THE ROUGH CROSSING
ONCE ON the long, covered piers,
you have come into a ghostly
country that is no longer Here
and not yet There. Especially at
night. There is a hazy yellow
vault full of shouting, echoing voices.
There is the rumble of trucks and
the clump of trunks, the strident
chatter of a crane and the first
salt smell of the sea. You hurry
through, even though there's
time. The past, the continent, is behind
you ; the future is that glowing
mouth in the side of the ship ; this dim
turbulent alley is too confusedly
the present.
Up the gangplank, and the vision
of the world adjusts itself, nar-
rows. One is a citizen of a
commonwealth smaller than Andorra. One
is no longer so sure of anything.
Curiously unmoved the men at the
purser's desk, cell-like the
cabin, disdainful the eyes of voyagers and
their friends, solemn the officer
who stands on the deserted prome-
nade deck thinking something of
his own as he stares at the crowd
below. A last odd idea that one
didn't really have to come, then the
loud, mournful whistles, and the
thing certainly not a boat, but
rather a human idea, a frame of
mind pushes forth into the big
dark night.
Adrian Smith, one of the
celebrities on board not a very great
celebrity, but important enough to
be bathed in flash light by a
photographer who had been given
his name, but wasn't sure what his
subject "did" Adrian
Smith and his blond wife, Eva, went up to the
promenade deck, passed the
melancholy ship's officer, and, finding a
quiet aerie, put their elbows on
the rail.
"We're going!" he cried
presently, and they both laughed in
ecstasy. "We've escaped.
They can't get us now."
"Who?"
He waved his hand vaguely at the
civic tiara.
"All those people out there.
They'll come with their posses and
their warrants and list of crimes
we've committed, and ring the bell
at our door on Park Avenue and
ask for the Adrian Smiths, but
what ho ! the Adrian Smiths and
their children and nurse are off for
France."
"You make me think we really
have committed crimes."
"They can't have you,"
he said, frowning. "That's one thing they're
after me about they know I
haven't got any right to a person like
you, and they're furious. That's
one reason I'm glad to get away."
"Darling," said Eva.
She was twenty-six five years
younger than he. She was something
precious to everyone who knew
her.
"I like this boat better
than the Majestic or the Aquitania" she
remarked, unfaithful to the ships
that had served their honeymoon.
"It's much smaller."
"But it's very slick and it
has all those little shops along the
corridors. And I think the
staterooms are bigger."
"The people are very formal
did you notice ? as if they thought
everyone else was a card sharp.
And in about four days half of them
will be calling the other half by
their first names."
Four of the people came by now a
quartet of young girls abreast,
making a circuit of the deck.
Their eight eyes swept momentarily
toward Adrian and Eva, and then
swept automatically back, save for
one pair which lingered for an
instant with a little start. They be-
longed to one of the girls in the
middle, who was, indeed, the only
passenger of the four. She was
not more than eighteen a dark little
beauty with the fine crystal
gloss over her that, in brunettes, takes
the place of a blonde's bright
glow.
"Now, who's that?"
wondered Adrian. "I've seen her before."
"She's pretty," said
Eva.
"Yes." He kept
wondering, and Eva deferred momentarily to his
distraction ; then, smiling up at
him, she drew him back into their
privacy.
"Tell me more," she
said.
"About what?"
"About us what a good time
we'll have, and how we'll be much
better and happier, and very
close always."
"How could we be any
closer?" His arm pulled her to him.
"But I mean never even
quarrel any more about silly things. You
know, I made up my mind when you
gave me my birthday present
last week" her fingers
caressed the fine seed pearls at her throat
"that I'd try never to say a
mean thing to you again."
"You never have, my
precious."
Yet even as he strained her
against his side she knew that the mo-
ment of utter isolation had
passed almost before it had begun. His
antennae were already out,
feeling over this new world.
"Most of the people look
rather awful," he said "little and
swarthy and ugly. Americans
didn't use to look like that."
"They look dreary," she
agreed. "Let's not get to know anybody,
but just say together."
A gong was beating now, and
stewards were shouting down the
decks, "Visitors ashore,
please!" and voices rose to a strident
chorus. For a while the
gangplanks were thronged ; then they were
empty, and the jostling crowd
behind the barrier waved and called
unintelligible things, and kept
up a grin of good will. As the steve-
dores began to work at the ropes
a flat-faced, somewhat befuddled
young man arrived in a great
hurry and was assisted up the gang-
plank by a porter and a taxi
driver. The ship having swallowed him
as impassively as though he were
a missionary for Beirut, a low,
portentous vibration began. The
pier with its faces commenced to
slide by, and for a moment the
boat was just a piece accidentally
split off from it; then the faces
became remote, voiceless, and the
pier was one among many yellow
blurs along the water front. Now
the harbor flowed swiftly toward
the sea.
