The Deaves Affair Part 26

"Thanks; I don't need your a.s.sistance," 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 s.h.i.+p _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 ca.n.a.l-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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sistance. "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 pa.s.sed 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?"