He dived down the dark little companionway, and they were left alone.
As they went up the stairs Margaret said that Pat gave her a headache. He made her tired. He made her sick.
III.
At lunch there was something of a treat. A special table had been put on the little platform where the band usually played—the piano had been pushed back—and a swell party was being given there. It was, in fact, the wedding breakfast, after a mock wedding which had taken place in the dining saloon just before lunch. They had come in just as it was over and old Mr. Diehl was in the act of kissing the bride, who was Mr. Carter dressed up in a girl’s dress. The bridegroom was Miss Diehl dressed in a man’s tuxedo. They all sat, eight people, at the round table on the platform, and they had several bottles of wine. Miss Diehl was wearing a white yachting cap to keep up her hair, which was pulled up to look like a man’s.
“Your friend is there,” said Katy, giving Margaret a nudge with her elbow.
And, sure enough, he was. He was sitting at the opposite side, next to Mr. Carter, and he looked as if he weren’t enjoying himself at all. He kept sipping his wine and smiling in an uneasy sort of way, as if he were very much embarrassed. Most of the time he was looking down at the dishes before him. The rest of the party were making a lot of noise, talking and laughing and making jokes and slapping each other on the back. Then Mr. Diehl made a speech, toward the end, and the bridegroom got up and proposed a toast. Several toasts were drunk and speeches made, and they tried to get the nice man to get up and speak, but he blushed and resisted and sat still, though Mr. Carter tried to push him out of his chair.
“He’s awful good-looking,” said Margaret.
“Suit yourself,” said Katy. “To my idea, he’s too quiet-seeming.”
“I wish he’d look at me once.”
“Well, if you keep on staring at him like you are, he will, and then he’ll be scared to death.”
All the same, she felt as if she couldn’t keep her eyes off him, she didn’t know why; there was something very appealing about his face. His blue eyes were very kind and wise-looking, and he had a way of smiling to himself all the time as if he were having all sorts of humorous thoughts. She felt that he was very superior to all those other people, but he was too nice to show it. In fact, he was superior to everyone else on the ship. There was something important about him.
And then, all of a sudden—she didn’t know just how it happened—he was looking at her. There were two tables in between, and lots of other people he might have looked at, and a branch of a palm tree that almost got in the way, but in spite of all these obstacles there could be no doubt about it: he was looking straight at her. A sort of shock went through her, and she felt herself blushing. But she kept her nerve, and looked back at him without in the least changing her expression, which she knew had been one of frank admiration. In fact, she felt her eyes widening a little, and a special kind of brightness going into them. And the strangest thing of all was the way he met this: he looked quickly away, but only for a moment; and then he looked right back again, while with one hand he fiddled with his glass of water. He looked at her almost as if he had suddenly recognized her, though of course they had never met before. His eyes brightened, in fact, in exactly the same way that hers had done; they brightened and widened, and he seemed to be unable to look away again. So they looked at each other for about two or three minutes like this, as if they were the only two people in the whole room. It was almost as if they were signaling to each other. Then Mr. Carter apparently said something to him, and he turned his head away.
“Well, he looked at me,” she, said to Katy, “and something happened.”
“What do you mean, something happened?”
“I don’t know, but it gave me a funny feeling. I think he likes me the same way I like him.”
“Don’t be too sure,” said Katy. “Anyway, he isn’t looking at you now.”
“No, I know he isn’t; but he was, just the same. It was a long look, and I felt all over as if I was melting.”
“I guess what you need is some air,” said Katy, “or else both of you’ll have to be locked up.”
IV
They roamed the decks again after lunch, and sat for a while in the sun parlor at the back, in wicker chairs, watching the stern of the ship swoop up and down in quarter-circles against the sea, which seemed to be coming right up over the ship but never did; and for a while the old deckhand, a sailor with a nice white beard, stood with his pail in his hand and talked to them about the “old country.” He also told them about a hawk that had been blown on to the ship. It was exhausted, he said. It had probably been chasing some other bird and followed it out to sea, and then didn’t know how to get back. It stayed on one of the masts for a while, and they put out food for it, and then the next day they found it on the bow, huddled up against an iron thwart. It fought when they came near it, and it wouldn’t eat, so they decided they’d better kill it. Finally, one of the sailors threw his hat over it and jumped on it, and killed it.
“Oh, what a shame!” said Margaret. “I think that’s a shame.”
The old sailor grinned, half embarrassed.
“We get hardened to it,” he said. “There’s always birds like that coming aboard, you know, and they never live. Those little yellowbirds, for instance. You can feed them, but they die just the same, and you might as well heave ’em overboard and be done with it. They get so tame, or scared maybe, that they’ll come hoppin’ right in here amongst these chairs.”
After a while he went away, carrying his sponge in one hand and his pail in the other, walking very slowly, as if there was lots of time. Katy opened her magazine and began reading. Every now and then she turned a page, but she hadn’t turned many when Margaret noticed that she was fast asleep. The twins went by, with their short skirts blowing way up round their skinny little legs, and then came Mr. Carter and Miss Diehl, in their proper clothes again. They brought the peg and began playing quoits. They were having a good time—just as they were going to throw the quoit the ship would give a slant and the quoit would go wild. They would laugh and stagger about. The noise finally waked up Katy. She yawned and stretched, and wanted as usual to know what time it was. The sky was clouding up and the wind seemed colder, so they decided to go and sit in the lounge. Margaret wanted to be doing something, but she didn’t know what there was they could do.
“What are you so restless for?” said Katy.
“I’m not restless; only I get so sick of just sitting round and watching the water go by.”
“Well, it is kind of monotonous, at that,” said Katy.
They took a look down at the steerage deck, but there was nobody there, probably because it was getting chilly. In the steerage you got all the wind.
What she really wanted was to see the nice man again, but she couldn’t exactly go looking for him. She hoped he would be in the lounge, and when she saw that he wasn’t she thought of suggesting to Katy that they go to the smoking room, but she didn’t quite have the nerve to do it. Instead they settled down in a corner and listened to the music and had their tea and watched the people and yawned. Margaret felt unhappy. It wasn’t only because she wanted to see him; it was just as much because she was bored with being on a ship. Every day was like Sunday. After a while you got tired of walking round the decks and sitting here and sitting there and drinking tea or beef-tea and going to the dining saloon for another meal that was just like the last. The stewards were all the time trying to flirt with them, too.
All the same, she didn’t see how it could just end there, after a look like that—it didn’t seem natural at all. But would he do anything about it? Most probably he was too shy. He might even be so shy that he would try to keep out of her way. Or he might think that she was trying to kidnap him or something. She thought of that look again, and felt herself blushing just the way she did at the time. If any look had a meaning, that look did. There was no getting away from that.