On a northern parallel of
latitude a hurricane was forming and
moving south by southeast
preceded by a strong west wind. On its
course it was destined to swamp
the Peter I. Eudim of Amsterdam,
with a crew of sixty-six, to
break a boom on the largest boat in the
world, and to bring grief and
want to the wives of several hundred
seamen. This liner, leaving New
York Sunday evening, would enter
the zone of the storm Tuesday,
and of the hurricane late Wednes-
day night.
II
Tuesday afternoon Adrian and Eva
paid their first visit to the
smoking room. This was not in
accord with their intentions they
had "never wanted to see a
cocktail again" after leaving America
but they had forgotten the staccato
loneliness of ships, and all ac-
tivity centered about the bar. So
they went in for just a minute.
It was full. There were those who
had been there since luncheon,
and those who would be there
until dinner, not to mention a faithful
few who had been there since nine
this morning. It was a prosperous
assembly, taking its recreation
at bridge, solitaire, detective stories,
alcohol, argument and love. Up to
this point you could have matched
it in the club or casino life of
any country, but over it all played a
repressed nervous energy, a
barely disguised impatience that ex-
tended to old and young alike.
The cruise had begun, and they had
enjoyed the beginning, but the
show was not varied enough to last
six days, and already they wanted
it to be over.
At a table near them Adrian saw
the pretty girl who had stared at
him on the deck the first night.
Again he was fascinated by her love-
liness; there was no mist upon
the brilliant gloss that gleamed
through the smoky confusion of
the room. He and Eva had decided
from the passenger list that she
was probably "Miss Elizabeth
D'Amido and maid," and he
had heard her called Betsy as he walked
past a deck-tennis game. Among
the young people with her was the
flat-nosed youth who had been
"poured on board" the night of their
departure ; yesterday he had
walked the deck morosely, but he was
apparently reviving. Miss D'Amido
whispered something to him, and
he looked over at the Smiths with
curious eyes. Adrian was new
enough at being a celebrity to
turn self-consciously away.
"There's a little roll. Do
you feel it?" Eva demanded.
"Perhaps we'd better split a
pint of champagne."
While he gave the order a short
colloquy was taking place at the
other table ; presently a young
man rose and came over to them.
"Isn't this Mr. Adrian
Smith?"
"Yes."
"We wondered if we couldn't
put you down for the deck-tennis
tournament. We're going to have a
deck-tennis tournament."
"Why " Adrian
hesitated.
"My name's Stacomb,"
burst out the young man. "We all know
your your plays or whatever it
is, and all that and we wondered
if you wouldn't like to come over
to our table."
Somewhat overwhelmed, Adrian
laughed: Mr. Stacomb, glib, soft,
slouching, waited ; evidently
under the impression that he had de-
livered himself of a graceful
compliment.
Adrian, understanding that, too,
replied: "Thanks, but perhaps
you'd better come over
here."
"We've got a bigger table."
"But we're older and more
more settled."
The young man laughed kindly, as
if to say, "That's all right."
"Put me down," said
Adrian. "How much do I owe you?"
"One buck. Call me
Stac."
"Why?" asked Adrian,
startled.
"It's shorter."
When he had gone they smiled
broadly.
"Heavens," Eva gasped,
"I believe they are coming over."
They were. With a great draining
of glasses, calling of waiters,
shuffling of chairs, three boys
and two girls moved to the Smiths'
table. If there was any diffidence,
it was confined to the hosts ; for
the new additions gathered around
them eagerly, eying Adrian with
respect too much respect as if to
say: "This was probably a mis-
take and won't be amusing, but
maybe we'll get something out of it
to help us in our after life,
like at school."
In a moment Miss D'Amido changed
seats with one of the men
and placed her radiant self at
Adrian's side, looking at him with
manifest admiration.
"I fell in love with you the
minute I saw you," she said, audibly
and without self-consciousness ;
"so 111 take all the blame for butting
in. IVe seen your play four
times."
Adrian called a waiter to take
their orders.
"You see," continued
Miss D'Amido, "we're going into a storm,
and you might be prostrated the
rest of the trip, so I couldn't take
any chances."
