Corinna presently returned with more food and proceeded to the next baby in line. In the meantime Anway, finding himself both unnecessary and helpless in this situation, had drifted away – to confer with his "brothers," perhaps. The second baby's mother was perfectly capable of feeding her own offspring, and Evan saw that Corinna was merely using the infant as a shield against him. But he could not seem to interfere between a helpless baby and its food.
When she passed him again bound down below he said: "Let me help you."
"Thanks, this is hardly in your line," she said coldly.
Nevertheless he followed her down and saw that she went to the galley for a soft-boiled egg for the next child.
"You're wasting your time running up and down," he said with obstinate good nature. "Let me be your waiter and fetch the different orders while you feed."
"Thanks; I don't need your assistance," she said.
But he saw that her temper was beginning to rise, and took heart. If he could only put her in the wrong! He blandly followed her back again, and as she started to feed he found out for himself what the next baby required. This was a small one and its order was for six ounces of milk with two ounces of barley water and a teaspoonful of sugar added, the whole in a bottle well-warmed.
He procured it from the galley in due course. Corinna received it of him with a very ill grace. "She'd make a face at me if she didn't have her dignity to keep up," thought Evan. After that he had her. They worked their way down one side of the saloon and back on the other, to all outward appearance at least like two pals. Evan was careful to confine his remarks to milk, oatmeal gruel, beef broth and orange juice. Corinna could not find matter in this to quarrel over. She was as acidly sweet as one of the oranges.
Only the little ones and the sick were specially fed in the saloon. The others were taken down in relays to the dining-room on the main deck aft. Corinna's and Evan's task came to an end at last. As he carried the last cup back to the galley Evan said to himself: "Now's my chance!"
But when he returned he saw that Corinna, for the sake of the convalescent children not allowed out on deck, had started to tell a story. They were pressing around her in close ranks that presented a triple line of defence.
CHAPTER XII
EVAN LOSES A ROUND
Evan, somewhat crestfallen, went out on deck and lit a cigarette. "Oh, well, it can't last forever," he told himself. He found a seat near an open window where he could overhear the story. To his mind Corinna had not much of a talent for it. He thought he could have told a better one himself. It was the chronicle of an unpleasantly good little girl, and when Corinna was gravelled for matter to continue with, she filled in by lengthily describing the heroine's clothes. "Just filibustering like the U. S. Senate," thought Evan disgustedly.
Corinna, suspecting perhaps that she had too critical a listener, changed her seat on the pretext of a draught and he could hear no more.
Meanwhile the good ship Ernestina was industriously wig-wagging her walking-beam down the upper Bay. She was a quaint, crablike little craft. Her tall and skinny smokestack was like a perpetual exclamation point. Her gait resembled that of a sprightly old horse who makes a great to-do with his feet on the road but somehow gets nowhere. At the end of each stroke of her piston she seemed to stop for an instant and then with a wheeze and a clank from below, and a violent tremor from stem to stern, started all over. Her paddle-wheels kicked up alarming looking rollers behind, but with it all she travelled no faster than a steam canal-boat. Not that it mattered; the children got just as much ozone as on the deck of the Aquitania.
Evan's patience was not inexhaustible. By the time they reached Norton's Point he was obliged to go in to see how the story was progressing. It was no nearer its end, as far as he could judge. Corinna's Dorothy Dolores was donning a party dress of pink messaline with a panne velvet girdle. The children's interest flagged and they drifted away, but there were always others to take their places.
Ikey O'Toole and his pal happened to pass through the saloon bound on some errand of their own, and Evan had a wicked idea. "Come here, boys," said he, "and I'll tell you a story about robbers."
Their eyes brightened. Evan took a seat opposite Corinna's and began:
"There was a band of train-robbers and cattle-rustlers who lived in a cave out in Arizona, and they had for a leader a guy named Three-fingered Pete. Pete could draw a gun quicker with his three fingers than any other man with five."
And so on. There was magic in it. Let it not be supposed that little girls are proof against a story of robbers however they may make believe. They came drifting across the saloon. In ten minutes there were twenty children surrounding Evan, while Corinna's audience had dwindled to four and they were restive. Corinna kept on. Her pale, calm profile revealed nothing to Evan, but he doubted if she were pale and calm within. Corinna was not red-headed for nothing.
