Read Ebook: Richard Richard by Mearns Hughes

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Ebook has 2749 lines and 106139 words, and 55 pages

Smudgy-faced members of the crew appeared here and there, the sort that the passengers ordinarily never see on voyage; cooks, vegetable carriers and knife boys called across barriers to one another; and off in the distance an officer could be observed coatless and heavily suspendered.

"Why aren't you going on shore?" she asked suddenly.

"I?" he parried. "Not interested."

"Not interested in Naples and Pompeii?" she inquired incredulously. "Oh, you've been there before, I see."

"No; I've never been there. I--uh--just prefer to--uh--stay here.... I like to be alone."

"Thank you!" cheerily.

She looked at him expectantly.

He took some time before he said serenely, "I can't say it."

"What?" But she knew what.

"The obvious complimentary thing. A woman does that with amazing skill," he mused. "She directs a conversation into a position where the man must make her a pretty speech. Oh, it's all right; but it interferes shockingly."

"Interferes with what?" This time she did not know what.

"With any rational conversation," he explained calmly. "I don't mind your company. In fact, I have enjoyed it. But I do like to be alone. I've spent most of my life alone. On this trip abroad I've fought my right to be my own travelling-companion. These are just facts, like the boat's sailing to-night at nine; but a man can't tell them to a pretty woman without her pretending to take them personally. So she says 'thank you!'--only in jest, I know--and then I must say some foolish flattery, but the conversation is--well, it cannot go on with the same directness with which a man talks to a man.... You see I'm not complaining. This is just another fact. I'm really interested in it.... Men are forced to treat women like pretty children. Why do women stand it?"

"They don't always like it," she wrinkled her forehead and puzzled over the matter, "but men are such 'jolliers,' you know."

"Fancy a man flattering another man!" he went on. The idea interested him. He seemed to be forgetting the woman beside him; certainly he had completely forgotten the thought born of her first approach, that she was just the sort of person to have plenty of money--somebody else's, a father's or a husband's--and to offer it, too. Of course he had not intended to ask for anything. He knew enough to know that she would lend. He had been in that precise predicament before. Money had always come to him. You see, if he had looked the part of poor-man, beggar-man, thief, the world would have turned coldly away; but he was built on mighty prosperous lines. One felt, at the first glance, that here was an athletic aristocrat. He was just that in reality; but he was mortgaged to the last hedge-row.

So the thought of taking her predestined offer of money slipped from him. He was not a scheming mind. The gods took care of such things. Let them! The important matter just now was the consideration of the droll picture of two males saying sweet things apropos of each other's eyes and noses.

He chuckled. "Fancy trying to have a discussion with a man on the subject, say, of a possible life after death, and have him lean over, stare at the top of your head, and with a tremendous assumption of interest exclaim, 'Jove, man, I do like the way you brushed your hair this morning! With the sun striking the brown edges it is absolutely stunning!'"

They discussed flattery and women. The man slowly forgot his reserve, while the woman, with subtle native flattery, listened. Four bells rang out sharply from forward, repeated far off in the engine-room below. Ten o'clock.

He turned his head and regarded her quizzically, like an amused elder brother. He was older. His clean-shaven face had a medley of lines in it which showed superior years.

"I should be delighted," he remarked. His intonation carried precisely the information that his phrase was absolutely polite and absolutely non-committal.

"Oh, rot!" she laughed, but she showed impatience. "Don't be so foolish and conventional. You do want to see the place. You said you did. And I want to go, too. It's nothing extraordinary. It's just the same as if I asked you to play shuffle-board. Honest, you do want to go; don't you?"

"Yes," he half-drawled, but made no effort to move from a convenient sprawl over the rail.

He searched in his pockets carefully and finally presented a flat leather wallet.

"You force me to admit my very embarrassing position." As he fumbled with the strap on the wallet she understood. The word "embarrassing" was in itself illuminating.

"Oh!" she gasped, shocked at her own stupidity. What an idiot! She had been gabbling to this man when all the while he had been warning her to keep off!

"Then let's go!" she cried. "Let's! I've got money; heaps of it." She dived into a bag she carried with her. "Look here!" she flashed a packet of various coloured bank-notes. In an inner compartment she showed him a mixture of sovereigns and gold louis. "The purser will give me Italian money. He said he would this morning. Wait! I'll get a hat."

She sped across the deck and around the corner before he could protest. To her stateroom she went first and added a veil about her hat, selected a parasol and donned long thin gloves. Then to the purser's.

"What time do we sail to-night?" she asked as the official made the change of money.

"To-night?" he echoed. "We stay here until to-morrow morning. We sail at six to-morrow. There is a notice posted."

"Thank you," she said, and sped to the bulletin-board. In three languages the purser was verified. In a moment more she was back on the promenade-deck.

He had accepted the purse; but otherwise he had not moved.

"Wait a bit," he spoke with quiet authority. "I can't do this as your treat."

"Let me hire you as a guide, then," she ventured.

"Well, let's Dutch it, then. We'll divide expenses--you pay me in New York."

"I won't have anything in New York but five dollars."

"Pay it back whenever you get it."

"But what?"

"That may be a long while."

"I don't care. I want to see Naples."

"I'm not over-careful about paying debts. I'm likely to repudiate," he warned. "My memory is almost useless."

"Well, leave it to me in your will and--hurry!"

Five bells tolled off smartly. The lady strode forward and tugged at his arm. He laughed quietly and followed.

"Really," he told her as they slid down the steep plank, "I'm awfully keen for this trip."

The Italian understood perfectly. And where would madame and m'sieu wish to go? To the Italian all well-dressed foreigners are French.

"To the top of that hill first," the madame commanded. M'sieu remarked, "We must not get too far away. We sail at nine to-night; and clocks are not very dependable in these parts."

"Yes, we must be careful about the time," she agreed, but offered no word of the more recent information she had received from the purser. "We can have one good glorious dinner somewhere and be back easily by half-past eight," she told him.

They had turned a corner of the creaking winding road which gave suddenly a little glimpse of the Bay.

"Look!" she exclaimed. They turned their heads. "It is beginning to be blue already! U-m!" she sniffed. "Did you get that delicious scent? What is it? Lilac?... And look over there! Still bluer."

"Cerulean blue, every yard of it guaranteed," he remarked lazily; but there was no doubt he was taking it in as eagerly as she. To the lady this was one of many possible trips abroad. To the man it was a sight of Italy, almost withheld like the Promised Land from Moses of old, now made a reality; the promise fulfilled of seven years' mean living.

The "dinky" carriage plodded slowly up the hill. The grey tile-topped roofs began to huddle together below them. Old Vesuvius grew to look less like a flat ash-heap. Far off in the background ranges of higher hills began to push solemnly skyward. And the Bay of Naples slowly expanded, and softened, and yielded up its velvet blue.

"Isn't it great?" the lady said, gazing afar.

"Great!" the man replied. "Wonderful!"

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