He saw that there was no
undertone or innuendo in what she said,
nor the need of any. The words
themselves were enough, and the
deference with which she
neglected the young men and bent her
politeness on him was somehow
very touching. A little glow went
over him ; he was having rather
more than a pleasant time.
Eva was less entertained; but the
flat-nosed young man, whose
name was Butterworth, knew people
that she did, and that seemed
to make the affair less careless
and casual. She did not like meeting
new people unless they had
"something to contribute," and she was
often bored by the great streams
of them, of all types and conditions
and classes, that passed through
Adrian's life. She herself "had
everything" which is to say
that she was well endowed with
talents and with charm and the
mere novelty of people did not
seem a sufficient reason for
eternally offering everything up to
them.
Half an hour later when she rose
to go and see the children, she
was content that the episode was
over. It was colder on deck, with a
damp that was almost rain, and
there was a perceptible motion.
Opening the door of her stateroom
she was surprised to find the
cabin steward sitting languidly
on her bed, his head slumped upon
the upright pillow. He looked at
her listlessly as she came in, but
made no move to get up.
"When you've finished your
nap you can fetch me a new pillow-
case," she said briskly.
Still the man didn't move. She
perceived then that his face was
green.
"You can't be seasick in
here," she announced firmly. "You go and
lie down in your own
quarters."
"It's me side," he said
faintly. He tried to rise, gave out a little
rasping sound of pain and sank
back again. Eva rang for the stew-
ardess.
A steady pitch, toss, roll had
begun in earnest and she felt no sym-
pathy for the steward, but only
wanted to get him out as quick as
possible. It was outrageous for a
member of the crew to be seasick.
When the stewardess came in Eva
tried to explain this, but now her
own head was whirring, and
throwing herself on the bed, she covered
her eyes.
"It's his fault," she
groaned when the man was assisted from the
room. "I was all right and
it made me sick to look at him. I wish he'd
die."
In a few minutes Adrian came in.
"Oh, but I'm sick ! " she
cried.
"Why, you poor baby."
He leaned over and took her in his arms.
"Why didn't you tell
me?"
"I was all right upstairs,
but there was a steward Oh, I'm too
sick to talk."
"You'd better have dinner in
bed."
"Dinner ! Oh, my heavens I
"
He waited solicitously, but she
wanted to hear his voice, to have
it drown out the complaining
sound of the beams.
"Where've you been?"
"Helping to sign up people
for the tournament."
"Will they have it if it's
like this? Because if they do I'll just lose
for you."
He didn't answer ; opening her
eyes, she saw that he was frown-
ing.
"I didn't know you were
going in the doubles," he said.
"Why, that's the only
fun."
"I told the D'Amido girl I'd
play with her."
"Oh."
"I didn't think. You know
I'd much rather play with you."
"Why didn't you, then?"
she asked coolly. '
"It never occurred to
me."
She remembered that on their honeymoon
they had been in the
finals and won a prize. Years
passed. But Adrian never frowned in
this regretful way unless he felt
a little guilty. He stumbled about,
getting his dinner clothes out of
the trunk, and she shut her eyes.
When a particular violent lurch
startled her awake again he was
dressed and tying his tie. He
looked healthy and fresh, and his eyes
were bright.
"Well, how about it?"
he inquired. "Can you make it, or no?"
"No."
"Can I do anything for you
before I go?"
"Where are you going?"
"Meeting those kids in the
bar. Can I do anything for you?"
"No."
"Darling, I hate to leave
you like this."
"Don't be silly. I just want
to sleep."
That solicitous frown when she
knew he was crazy to be out and
away from the close cabin. She
was glad when the door closed. The
thing to do was to sleep, sleep.
Up down sideways. Hey there, not
so far I Pull her round the
corner there! Now roll her, right
left Crea-eak! Wrench!
Swoop I
Some hours later Eva was dimly
conscious of Adrian bending over
her. She wanted him to put his
arms around her and draw her up
out of this dizzy lethargy, but
by the time she was fully awake the
cabin was empty. He had looked in
and gone. When she awoke next
the cabin was dark and he was in
bed.
The morning was fresh and cool,
and the sea was just enough
calmer to make Eva think she
could get up. They breakfasted in the
cabin and with Adrian's help she
accomplished an unsatisfactory
makeshift toilet and they went up
on the boat deck. The tennis
tournament had already begun and
was furnishing action for a
dozen amateur movie cameras, but
the majority of passengers were
represented by lifeless bundles
in deck chairs beside untasted trays.
