Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
had been conceivable that rush of passion might drive him to break all
the rules of conduct his New England conscience had set over him; but
what Alma Marston did overwhelmed him with such stupefaction that he
stood there as rigid and motionless as a belaying-pin in a rack. She put
up her arms, pressed her two hands on his shoulders, stood on tiptoe,
and kissed him on his lips.
“There, foolish old Yankee,” she said, softly, her mouth close to his;
“since you are so ashamed I give you back your kiss--and all is made
right between us, because we are just where we started a little while
ago.”
His amazement had so benumbed him that even after that surrender he
stood there, close to her, his countenance blank, his arms dangling at
his side.
“What on earth is the matter with you?” she asked, petulantly.
“I don't know! I--I--I don't seem to understand.”
“I'm going to be honest with you. You are so honest you will understand
me, then,” she told him. It seemed to him that he must be mistaken, but
he certainly felt her arms were slipping up his shoulders and had met
behind his neck. “I saw it in your eyes long ago. A woman always knows.
I wanted you to do what you did to-night. I knew I would be obliged to
tempt you. I came up here while the moon and the music would help me. I
did it all on purpose--I stood close to you--for I knew you were just
my slow old Yankee who would never come out of his shell till I poked.
There! I have confessed!”
His mad joy did not allow him to see anything of the coquette in that
confession. It all seemed to be consecrated by the love he felt for
her--a love which was so honest that he perceived no boldness in the
attitude of this girl who had come so far to meet him. He took her into
his arms again, and she returned his kisses.
“Tell me again, Boyd, that you love me,” she coaxed.
“And yet I have no right to love you. You are--”
“Hush! Hush! There goes your Yankee caution talking! I want love, for
I am a girl. Love hasn't anything to do with what you are or what I am.
Not now! We will love each other--and wait! You are my big boy! Aren't
you?”
He was glad to comply with her plea to put sensible talk from them just
then. There was nothing sensible he could say. He was holding Julius
Marston's daughter in his arms, and she was telling him that she loved
him. The world was suddenly upside down and he was surrendering himself
to the mad present.
In the yacht's saloon below a woman began to sing:
“Love comes like a summer sigh,
Softly o'er us stealing.
Love comes and we wonder why
To its shrine we're kneeling.
Love comes as the days go by--”
“That's it,” the girl murmured, eagerly. “We don't know anything at all
about why we love. Folks who marry for money make believe love--I have
watched them--I know. I love you. You're my big boy. That's all. That's
enough.”
He accepted this comforting doctrine unquestioningly. Her serene
acceptance of the situation, without one wrinkle in her placid brow
to indicate that any future problems annoyed her, did not arouse his
wonderment or cause him to question the depths of her emotions; it only
added one more element to the unreality of the entire affair.
Moon and music, silver sea and glorious night, and a maid who had been,
in his secret thoughts, his dream of the unattainable!
“Will you wait for me--wait till I can make something of myself?” he
demanded.
“You are yourself--right now--that's enough!”
“But the future. I must--”
“Love me--love me now--that's all we need to ask. The future will take
care of itself when the time comes! Haven't you read about the great
loves? How they just forgot the whole petty world? What has love to do
with business and money and bargains? Love in its place--business in its
place! And our love will be our secret until--”
He pardoned her indefiniteness, for when she paused and hesitated she
pressed her lips to his, and that assurance was enough for him.
“Yes--oh yes--Miss Alma!” called a man's voice in the singsong of eager
summons.
“It's Arthur,” she said, with snap of impatience in her voice. “Why
won't people let me alone?”
He released her, and she stood at arm's-length, her hands against
his breast. “I have thought--It seemed to me,” he stammered, “that
he--Forgive me, but I have loved you so! I couldn't bear to think--think
that he--”
“You thought I cared for him!” she chided. “That's only the man my
father has picked out for me! Why, I wouldn't even allow my father to
select a yachting-cap for me, much less a husband. I'll tell him so when
the time comes!”
Mayo's brows wrinkled in spite of himself. The morrow seemed to play
small part in the calculations of this maid.
“Money--that's all there is to Arthur Beveridge. My father has enough
money for all of us. And if he is stingy with us--oh, it's easy enough
to earn money, isn't it? All men can earn money.”
Captain Mayo, sailor, was not sure of his course in financial waters and
did not reply.
“Miss Alma! I say! Oh, where are you?”
“Even that silly, little, dried-up man,” she jeered, with a duck of her
head in the direction of the drawling voice, “goes down to Wall Street
and makes thousands and thousands of dollars whenever he feels like it.
And you could put him in your reefer pocket. They will all be afraid of
you when you go down to Wall Street to make lots of money for us two.
You shall see! Kiss me! Kiss me once! Kiss me quick! Here he comes!”
He obeyed, released her, and when Beveridge shoved his wizened face in
at the door they were bending over the chart.
“Oh, I say, we have missed you. They are asking for you.”
She did not turn to look at him. “I have something else on my mind,
Arthur, besides lolling below listening to Wally Dalton fiddle
love-tunes. And this passage, here, Captain Mayo! What is it?” Her
finger strayed idly across a few hundred miles of mapped Atlantic Ocean.
