though the idea had suddenly occurred to him, “I can’t think how your patient can rest, anyhow, after an operation, on beds like there are on this steamer. I call it positively disgraceful of the company to impose such mattresses upon their patrons. My bones positively ache this morning.”
“Mr. Phillips has his own mattress,” she told him, “or rather one of the hospital ones. He was carried straight into the ambulance from the ward.”
“Mr. — er — Phillips,” Crawshay repeated. “Have I ever met him?”
“I should think not.”
“He is, of course, a very great friend of yours?”
“I don’t know why you should suppose that.”
“Come, come,” he remonstrated, “I suppose I am an infernally curious, prying sort of chap, but when one thinks of you, a society belle of America, you know, and, further, the patroness of that great hospital, crossing the Atlantic yourself in charge of a favoured patient, one can’t help — can one?”
“Can one what?” she asked coolly.
“Scenting a romance or a mystery,” he replied. “In any case, Mr. Phillips must be a man of some determination, to risk so much just for the sake of getting home.”
She turned and recommenced their promenade.
“I wonder whether you realise that it isn’t etiquette to question a nurse about her patient,” she reminded him.
“I’m sure I am very sorry,” he assured her. “I didn’t imagine that my questions were in any way offensive. I told you from the first that I was always interested in invalids and cases of illness.”
She turned her head and looked at him. Her glance was reproving, her manner impatient.
“Really, Mr. Crawshay,” she said, “I think that you are one of the most inquisitive people I ever met.”
“It really isn’t inquisitiveness,” he protested. “It’s just obstinacy. I hate to leave a problem unexplained.”
“Then to prevent any further misunderstanding, Mr. Crawshay,” she concluded, a little coldly, “let me tell you that there are private reasons which make any further questioning on your part, concerning this matter, impertinent.”
Crawshay lifted his cap. He had the air of a man who has received a rebuff which he takes in ill part.
“I will not risk your further displeasure, Miss Beverley,” he said, stopping by his steamer chair. “I trust that you will enjoy the remainder of your promenade. Good morning!”
He summoned the deck steward to arrange his rugs, and lay back in his steamer chair, eating broth which he loathed, and watching Jocelyn Thew and Katharine Beverley through spectacles which somewhat impaired his vision. The two had strolled together to the side of the ship to watch a shoal of porpoises go by.
“I see that you are acquainted with our hero of the seaplane,” Jocelyn Thew remarked.
She nodded.
“I met him once at Washington and once at the polo games.”
“Tell me what you think of him?”
She smiled.
“Well,” she confessed, “I scarcely know how to think of him. I must say, though, that in a general way I should think any profession would suit him better than diplomacy.”
“You find him stupid?”
“I do,” she admitted, “and in a particularly British way.”
Jocelyn glanced thoughtfully across at Crawshay, who was contemplating his empty cup with apparent regret.
“You will not think that I am taking a liberty, Miss Beverley, if I ask you a question?”
“Why should I? Is it so very personal?”
“As a matter of fact, it isn’t personal at all. I was only going to ask you if you would mind telling me what our friend Mr. Crawshay was talking to you about just now?” “Are you really interested?” she asked, with an air of faint surprise. “Well, if you must know, he was asking questions about my patient. He appears to be something of a hypochondriac himself, and he is very interested in illnesses.”
“He has the air of one who takes care of himself,” Jocelyn observed, with a faint smile. “However, one mustn’t judge. He may be delicate.”
“I think he is an old woman,” she remarked carelessly.
“He rather gives one that impression, doesn’t he?” Jocelyn agreed. “By-the-by, there wasn’t much you could tell him about your patient, was there?”
“There really isn’t anything at all,” she replied. “I just mentioned his condition, and as Mr. Crawshay still seemed curious, I reminded him that it was not etiquette to question a nurse about her patients.”
“Most discreet,” Jocelyn declared. “As a matter of fact,” he went on, “I have scarcely thought it worth while to mention it to you, because I knew exactly the sort of answer you would make to any too curious questions, but there is a reason, and a very serious reason, why my friend Phillips wishes to avoid so far as possible all manner of notice and questions.”
“You call him your friend Phillips,” she remarked, “yet you don’t seem to have been near him since we started.”