Adrian and Miss D'Amido played
their first match. She was deft
and graceful ; blatantly well.
There was even more warmth behind
her ivory skin than there had
been the day before. The strolling
first officer stopped and talked
to her ; half a dozen men whom she
couldn't have known three days
ago called her Betsy. She was al-
ready the pretty girl of the
voyage, the cynosure of starved ship's
eyes.
But after a while Eva preferred
to watch the gulls in the wireless
masts and the slow slide of the
roll-top sky. Most of the passengers
looked silly with their movie
cameras that they had all rushed to get
and now didn't know what to use
for, but the sailors painting the
lifeboat stanchions were quiet
and beaten and sympathetic, and
probably wished, as she did, that
the voyage was over.
Butterworth sat down on the deck
beside her chair.
"They're operating on one of
the stewards this morning. Must be
terrible in this sea."
"Operating? What for?"
she asked listlessly.
"Appendicitis. They have to
operate now because we're going into
worse weather. That's why they're
having the ship's party tonight."
"Oh, the poor man ! " she
cried, realizing it must be her steward.
Adrian was showing off now by
being very courteous and thought-
ful in the game.
"Sorry. Did you hurt
yourself? . . . No, it was my fault. . . .
You better put on your coat right
away, pardner, or you'll catch
cold."
The match was over and they had
won. Flushed and hearty, he
came up to Eva's chair.
"How do you feel?"
"Terrible."
"Winners are buying a drink
in the bar," he said apologetically.
"I'm coming, too," Eva
said, but an immediate dizziness made her
sink back in her chair.
"You'd better stay here.
I'll send you up something."
She felt that his public manner
had hardened toward her slightly.
"You'll come back?"
"Oh, right away."
She was alone on the boat deck,
save for a solitary ship's officer
who slanted obliquely as he paced
the bridge. When the cocktail
arrived she forced herself to
drink it, and felt better. Trying to dis-
tract her mind with pleasant
things, she reached back to the sanguine
talks that she and Adrian had had
before sailing : There was the little
villa in Brittany, the children
learning French that was all she
could think of now the little
villa in Brittany, the children learn-
ing French so she repeated the
words over and over to herself until
they became as meaningless as the
wide white sky. The why of their
being here had suddenly eluded
her; she felt unmotivated, acci-
dental, and she wanted Adrian to
come back quick, all responsive and
tender, to reassure her. It was
in the hope that there was some se-
cret of graceful living, some
real compensation for the lost, careless
confidence of twenty-one, that
they were going to spend a year in
France.
The day passed darkly, with fewer
people around and a wet sky
falling. Suddenly it was five
o'clock, and they were all in the bar
again, and Mr. Butterworth was
telling her about his past. She took
a good deal of champagne, but she
was seasick dimly through it, as
if the illness was her soul
trying to struggle up through some thick-
ening incrustation of abnormal life.
"You're my idea of a Greek
goddess, physically," Butterworth was
saying.
It was pleasant to be Mr.
Butterworth's idea of a Greek goddess
physically, but where was Adrian?
He and Miss D'Amido had gone
out on a forward deck to feel the
spray. Eva heard herself promising
to get out her colors and paint
the Eiffel Tower on Butterworth's
shirt front for the party
tonight.
When Adrian and Betsy D'Amido,
soaked with spray, opened the
door with difficulty against the
driving wind and came into the now-
covered security of the promenade
deck, they stopped and turned
toward each other.
"Well?" she said. But
he only stood with his back to the rail,
looking at her, afraid to speak.
She was silent, too, because she
wanted him to be first; so for a
moment nothing happened. Then
she made a step toward him, and
he took her in his arms and kissed
her forehead.
"You're just sorry for me,
that's all." She began to cry a little.
"You're just being
kind."
"I feel terribly about
it." His voice was taut and trembling.
"Then kiss me."
The deck was empty. He bent over
her swiftly.
"No, really kiss me."
He could not remember when
anything had felt so young and fresh
as her lips. The rain lay, like
tears shed for him, upon the softly
shining porcelain cheeks. She was
all new and immaculate, and her
eyes were wild.
"I love you," she
whispered. "I can't help loving you, can I? When
I first saw you oh, not on the
boat, but over a year ago Grace
Heally took me to a rehearsal and
suddenly you jumped up in the
second row and began telling them
what to do. I wrote you a letter
and tore it up."
"We've got to go."
