I looked up to see Peterson, who touched his cap.
"Yes, Peterson?"
"We're on our last drum of gasoline, Mr. Harry," said he. "Where'll we put in--Baton Rouge?"
"No, we can't do that, Peterson," I answered. "Can't we make it to New Orleans?"
"Hardly. But they carry gas at most of these landings now--so many power boats and autos nowadays, you see."
"Very well. We'll pass Bayou Sara and Baton Rouge, and then you can run in at any landing you like, say twenty miles or so below. Can you make it that far?"
"Oh, yes, but you see, at Baton Rouge----"
"You may lay to long enough to mail these letters," said I, frowning; "but the custom of getting the baseball scores is now suspended. And send John here."
The old man touched his cap again, a trifle puzzled. I wondered if he recognized Davidson's waistcoat--he asked no more questions.
"John," said I to my Chinaman, "carry this to the ladies;" and handed him a card on which I had inscribed: "Black Bart's compliments; and he desires the attendance of the ladies on deck for a parley. At once."
John came back in a few moments and stood on one foot. "She say, she say, Misal Hally, she say no come."
"Letter have got, John?"
"Lessah have got."
"Take it back. Say, at once."
"Lessah. At wullunce."
"Lessah," he added two moments later. "Catchee lettah, them lady, and she say, she say, go to hellee!"
"What! What's that, John? She said nothing of the sort!"
"Lessah, said them. No catchee word, that what she mean. Lady, one time she say, she say, go topside when have got plenty leady for come."
"Go back to your work, John," said I. And I waited with much dignity, for perhaps ten minutes or so, before I heard any signs of life from the after suite. Then I heard the door pushed back, and saw a head come out, a head with dark tendrils of hair at the white neck's nape, and two curls at the temple, and as clean and thoroughbred a sweep of jaw and chin as the bows of the _Belle Helene_ herself. She did not look at me, but studiously gazed across the river, pretended to yawn, idly looked back to see if she were followed; as she knew she was not to be.
At length, she turned as she stepped out on the deck. She was fresh as the dew itself, and like a rose. All color of rose was the soft skirt she wore, and the little bolero above, blue, with gold buttons, covered a soft rose-colored waist, light and subtle as a spider's web, stretched from one grass stalk to another of a dewy morning. She was round and slender, and her neck was tall and round, and in the close fashion of dress which women of late have devised, to remind man once more of the ancient Garden, she seemed to me Eve herself, sweet, virginal, as yet in a garden dew-sweet in the morning of the world.
She turned, I say, and by mere chance and in great surprise, discovered me, now cap in hand, and bowing.
"Oh," she remarked; very much surprised.
"Good morning, Eve," said I. "Have you used Somebody's Soap; or what is it that you have used? It is excellent."
A faint color came to her cheek, the corners of her bowed lips twitched. "For a pirate, or a person of no culture, you do pretty well. As though a girl could sleep after all this hullabaloo."
"You have slept very well," said I. "You never looked better in all your life, Helena. And that is saying the whole litany."
"You are absurd," said she. "You must not begin it all again. We settled it once."
"We settled it twenty times, or to be exact, thirteen times, Helena.
The only trouble is, it would not stay settled. Tell me, is there any one else yet, Helena?"
"It is not any question for you to ask, or for me to answer." She was cold at once. "I've not tried to hear of you or your plans, and I suppose the same is true of you. It is long since I have had a heartache over you--a headache is all you can give me now, or ever could. That is why I can not in the least understand why you are here now. Auntie is almost crazy, she is so frightened. She thinks you are entirely crazy, and believes you have murdered Mr. Davidson."
"I have not yet done so, although it is true I am wearing his shoes; or at least his waistcoat. How do you like it?"
"I like the one with pink stripes better," she replied demurely.
"So then--so then!" I began; but choked in anger at her familiarity with Cal Davidson's waistcoats. And my anger grew when I saw her smile.
"Tell me, are you engaged to him, Helena?" I demanded. "But I can see; you are." She drew herself up as she stood, her hands behind her back.
"A fine question to ask, isn't it? Especially in view of what we both know."
"But you haven't told me."
"And am not going to."
"Why not?"
"Because it is the right of a middle-aged woman like myself----"
"--Twenty-four," said I.
"--To do as she likes in such matters. And she doesn't need make any confidences with a man she hasn't seen for years. And for whom she never--she _never_----"
"Helena," said I, and I felt pale, whether or not I looked it, "be careful. That hurts."
"Oh, is it so?" she blazed. "I am glad if it does hurt."
I bowed to her. "I am glad if it gives you pleasure to see me hurt. I am. _Habeo!_"
"But it was not so as to me," I added presently. "Yes, I said good-by to you, that last time, and I meant it. I had tried for years, I believe, with every argument in my power, to explain to you that I loved you, to explain that in every human likelihood we would make a good match of it, that we--we--well, that we'd hit it off fine together, very likely. And then, I was well enough off--at first, at least----"
"Oh, don't!" she protested. "It is like opening a grave. We buried it all, Harry. It's over. Can't you spare a girl, a middle-aged girl of twenty-four, this resurrection? We ended it. Why, Harry, we have to make out some sort of life for ourselves, don't we? We can't just sit down and--and----"
"No," said I. "I tried it. I got me a little place, far up in the wilderness with what remained of my shattered fortunes--a few acres.
And I sat down there and tried that 'and--and' business. It didn't seem to work. But we don't get on much in our parley, do we?"
"No. The most charitable thing I can think of is that you are crazy.
Aunt Lucinda must be right. But what do you intend to do with us? We can't get off the boat, and we can't get any answer to our signals for help."
"So you have signaled?"
"Of course. Waved things, you know."