When her hearers were reduced to two she abruptly rose. Evan wondered if sweet Dorothy Dolores had been brought to a violent end. He got up too.
"To be continued in our next," he said.
"Aw, Mister! Aw, Mister!" they protested, clinging to his coat.
"After lunch," he promised, freeing himself, and hastening down the saloon after Corinna.
He thought he had her cornered in the bow, but she dropped into a seat beside a woman with a sick baby and enquired how it was getting on. The two women embarked on what promised to be an endless discussion of the infant's symptoms. Evan felt decidedly foolish, but stubbornly stood his ground.
Denton unexpectedly came to his assistance. "Miss Playfair," he said, "I've got a seat for you in the dining-room, and one for Mr. Weir. Won't you come down now?"
Two seats! Together, naturally. Evan's heart went up with a bound. But Corinna was not going to be led into any such trap. She asked the woman beside her if she had had her lunch. The answer was a shake of the head.
"Then I'll hold the baby, and you go with these gentlemen," said Corinna blandly.
"Let me hold the baby," said Evan.
"Oh, thank you, sir; but he don't like men."
Evan went down with Denton and the woman, but he did not mean to be put off so easily. Seeing the crowd in the dining-saloon, he said:
"They're rushed here. Let me help serve for a while. Save two seats when Miss Playfair comes down."
"Sure," said Denton amiably.
Down the length of the lower saloon there was a double row of tables, each with an end to the side wall. Every seat was taken. In addition to Denton the waiters were Anway and a black-haired youth with a hot eye who greeted Evan with a frank scowl. Denton introduced him as Tenterden. "Another of Corinna's 'brothers'," thought Evan. "The boat is manned with her family!" He turned in to help with a will.
Nearly an hour passed before Corinna appeared for her lunch, and the dining-saloon was beginning to empty. Seeing Evan there, she naturally supposed he had finished eating and had remained to help. She took a seat next the window at one of the tables, and thus protected herself on one hand. Indicating the chair on the other side of her she said to Denton:
"Sit here. You can be spared now."
"Thanks, but I promised this seat to Weir," said Denton innocently.
Corinna bit her lip. The said Weir made haste to slip into the seat, before anything further could be said. Corinna quickly started a conversation with a youth across the table, another helper, and supposedly a "brother" – at least he looked at Corinna with sheep's eyes.
Evan, determined not to allow himself to be eliminated, said firmly: "I have not met this gentleman."
Corinna said coldly: "Mr. Domville, Mr. Weir."
Next to Domville sat another helper, an older man with a queer, clever, bitter face, Mr. Dordess. Some belated mothers made up the tableful. Anway waited on them. As he placed a plate of soup before Evan with set face, Evan suspected he would rather have poured it down the back of his neck. Evan thanked him ironically.
Corinna did her best to keep the conversation of the whole tableful in her hands, but of course it was bound to escape her sometimes. And there were lulls. At such moments Evan could speak to her without anybody overhearing.
"Corinna, what's the use?"
Affecting not to hear him, she asked a question across the table. Evan patiently bided his time.
"'What's the use?' I said."
"I don't understand you."
"What's the use of trying to evade something that's got to be faced in the end."
"What's got to be faced?"
"Me."
"Is that a threat?"
"No. You know, yourself, after what happened you owe me an explanation."
"The explanation is obvious."
"Then I must be very dense."
"If you were the least bit sorry, I could talk to you; but to glory in it, to try to trade on it – "
"Sorry for what?"
"Oh, of course you have nothing to be sorry for."
"You're talking in riddles. You know I love you."
She laughed three notes. He frowned at the sound.
"It's a funny way you have of showing it," she said. "To try to humble me further!"
"But you ask for it, Corinna – with your high and mighty way. I told you that before."
Silence from Corinna.
"I don't know what cause you have to be sore at me," he resumed when he got another opportunity. "It seems to me I'm the one – "
"Oh, you'll get over it, I suspect."
"Corinna, why did you run away?"
She rolled a bread ball. "Because I was ashamed."
He looked at her in honest surprise. "Ashamed! Of what?"
"You know very well what I mean."
"I swear I do not!"
"I will hate you if you force me to say it."
"I'll take my chance of that," he said grimly.
"Very well. Don't you understand that a person may be carried away for the moment, and do things and say things that they bitterly regret afterwards. Of course if you have no standards of right and wrong you wouldn't understand."