She was weeping as they walked
along the deck. Once more, im-
prudently, she held up her face
to him at the door of her cabin. His
blood was beating through him in
wild tumult as he walked on to the
bar.
He was thankful that Eva scarcely
seemed to notice him or to
know that he had been gone. After
a moment he pretended an inter-
est in what she was doing.
"What's that?"
"She's painting the Eiffel
Tower on my shirt front for tonight,"
explained Butterworth.
"There," Eva laid away
her brush and wiped her hands. "How's
that?"
"A chef-d'oeuvre:'
Her eyes swept around the
watching group, lingered casually upon
Adrian.
"You're wet. Go and
change."
"You come too."
"I want another champagne
cocktail."
"You've had enough. It's
time to dress for the party."
Unwilling she closed her paints
and preceded him.
"Stacomb's got a table for
nine," he remarked as they walked
along the corridor.
"The younger set," she
said with unnecessary bitterness. "Oh,
the younger set. And you just
having the time of your life with
a child."
They had a long discussion in the
cabin, unpleasant on her part
and evasive on his, which ended
when the ship gave a sudden gigan-
tic heave, and Eva, the edge worn
off her champagne, felt ill again.
There was nothing to do but to
have a cocktail in the cabin, and
after that they decided to go to
the party she believed him now, or
she didn't care.
Adrian was ready first he never
wore fancy dress.
"I'll go on up. Don't be
long."
"Wait for me, please ; it's
rocking so."
He sat down on a bed, concealing
his impatience.
"You don't mind waiting, do
you? I don't want to parade up there
all alone." /
She was taking a tuck in an
oriental costume rented from the
barber.
"Ships make people feel
crazy," she said. "I think they're awful."
"Yes," he muttered
absently.
"When it gets very bad I
pretend I'm in the top of a tree, rocking
to and fro. But finally I get
pretending everything, and finally I have
to pretend I'm sane when I know
I'm not."
"If you get thinking that
way you will go crazy."
"Look, Adrian." She
held up the string of pearls before clasping
them on. "Aren't they
lovely?"
In Adrian's impatience she seemed
to move around the cabin
like a figure in a slow-motion
picture. After a moment he de-
manded :
"Are you going to be long?
It's stifling in here."
"You go on ! " she
fired up.
"I don't want "
"Go on, please ! You just
make me nervous trying to hurry me."
With a show of reluctance he left
her. After a moment's hesitation
he went down a flight to a deck
below and knocked at a door.
"Betsy."
"Just a minute."
She came out in the corridor
attired in a red pea-jacket and
trousers borrowed from the elevator
boy.
"Do elevator boys have fleas
?" she demanded. "I've got everything
in the world on under this as a
precaution."
"I had to see you," he
said quickly.
"Careful," she
whispered. "Mrs. Worden, who's supposed to be
chaperoning me, is across the
way. She's sick."
"I'm sick for you."
They kissed suddenly, clung close
together in the narrow corridor,
swaying to and fro with the
motion of the ship.
"Don't go away," she
murmured.
"I've got to. I've "
Her youth seemed to flow into
him, bearing him up into a delicate,
romantic ecstasy that transcended
passion. He couldn't relinquish it ;
he had discovered something that
he had thought was lost with his
own youth forever. As he walked
along the passage he knew that he
had stopped thinking, no longer
dared to think.
He met Eva going into the bar.
"WhereVe you been?" she
asked with a strained smile.
"To see about the
table."
She was lovely ; her cool
distinction conquered the trite costume
and filled him with a resurgence
of approval and pride. They sat
down at a table.
The gale was rising hour by hour
and the mere traversing of a
passage had become a rough
matter. In every stateroom trunks were
lashed to the washstands, and the
Vestris disaster was being re-
viewed in detail by nervous
ladies, tossing, ill and wretched, upon
their beds. In the smoking room a
stout gentleman had been hurled
backward and suffered a badly cut
head ; and now the lighter chairs
and tables were stacked and roped
against the wall.
The crowd who had donned fancy
dress and were dining together
had swollen to about sixteen. The
only remaining qualification for
membership was the ability to
reach the smoking room. They ranged
from a Groton-Harvard lawyer to
an ungrammatical broker they had
nicknamed Gyp the Blood, but
distinctions had disappeared ; for the
moment they were samurai, chosen
from several hundred for their
triumphant resistance to the
storm.
