Henry C. Rowland

“ There could be in this religion no threat of damning anybody, with hell-fire or anything else. Love, while in no way barred, must be controlled by kindness and beauty.
Turning these things quickly in his mind while the girls chattered and sipped champagne, and Mrs. Ord injected the talk with flashes of wit and humor, it struck John Paul that here was a sort of Arcadian religion which might be pretty nearly perfect if honestly observed, and yet a religion at which the clergymen of all religions, and even most well-ordered laymen, would hold up their hands with horror. ”

“ He could imagine this none-too-stanch and rather shallow steamer drifting into the great surf of a lee shore at that moment and going to pieces like matchwood, to scatter her passengers in that indiscriminate way which the elements sometimes show in their disregard of the value of human lives. John Paul did not share in the popular idea of the value of human life as such, as he considered that the conduct of a life was far more important than its mere continuance. ”

“ A wave of color came into her face.
“Well, now, John Paul, I think that is very decent of you,” said she. “Then you don't harbor any ill will?”
“None whatever, Evelyn,” said he. “Through my own ignorance of femininity, I stuck you up on an ivory tower in the middle of a quicksand. I thought you were a sort of oracle, a sibyl, a high priestess of pleasure in the abstract, but I find you now to be merely a very beautiful and kindly, if selfish and pampered, woman.” ”

“ I had conceived a liking for you, John Paul, so I carried you off, a little in the fashion of an Amazon. I had better things in store for you than this.”
“You could not possibly have had anything better in store for me than this,” answered John Paul. “I have been permitted to assist in the saving of a good many lives. Heretofore I had bungled at trying merely to save souls.”
“Well,” said Evelyn, “you must at least admit that I hauled you out of the breakers of a pretty awful state of nervous prostration and collapse and set you on your feet again.” ”

“ I merely thought it might amuse us both to talk over the battle while our wounds are convalescing.”
“That,” said John Paul, “is an inept simile. I can't see any scars on you, and I am not yet convalescent. In fact, I doubt that I ever shall be.”
“Oh, yes, you will!” she answered. "You are young and strong and your shoulders are broad, and human beings are rather like the bandar log. They chatter and grin and throw down sticks and nuts and then dash off and forget all about it.” ”

“ It is better to be a prisoner than an outcast. It was as if the soldier of some lost cause, who had been disarmed, then told to clear out, and left to wander about no-man's land, had been taken over by the enemy host. Perhaps the best of the business for John Paul lay in the fact that whereas he had suffered passively, he was now doing something active. He knew that his performance in becoming a guest and friend of Mrs. Ord would bring a storm of fresh, ironic ridicule, and he was rather glad of it, because, at least, he was acting with his eyes open where previously he had been a myopic dupe. ”

“ So the night passed and the gray dawn came in obscurely to show a frightful chaos of tormented water in which one could not but be amazed at the splendid performance of the boat. No land was in sight and the lashing chop was superimposed on a big swell, heaving in directly ahead. The gray, dirty scud was driving at a terrific speed close overhead and John Paul, pricking off his position by dead reckoning at six o'clock, estimated this to be about halfway between Great Stirrup Cay and Cross Harbor, a bight near the extremity of Abaco. ”

“ If I found a castaway on the beach of a desert island, I'd offer what I had in the way of helping his material needs, and I had a feeling that you were a castaway of sorts, but a mental one.”
“It cuts deeper than that,” said John Paul. “I'm a castaway to the depths of all previous ethics and ambitions and principles and illusions—whatever goes to make up the consciousness of one's personality.” ”

“ The next half hour saw a very critical lapse of time in the lives of a good many persons. As the hawser tautened and the full strain came upon the splendid engines of the Lotus, the helpless steamer in tow of her began to swing slowly head to sea. The question now to be decided was whether or not the house boat would have the power to haul her tow clear of the shoals under their lee and to lay a course which might carry them both to a haven of safety. ”

“ At the very first the violence of the wind was so great as merely to rip up the surface water and fling it horizontally in sheets with no great amount of undulation, but in half an hour's time the chop grew vicious, so that the scant foredeck was being washed with every plunge despite the bluff, high bows and slow speed. ”

“ John Paul answered slowly, “but the big one is something which I can't quite get. I find about you some sort of comic all-womanness, and I can feel a richness and a sort of tremendous allure which is a bit upsetting. The working of your mind is like a gentle intellectual massage—what the Japs call lumi-lumi—and when you move you possess a flowing grace which is almost a caress. ”

“ John Paul admitted. “Since you are the police force of social reputations, you are entitled to your little graft. By the way, I never see your illuminating sheet, but I suppose that Mrs. Ord is one of its stars.”
Fisher shook his head.
“Her name scarcely ever appears,” said he. “In the first place, it's hardly worth while to knock a woman who writes such books as hers and gets them past the censor by some sort of magic and sells about a million copies a year. To slap her for misbehavior would be rather like spanking the Venus de Milo for indecent exposure—sheer wested effort. ”