“It's Honeymoon Channel,” replied the navigator, demurely. His new
ecstasy made him bold enough to jest.
“Oh, so we are learning to be a captain, Miss Alma?” inquired Beveridge
with a wry smile.
“It would be better if more yacht-owners knew how to manage their own
craft,” she informed him, with spirit.
“Yes, it might keep the understrappers in line,” agreed the man at
the door.. “I apply for the position of first mate after you qualify,
Captain Alma.”
“And this, you say, is, Captain Mayo?” she queried, without troubling
herself to reply. Her tone was crisply matter of fact.
Beveridge blinked at her and showed the disconcerted uneasiness of a man
who has intruded in business hours.
Captain Mayo, watching the white finger rapturously, noted that it was
sweeping from the Arctic Circle to the Tropic Zone. “That's Love Harbor,
reached through the thoroughfare of Hope,” he answered, respectfully.
“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Beveridge; “the sailors who laid out that course
must have been romantic.”
“Sailors have souls to correspond with their horizon, Arthur. Would you
prefer such names as Cash Cove and Money-grub Channel?”
Mr. Beveridge cocked an eyebrow and stared at her eloquent back; also,
he cast a glance of no great favor on the stalwart young captain of the
_Olenia_. It certainly did not occur to Mr. Beveridge that two young
folks in love were making sport of him. That Julius Marston's daughter
would descend to a yacht captain would have appeared as incredible an
enormity as an affair with the butler. But there was something about
this intimate companionship of the chart-room which Mr. Beveridge did
not relish. Instinct rather than any sane reason told him that he was
not wanted.
“I'm sorry to break in on your studies, Miss Marston,” he said, a bit
stiffly. “But I have been sent by your father to call you to the cabin.”
Mr. Beveridge's air, his tone of protest, conveyed rather pointed hint
that her responsibilities as a hostess were fully as important as her
studies as a navigator.
“I must go,” she whispered.
Relief was mingled with Captain Mayo's regret. He had feared that this
impetuous young woman might rebel against the summons, even though the
word came from her father. And her persistent stay in his chart-room,
even on the pretext of a fervid interest in the mysteries of navigation,
might produce complications. This wonderful new joy in his life was too
precious to be marred by complications.
She trailed her fingers along his hand when she turned from the
chart-table, and then pinched him in farewell salute.
“Good night, Captain Mayo. I'll take another lesson to-morrow.”
“I am at your service,” he told her.
Their voices betrayed nothing, but Beveridge's keen eyes--the eyes which
had studied faces in the greatest game of all when fortunes were at
stake--noted the look they exchanged. It was long-drawn, as expressive
as a lingering kiss.
Mr. Beveridge, sanctioned in his courtship by Julius Marston, was not
especially worried by any inferences from that soft glance. He could not
blame even a coal-heaver who might stare tenderly at Miss Alma Marston,
for she was especially pleasing to the eye, and he enjoyed looking at
her himself. He was enough of a philosopher to be willing to have other
folks enjoy themselves and thereby give their approbation to his choice.
He excused Captain Mayo. As to Miss Marston, he viewed her frivolity as
he did that of the other girls whom he knew; they all had too much time
on their hands.
“Give the poor devils a chance, Alma. Don't tip 'em upside down,” he
advised, testily, when she followed him down the ladder. He stood at the
foot and offered his hand, but she leaped down the last two steps and
did not accept his assistance. “Now, you have twisted that skipper of
ours until he doesn't know north from south.”
“I do not care much for your emphasis on the 'now,'” she declared,
indignantly. “You seem to intimate that I am going about the world
trying to beguile every man I see.”
“That seems to be the popular indoor and outdoor sport for girls in
these days,” he returned with good humor. “Just a moment ago you were
raising the very devil with that fellow up there with your eyes. Of
course, practice makes perfect. But you're a good, kind girl in your
heart. Don't make 'em miserable.”
Mr. Beveridge's commiseration would have been wasted on Captain Boyd
Mayo that evening. The captain snapped off the light in the chart-room
as soon as they had departed, and there in the gloom he took his
happiness to his heart, even as he had taken her delicious self to his
breast. He put up his hands and pressed his face into the palms.
He inhaled the delicate, subtle fragrance--a mere suggestion of
perfume--the sweet ghost of her personality, which she had left behind.
Her touch still thrilled him, and the warmth of her last kiss was on his
lips.
Then he went out and climbed the ladder to the bridge. A peep over the
shoulder of the man at the wheel into the mellow glow under the hood of
the binnacle, showed him that the _Olenia_ was on her course.
“It's a beautiful night, Mr. McGaw,” he said to the mate, a stumpy
little man with bowed legs, who was pacing to and fro, measuring strides
with the regularity of a pendulum.
“It is that, sir!”
Mr. McGaw, before he answered, plainly had difficulty with something
which bulged in his cheek. He appeared, also, to be considerably
surprised by the captain's air of vivacious gaiety. His superior had
been moping around the ship for many days with melancholy spelled in
every line of his face.
“Yes, it's the most beautiful and perfect night I ever saw, Mr. McGaw.”
There was triumph in the captain's buoyant tones.
“Must be allowed to be what they call a starry night for a ramble,”
admitted the mate, trying to find speech to fit the occasion.