The gala dinner, overhung
sardonically with lanterns and stream-
ers, was interrupted by great
communal slides across the room, pre-
cipitate retirements and spilled
wine, while the ship roared and com-
plained that under the panoply of
a palace it was a ship after all.
Upstairs afterward a dozen
couples tried to dance, shuffling and
galloping here and there in a
crazy fandango, thrust around fan-
tastically by a will alien to
their own. In view of the condition of
tortured hundreds below, there
grew to be something indecent about
it, like a revel in a house of mourning,
and presently there was an
egress of the ever-dwindling
survivors toward the bar.
As the evening passed, Eva's
feeling of unreality increased. Adrian
had disappeared presumably with
Miss D'Amido and her mind,
distorted by illness and champagne,
began to enlarge upon the fact ;
annoyance changed slowly to dark
and brooding anger, grief to des-
peration. She had never tried to
bind Adrian, never needed to for
they were serious people, with
all sorts of mutual interests, and satis-
fied with each other but this was
a breach of the contract, this
was cruel. How could he think
that she didn't know ?
It seemed several hours later
that he leaned over her chair in the
bar where she was giving some
woman an impassioned lecture upon
babies, and said:
"Eva, we'd better turn
in."
Her lip curled. "So that you
can leave me there and then come
back to your eighteen-year "
"Be quiet."
"I won't come to bed."
"Very well. Good
night."
More time passed and the people
at the table changed. The stew-
ards wanted to close up the room,
and thinking of Adrian her
Adrian off somewhere saying
tender things to someone fresh and
lovely, Eva began to cry.
"But he's gone to bed,"
her last attendants assured her. "We saw
him go."
She shook her head. She knew
better. Adrian was lost. The long
seven-year dream was broken.
Probably she was punished for some-
thing she had done ; as this
thought occurred to her the shrieking
timbers overhead began to mutter
that she had guessed at last. This
was for the selfishness to her
mother, who hadn't wanted her to marry
Adrian ; for all the sins and
omissions of her life. She stood up, say-
ing she must go out and get some
air.
The deck was dark and drenched
with wind and rain. The ship
pounded through valleys, fleeing
from black mountains of water
that roared toward it. Looking
out at the night, Eva saw that there
was no chance for them unless she
could make atonement, propitiate
the storm. It was Adrian's love
that was demanded of her. Deliber-
ately she unclasped her pearl
necklace, lifted it to her lips for she
knew that with it went the
freshest, fairest part of her life and
flung it out into the gale.
Ill
When Adrian awoke it was
lunchtime, but he knew that some
heavier sound than the bugle had
called him up from his deep sleep.
Then he realized that the trunk
had broken loose from its lashings
and was being thrown back and
forth between a wardrobe and Eva's
bed. With an exclamation he
jumped up, but she was unharmed
still in costume and stretched
out in deep sleep. When the steward
had helped him secure the trunk,
Eva opened a single eye.
"How are you?" he
demanded, sitting on the side of her bed.
She closed the eye, opened it
again.
"We're in a hurricane
now," he told her. "The steward says it's
the worst he's seen in twenty
years."
"My head," she
muttered. "Hold my head."
"How?"
"In front. My eyes are going
out. I think I'm dying."
"Nonsense. Do you want the
doctor?"
She gave a funny little gasp that
frightened him ; he rang and sent
the steward for the doctor.
The young doctor was pale and
tired. There was a stubble of beard
upon his face. He bowed curtly as
he came in and, turning to Adrian,
said with scant ceremony :
"What's the matter?"
"My wife doesn't feel
well."
"Well, what is it you want a
bromide?"
A little annoyed by his
shortness, Adrian said: "You'd better
examine her and see what she
needs."
"She needs a bromide,"
said the doctor. "I've given orders that
she is not to have any more to
drink on this ship."
"Why not?" demanded
Adrian in astonishment.
"Don't you know what
happened last night?"
"Why, no, I was
asleep."
"Mrs. Smith wandered around
the boat for an hour, not knowing
what she was doing. A sailor was
set to follow her, and then the
medical stewardess tried to get
her to bed, and your wife insulted
her."
"Oh, my heavens!" cried
Eva faintly.
"The nurse and I had both
been up all night with Steward Carton,
who died this morning." He
picked up his case. "I'll send down a
bromide for Mrs. Smith.
Good-by."
For a few minutes there was
silence in the cabin. Then Adrian
put his arm around her quickly.
"Never mind," he said.
"We'll straighten it out."
"I remember now." Her
voice was an awed whisper. "My pearls. 1
threw them overboard."