"Thanks for the compliment."
"What happened that night," she went on, "that sort of thing is horrible to me!"
At last he understood – and frowned, for it was his deepest feelings that she slandered. But he was not fully convinced that she was sincere. "Then you lied when you said you loved me?"
"I was carried away. That sort of thing isn't love."
This angered Evan – but he held his tongue. He sought to find out from her face what she really thought. She looked out of the window.
"Now I hope you understand," she said loftily.
"You have a lot to learn," said Evan, "about love and other things."
"At any rate I hope I have made you see how useless it is to follow me," she said sharply.
"It is useless," said Evan – "to talk to you," he added to himself. "When I get you off this confounded steamboat we'll see what we'll see."
"Don't stare at me like that," said Corinna. "It's attracting attention."
Evan thought: "If there was only another girl on board that I could rush! That might fetch her!"
Evan saw indeed that Dordess was regarding him quizzically. Of all the men (saving Denton) Dordess was the only one who did not scowl at Evan. Evan was not deceived thereby into thinking that he had inspired any friendliness in this one. It was simply that Dordess was more sophisticated, and had his features under better control. To create a diversion, Evan asked him:
"What has your particular job been to-day?"
"Serving at the water-cooler," was the response, with a wry smile, "to keep down the mortality from colic."
Thereafter Evan took part in the general conversation, and when the time came to rise from the table, he let Corinna go her way unhindered. He pitched in with a good will to help wash dishes, and to pack up the Ozone Association's property in the galley. But let him work and joke as he might, he won no smiles from the "brothers."
"Lord, if it was me, I'd put up a better bluff to hide my feelings," he thought.
Later he took over part of the deck to watch and keep the children from climbing the rails and precipitating themselves overboard. Later still, as they neared home and the small passengers became weary and obstreperous, he resumed the tale of the bandits in the saloon to an immense audience. Evan, perhaps because of his casual air towards the children, became the most popular man on the boat. He did not try to win them, and so they were his.
Corinna could not quite fathom his changed attitude towards her. During the whole afternoon he let her be. More than once he caught her glancing at him, and laughed to himself. He was taking the right line.
On one occasion the sardonic Dordess joined him on deck. Dordess had excited more than a passing interest in Evan. He was different and inexplicable. He had eyebrows that turned up at the ends like a faun's, giving him a devilishly mocking look. The essence of bitterness was in his smile. He had the look of a man of distinction, yet his clothes were a thought shabby. "Clever journalist gone to seed," was Evan's verdict.
Dordess said very offhand: "How do you like your job of nursemaid?"
"First-rate!" said Evan.
"How did you happen to stumble on our deep-sea perambulator?"
Evan was wary. "I just happened to be passing, and saw the kids crowding aboard. I stopped to look, and Denton asked me if I wanted a job."
Dordess cocked one of his crooked eyebrows in a way that suggested he didn't believe a word of it. Evan didn't much care whether he did or not.
Dordess said dryly: "Denton said you were a friend of Anway's."
"He misunderstood," said Evan carelessly.
"Are you going to be with us regularly?" asked Dordess with a meaning smile.
"I only volunteered for to-day." Evan's tone implied that the future could take care of itself.
Dordess said deprecatingly: "I hope the boys haven't made you feel like an outsider."
"Not at all," said Evan cheerfully. "I wouldn't mind if they did," he added. "The main thing is for the kids to have a good time."
"Sure," said Dordess dryly. "You see, the boys get the idea that these excursions are a sort of family affair, and they're apt to resent the help of strangers."
"I see," said Evan. "Are you one of Miss Playfair's 'brothers' too?"
"No; I'm an uncle," said Dordess with his bitter smile.
He walked away. There had been nothing in his words to which Evan could take offence, nevertheless as plainly as one man could to another he had conveyed the intimation that Evan was not wanted on board, and that if he ventured on board again it would be at his peril.
"The brotherhood evidently fears that I'm going to break up the organization," thought Evan.
As they approached the end of their journey Evan began to consider what measures he should take upon landing. His part was a difficult one to play with good humour; that is, to force himself on a young lady who said she detested him, and who had half a dozen brothers and an uncle to take her part.
