The Best Short Stories of 1917 Part 37

"That's why I want to know what you think," went on Havelock, irrelevantly. "Whether your d.a.m.ned code of honor is worth Ferguson."

"It's not my d.a.m.ned code any more than yours," broke in Chantry.

"Yes, it is. Or, at least, we break it down at different points--theoretically. Actually, we walk all round it every day to be sure it's intact. Let's be honest."

"Honest as you like, if you'll only come to the point. Whew, but it's hot! Let's have a gin-fizz."

"You aren't serious."

Havelock seemed to try to lash himself into a rage. But he was so big that he could never have got all of himself into a rage at once. You felt that only part of him was angry--his toes, perhaps, or his complexion.

Chantry rang for ice and lemon, and took gin, sugar, and a siphon out of a carved cabinet.

"Go slow," he said. He himself was going very slow, with a beautiful crystal decanter which he set lovingly on the oaken table. "Go slow," he repeated, more easily, when he had set it down. "I can think just as well with a gin-fizz as without one. And I didn't know Ferguson well; and I didn't like him at all. I read his books, and I admired him. But he looked like the devil--_the_ devil, you'll notice, not _a_ devil.

With a dash of Charles I by Van Dyck. The one standing by a horse. As you say, he c.o.c.ked his hair. It went into little horns, above each eyebrow. I'm sorry he's lost to the world, but it doesn't get me. He may have been a saint, for all I know; but there you are--I never cared particularly to know. I am serious. Only, somehow, it doesn't touch me."

And he proceeded to make use of crushed ice and lemon juice.

"Oh, blow all that," said Havelock the Dane finally, over the top of his gla.s.s. "I'm going to tell you, anyhow. Only I wish you would forget your prejudices. I want an opinion."

"Go on."

Chantry made himself comfortable.

II

"You remember the time when Ferguson didn't go down on the _Argentina_?"

"I do. Ferguson just wouldn't go down, you know. He'd turn up smiling, without even a chill, and meanwhile lots of good fellows would be at the bottom of the sea."

"Prejudice again," barked Havelock. "Yet in point of fact, it's perfectly true. And you would have preferred him to drown."

"I was very glad he was saved." Chantry said it in a stilted manner.

"Why?"

"Because his life was really important to the world."

Chantry might have been distributing tracts. His very voice sounded falsetto.

"Exactly. Well, that is what Ferguson thought."

"How do you know?"

"He told me."

"You must have known him well. Thank heaven, I never did."

Havelock flung out a huge hand. "Oh, get off that ridiculous animal you're riding, Chantry, and come to the point. You mean you don't think Ferguson should have admitted it?"

Chantry's tone changed. "Well, one doesn't."

The huge hand, clenched into a fist, came down on the table. The crystal bottle was too heavy to rock, but the gla.s.ses jingled and a spoon slid over the edge of its saucer.

"There it is--what I was looking for."

"What were you looking for?" Chantry's wonder was not feigned.

"For your hydra-headed prejudice. Makes me want to play Hercules."

"Oh, drop your metaphors, Havelock. Get into the game. What is it?"

"It's this: that you don't think--or affect not to think--that it's decent for a man to recognize his own worth."

Chantry did not retort. He dropped his chin on his chest and thought for a moment. Then he spoke, very quietly and apologetically.

"Well--I don't see you telling another man how wonderful you are. It isn't immoral, it simply isn't manners. And if Ferguson boasted to you that he was saved when so many went down, it was worse than bad manners.

He ought to have been kicked for it. It's the kind of phenomenal luck that it would have been decent to regret."

Havelock set his ma.s.sive lips firmly together. You could not say that he pursed that Cyclopean mouth.

"Ferguson did not boast. He merely told me. He was, I think, a modest man."

Incredulity beyond any power of laughter to express settled on Chantry's countenance. "Modest? And he _told_ you?"

"The whole thing." Havelock's voice was heavy enough for tragedy.

"Listen. Don't interrupt me once. Ferguson told me that, when the explosion came, he looked round--considered, for fully a minute, his duty. He never lost control of himself once, he said, and I believe him.

The _Argentina_ was a small boat, making a winter pa.s.sage. There were very few cabin pa.s.sengers. No second cabin, but plenty of steerage. She sailed, you remember, from Naples. He had been doing some work, some very important work, in the Aquarium. The only other person of consequence--I am speaking in the most literal and un-sn.o.bbish sense--in the first cabin, was Benson. No" (with a lifted hand), "_don't interrupt me_. Benson, as we all know, was an international figure. But Benson was getting old. His son could be trusted to carry on the House of Benson.

In fact, every one suspected that the son had become more important than the old man. He had put through the last big loan while his father was taking a rest-cure in Italy. That is how Benson _pere_ happened to be on the _Argentina_. The newspapers never sufficiently accounted for that. A private deck on the _Schrecklichkeit_ would have been more his size.

Ferguson made it out: the old man got wild, suddenly, at the notion of their putting anything through without him. He trusted his gouty bones to the _Argentina_."

"Sounds plausible, but--" Chantry broke in.

"If you interrupt again," said Havelock, "I'll hit you, with all the strength I've got."

Chantry grunted. You had to take Havelock the Dane as you found him.

"Ferguson saw the whole thing clear. Old Benson had just gone into the smoking-room. Ferguson was on the deck outside his own stateroom. The only person on board who could possibly be considered as important as Ferguson was Benson; and he had good reason to believe that every one would get on well enough without Benson. He had just time, then, to put on a life-preserver, melt into his stateroom, and get a little pile of notes, very important ones, and drop into a boat. No, don't interrupt. I know what you are going to say. 'Women and children.' What do you suppose a lot of Neapolitan peasants meant to Ferguson--or to you and me, either? He didn't do anything outrageous; he just dropped into a boat. As a result, we had the big book a year later. No" (again crus.h.i.+ng down a gesture of Chantry's), "don't say anything about the instincts of a gentleman. If Ferguson hadn't been perfectly cool, his instincts would have governed him. He would have dashed about trying to save people, and then met the waves with a n.o.ble gesture. He had time to be reasonable; not instinctive. The world was the gainer, as he jolly well knew it would be--or where would have been the reasonableness? I don't believe Ferguson cared a hang about keeping his individual machine going for its own sake. But he knew he was a valuable person. His mind was a Kohinoor among minds. It stands to reason that you save the Kohinoor and let the little stones go. Well, that's not the story. Only I wanted to get that out of the way first, or the story wouldn't have meant anything. Did you wish," he finished graciously, "to ask a question?"

Chantry made a violent gesture of denial. "Ask a question about a hog like that? G.o.d forbid!"

"Um-m-m." Havelock seemed to muse within himself. "You will admit that if a jury of impartial men of sense could have sat, just then, on that slanting deck, they would have agreed that Ferguson's life was worth more to the world than all the rest of the boiling put together?"

"Yes, but--"

"Well, there wasn't any jury. Ferguson had to be it. I am perfectly sure that if there had been a super-Ferguson on board, our Ferguson would have turned his hand to saving him first. In fact, I honestly believe he was sorry there hadn't been a super-Ferguson. For he had all the instincts of a gentleman; and it's never a pleasant job making your reason inhibit your instincts. You can't look at this thing perfectly straight, probably. But if you can't, who can? I don't happen to want an enlightened opinion; I've got one, right here at home. You don't care about the State: you want to put it into white petticoats and see it cross a muddy street."