"Threw them overboard !
"
"Then I began looking for
you."
"But I was here in
bed."
"I didn't believe it ; I
thought you were with that girl."
"She collapsed during
dinner. I was taking a nap down here."
Frowning, he rang the bell and
asked the steward for luncheon
and a bottle of beer.
"Sorry, but we can't serve
any beer to your cabin, sir."
When he went out Adrian exploded:
"This is an outrage. You
were simply crazy from that storm
and they can't be so high-handed.
I'll see the captain."
"Isn't that awful?" Eva
murmured. "The poor man died."
She turned over and began to sob
into her pillow. There was a
knock at the door.
"Can I come in?"
The assiduous Mr. Butterworth,
surprisingly healthy and immacu-
late, came into the crazily
tipping cabin.
"Well, how's the
mystic?" he demanded of Eva. "Do you remem-
ber praying to the elements in
the bar last night?"
"I don't want to remember anything
about last night."
They told him about the
stewardess, and with the telling the situa-
tion lightened ; they all laughed
together.
"I'm going to get you some
beer to have with your luncheon,"
Butterworth said. "You ought
to get up on deck."
"Don't go," Eva said.
"You look so cheerful and nice."
"Just for ten minutes."
When he had gone, Adrian rang for
two baths.
"The thing is to put on our
best clothes and walk proudly three
times around the deck," he
said.
"Yes." After a moment
she added abstractedly: "I like that
young man. He was awfully nice to
me last night when you'd dis-
appeared."
The bath steward appeared with
the information that bathing
was too dangerous today. They
were in the midst of the wildest
hurricane on the North Atlantic
in ten years ; there were two broken
arms this morning from attempts
to take baths. An elderly lady had
been thrown down a staircase and
was not expected to live. Further-
more, they had received the SOS
signal from several boats this
morning.
"Will we go to help
them?"
"They're all behind us, sir,
so we have to leave them to the
Mauretania. If we tried to turn
in this sea the portholes would be
smashed."
This array of calamities
minimized their own troubles. Having
eaten a sort of luncheon and
drunk the beer provided by Butter-
worth, they dressed and went on
deck.
Despite the fact that it was only
possible to progress step by step,
holding on to rope or rail, more
people were abroad than on the day
before. Fear had driven them from
their cabins, where the trunks
bumped and the waves pounded the
portholes and they awaited
momentarily the call to the
boats. Indeed, as Adrian and Eva stood
on the transverse deck above the
second class, there was a bugle call,
followed by a gathering of
stewards and stewardesses on the deck
below. But the boat was sound ;
it had outlasted one of its cargo
Steward James Carton was being
buried at sea.
It was very British and sad.
There were the rows of stiff, dis-
ciplined men and women standing
in the driving rain, and there was
a shape covered by the flag of
the Empire that lived by the sea. The
chief purser read the service, a
hymn was sung, the body slid off into
the hurricane. With Eva's burst
of wild weeping for this humble end,
some last string snapped within
her. Now she really didn't care. She
responded eagerly when
Butterworth suggested that he get some
champagne to their cabin. Her
mood worried Adrian ; she wasn't used
to so much drinking and he
wondered what he ought to do. At his
suggestion that they sleep
instead, she merely laughed, and the
bromide the doctor had sent stood
untouched on the washstand. Pre-
tending to listen to the
insipidities of several Mr. Stacombs, he
watched her ; to his surprise and
discomfort she seemed on intimate
and even sentimental terms with
Butterworth, and he wondered if
this was a form of revenge for
his attention to Betsy D'Amido.
The cabin was full of smoke, the
voices went on incessantly, the
suspension of activity, the
waiting for the storm's end, was getting
on his nerves. They had been at
sea only four days ; it was like a
year.
The two Mr. Stacombs left
finally, but Butterworth remained. Eva
was urging him to go for another
bottle of champagne.
"We've had enough,"
objected Adrian. "We ought to go to bed."
"I won't go to bed!"
she burst out. "You must be crazy! You
play around all you want, and
then, when I find somebody I I like,
you want to put me to bed."
"You're hysterical."
"On the contrary, I've never
been so sane."
"I think you'd better leave
us, Butterworth," Adrian said. "Eva
doesn't know what she's saying."
"He won't go. I won't let
him go." She clasped Butterworth's
hand passionately. "He's the
only person that's been half decent to
me."
"You'd better go,
Butterworth," repeated Adrian.
The young man looked at him
uncertainly.