“ There were cries and splashings alongside, and flashing arms and heads coifed with flaming kerchiefs, and a trim, mahogany launch which appeared to be convoying these mermaids under the direction of a blond Swede quartermaster, and in the stern a Japanese with a consignment of stores.
“Here come my guests,” said Mrs. Ord. “I've got a trio of pretty girls which are precisely the sort you've launched your crusade against—in, I should say at a pinch, all respects.”
John Paul made a gesture of indifference.
“They are the victors,” said he. ”

“ This transformation was shocking to John Paul because his previous experience with women had never shown him anything like this. He had seen beauty harrowed by fear and suffering and famine and illness and physical distress, until it could no longer be said to have any claim to beauty. But John Paul had never seen beauty stripped away by a sudden passion of ruthless selfishness, and hate developed like an evil transformation when this selfishness is balked. ”

“ It occurred to John Paul then that he had been rather rough with his hostess and, although he did not feel an apology to be in order under the circumstances, it would be no more than kind to reassure her fears about their immediate safety. So he went into the pretty saloon, where he found Evelyn crouched on a divan among a mass of silken cushions, and as she looked up at him he was, for the first time, struck by her feline traits. Heretofore she had been to him remarkable for the very absence of the catty quality to be found in so many women of luxurious or predatory natures. ”

“ She gripped the wheel with a strength which he could never have guessed her to possess.
“You fool!” she snarled. “Do you want to drown us all, trying to save a boatload of rotten trippers?”
“Let go!” he answered sternly. “I'm going to drag that steamer clear if I have to wreck this flower boat of yours to do it.”
“You're not!” she screamed. “This is my boat and you are nothing but a guest aboard.”
“Rather more than that,” said John Paul. “You told me that I was in command, and I undertook to save you from arrest and the confiscation of the yacht.” ”

“ John Paul made a gesture of disgust.
“I don't care anything about that,” said he, “but I intend that you shall get full credit, Evelyn.”
“For what?”
“For what you would have done, but for your wrong sense of values. Our little difference of opinion is known to no one but ourselves, and need not be known by any other.” ”

“ Fisher spat over the side, looked around the thickening horizon, then up at the bilious sky, which seemed now to begin directly over their heads.
“We're going to have a dirty night,” said he, “and I don't know how long the slam is going to last or how bad it may prove, or how much of a navigator you may be. Morning may find us in a hell of a mess. I know these waters pretty well. Take my advice, John Paul, and turn this thing around and go back while the going's good. It will be dark in half an hour, and once this thing breaks you're not going to be able to pick up your lights. ”

“ Whatever else may or not have been said of Evelyn Ord and her books, I've never heard her charged with any lack of courage in her broad convictions, and more wounded soldiers were cheered up in hospitals by reading her books than ever were by reading tracts. If you happen to be feeling sore from being made——” he paused.
“National fool?” asked John Paul smoothly. “Well, I don't any longer, and I think it will be amusing to look over the other side of the trenches.” And, with a brief nod, he passed on and got into the glittering launch and was carried swiftly out aboard the house boat. ”

“ The spring sunshine of the tropic latitude beat down with the mellow richness of some soft, sensuous world where the rigors of climate are not to be regarded. Nobody was in evidence aboard the house boat, and John Paul's guide led him to the awninged upper deck, where she seated herself indifferently in a wicker chair and motioned him to take another. ”

“ Her face showed the abstraction of all softer feminine traits, as if a personality both spiritual and physical had been treated with some reagent to dissolve the tender, cosmetic filling which had relieved the harsh angularities of frame and character and to leave them in all the prominence of their harsh landmarks, which told of force unmodified by beauty, be it body or soul. ”

“ John Paul asked.
“Oh, no!” said Fisher. “So far I've never gone in for blackmail, though it seems to be a paying business these days. But the point is, John Paul, that I think you've been ridden hard enough and that everybody else probably feels the same about it. When a man's public ridicule has been on so sweeping a scale, there's a general tendency to lay off him for good. About a quarter of a century ago a naval lieutenant did a daring, brilliant act, and then because a swarm of fool girls flocked up and kissed him, he was made the laughing-stock of the country. ”

“ John Paul and Larsen spelled each other at the wheel. Fisher, having got the engines running to his satisfaction, paid them but occasional visits, spending most of the night in the saloon, napping or talking to Evelyn or John Paul. The three girls had succumbed to seasickness.
“Such a squall as this,” said Fisher languidly at about ten o'clock, “is rather like a lovers' quarrel, apt to whip around suddenly and blow back from the other direction. Therefore I'd advise sticking out in the middle of the channel. The good, old boat takes it like a Dutch fishwife in an April shower. ”