"She'll do her best to give me the slip," he said to himself. "When we tie up I'll stand by the gangway on the pretext of keeping the kids from falling overboard. Some of them or all of them will take her home, no doubt. I'll tag along, too. They can't very well openly order me away, and I don't give a damn for their black looks and meaning hints. The main thing is to find out where she lives. I can choose my own time to call. Perhaps she won't open the door to me. Well, my patience is good."
As they approached the pier Evan went down to the main deck. Corinna was not visible at the moment. Only the forward gangway of the Ernestina was used. Her shape was so tubby that she couldn't bring any two points alongside a straight pier simultaneously. While they were making a landing all the children were kept roped off in the stern and up in the saloon. The only persons in the bow space beside Evan were Denton, Anway, Domville, Tenterden, two other "brothers" and two deckhands to stand by the lines.
Up forward there was an additional stairway from the saloon. This was enclosed and had a door at the bottom, locked at the moment to keep the children out of the way. In the centre of the deck was a hatch for freight, used presumably when the Ernestina served as a carrier.
As the steamboat sidled up to her pier Evan heard Corinna's voice call down the stairway: "Oh, Mr. Denton; will you come up here for a moment?"
Denton unlocked the door and disappeared upstairs. The door was locked after him. At the same moment Domville and one of the unidentified young men threw back the hatch cover. The latter said: "Let's get the cargo ashore first."
Evan wondering what cargo the excursion boat could be carrying, stepped forward in idle curiosity to look down the hatch. Suddenly he became aware that the young men were circling behind him. Before he could so much as turn around, he was seized from each side and a hand clapped over his mouth. With a concerted rush they swept him into the hole in the deck, falling on their knees at the edge, and letting him drop in. He fell on a mattress and was not in the least hurt. From above he heard a loud guffaw from the deckhands. Then the hatch cover was clapped down, and he heard heavy objects being piled upon it.
Evan raged silently in his prison. Pride restrained him from making any outcry. He had no fear that his murder was contemplated. They'd have to let him out again. In the meantime they'd get no change out of him. And the future could take care of his revenge.
He was in a small cargo space between two transverse bulkheads. He could touch the beams over his head. The place was perfectly empty except for the mattress. The mattress suggested that this had been carefully planned. It was not dark, being lighted by a fixed porthole on either side, not much bigger than an orange. These lights were only a foot or two above the waterline, and when the Ernestina reversed her engine in making the pier, the water washed up over the glass.
Evan could hear all the sounds attendant upon making a landing; the casting lines thrown ashore, the hawsers pulled over the deck, the jingle to the engine room signalling that all was fast. Then the gangway was run out and the feet poured over it.
Evan found that through the porthole on the pier side he was able to catch a brief glimpse of the passengers as they stepped ashore. He saw the children scurry away, never dreaming that the admired story-teller was immured below. The big girls followed more sedately, and after them the mothers with backs sagging under the weight of babies. Last of all he had the unspeakable chagrin of seeing Corinna pass with Denton grasping her arm.
"That's why I was put down here," he thought. "To allow her to make her getaway."
In the fraction of a second that she was visible to him, her head was turned back towards the boat. When a woman glances over her shoulder her true feelings come out; she cannot help herself. There was anguish in Corinna's backward look. Evan marked it, but he did not love her then. Not that he meant to give over the pursuit; on the contrary he swore that she should pay.
Five minutes later the hatch cover was lifted, a short ladder was let down, and Evan was bidden to come up. He mounted smiling. What that smile cost him none but he knew. But he also knew that with six or more against him to show truculence would only have been to make himself ridiculous. He paused on the deck, and coolly looking around him, tapped a cigarette on the back of his hand.
Dordess was now with the others. He had the grace to look away, as Evan's glance swept around. The younger men betrayed in their faces their hope that Evan would show fight, and thus give them a chance to justify themselves. Evan saw it, and had no idea of gratifying them.
Tenterden, he of the hot black eyes, who seemed to be leader in this part of the affair demanded aggressively: "Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"Much obliged for the mattress," said Evan, coolly meeting his gaze. "Very thoughtful of you." He counted them ostentatiously. "Six of you – and a couple of deckhands in reserve. You flatter me, gentlemen!"
He strolled over the gangway. How they took it he did not know, for he would not look back. At least none of them found a rejoinder. He had the last word.
"They think they have me scared off," he said to himself. "Just let them wait till the Ernestina sails again, that's all!"