"It seems to me you're being
unjust to your wife," he ventured.
"My wife isn't
herself."
"That's no reason for
bullying her."
Adrian lost his temper. "You
get out of here ! " he cried.
The two men looked at each other
for a moment in silence. Then
Butterworth turned to Eva, said,
"I'll be back later," and left the
cabin.
"Eva, youVe got to pull
yourself together," said Adrian when the
door closed.
She didn't answer, looked at him from
sullen, half-closed eyes.
"I'll order dinner here for
us both and then we'll try to get some
sleep."
"I want to go up and send a
wireless."
"Who to?"
"Some Paris lawyer. I want a
divorce."
In spite of his annoyance, he
laughed. "Don't be silly."
"Then I want to see the
children."
"Well, go and see them. I'll
order dinner."
He waited for her in the cabin
twenty minutes. Then impatiently
he opened the door across the
corridor ; the nurse told him that Mrs.
Smith had not been there.
With a sudden prescience of
disaster he ran upstairs, glanced in
the bar, the salons, even knocked
at Butterworth's door. Then a
quick round of the decks, feeling
his way through the black spray
and rain. A sailor stopped him at
a network of ropes.
"Orders are no one goes by,
sir. A wave has gone over the wireless
room."
"Have you seen a lady?"
"There was a young lady here
" He stopped and glanced
tround. "Hello, she's
gone."
"She went up the stairs !
" Adrian said anxiously. "Up to the wire-
less room ! "
The sailor ran up to the boat
deck ; stumbling and slipping, Adrian
followed. As he cleared the
protected sides of the companionway, a
tremendous body struck the boat a
staggering blow and, as she keeled
over to an angle of forty-five
degrees, he was thrown in a helpless
roll down the drenched deck, to
bring up dizzy and bruised against a
stanchion.
"Eva!" he called. His
voice was soundless in the black storm.
Against the faint light of the
wireless-room window he saw the sailor
making his way forward.
"Eva!"
The wind blew him like a sail up
against a lifeboat. Then there
was another shuddering crash, and
high over his head, over the very
boat, he saw a gigantic,
glittering white wave, and in the split second
that it balanced there he became
conscious of Eva, standing beside
a ventilator twenty feet away.
Pushing out from the stanchion, he
lunged desperately toward her,
just as the wave broke with a
smashing roar. For a moment the
rushing water was five feet deep,
sweeping with enormous force
toward the side, and then a human
body was washed against him, and
frantically he clutched it and was
swept with it back toward the
rail. He felt his body bump against it,
but desperately he held on to his
burden ; then, as the ship rocked
slowly back, the two of them,
still joined by his fierce grip, were
rolled out exhausted on the wet
planks. For a moment he knew no
more.
IV
Two days later, as the boat train
moved tranquilly south toward
Paris, Adrian tried to persuade
his children to look out the window
at the Norman countryside.
"It's beautiful," he
assured them. "All the little farms like toys.
Why, in heaven's name, won't you
look?"
"I like the boat
better," said Estelle.
Her parents exchanged an
infanticidal glance.
"The boat is still rocking
for me," Eva said with a shiver. "Is it
for you ?"
"No. Somehow, it all seems a
long way off. Even the passengers
looked unfamiliar going through
the customs."
"Most of them hadn't
appeared above ground before."
He hesitated. "By the way, I
cashed Butterworth's check for him."
"You're a fool. You'll never
see the money again."
"He must have needed it pretty
badly or he would not have come
to me."
A pale and wan girl, passing
along the corridor, recognized them
and put her head through the
doorway.
"How do you feel?"
"Awful."
"Me, too," agreed Miss
D'Amido. "I'm vainly hoping my fiance
will recognize me at the Gare du
Nord. Do you know two waves went
over the wireless room?"
"So we heard," Adrian
answered dryly.
She passed gracefully along the
corridor and out of their life.
"The real truth is that none
of it happened," said Adrian after a
moment. "It was a nightmare
an incredibly awful nightmare."
"Then, where are my
pearls?"
"Darling, there are better
pearls in Paris. I'll take the respon-
sibility for those pearls. My
real belief is that you saved the boat."
"Adrian, let's never get to
know anyone else, but just stay together
always just we two."
He tucked her arm under his and
they sat close. "Who do you
suppose those Adrian Smiths on
the boat were?" he demanded. "It
certainly wasn't me."
"Nor me."
"It was two other people,"
he said, nodding to himself. "There are
so many Smiths in this
world."