THE ROUGH CROSSING

ONCE ON the long, covered piers, you have come into a ghostly

country that is no longer Here and not yet There. Especially at

night. There is a hazy yellow vault full of shouting, echoing voices.

There is the rumble of trucks and the clump of trunks, the strident

chatter of a crane and the first salt smell of the sea. You hurry

through, even though there's time. The past, the continent, is behind

you ; the future is that glowing mouth in the side of the ship ; this dim

turbulent alley is too confusedly the present.

Up the gangplank, and the vision of the world adjusts itself, nar-

rows. One is a citizen of a commonwealth smaller than Andorra. One

is no longer so sure of anything. Curiously unmoved the men at the

purser's desk, cell-like the cabin, disdainful the eyes of voyagers and

their friends, solemn the officer who stands on the deserted prome-

nade deck thinking something of his own as he stares at the crowd

below. A last odd idea that one didn't really have to come, then the

loud, mournful whistles, and the thing certainly not a boat, but

rather a human idea, a frame of mind pushes forth into the big

dark night.

Adrian Smith, one of the celebrities on board not a very great

celebrity, but important enough to be bathed in flash light by a

photographer who had been given his name, but wasn't sure what his

subject "did" Adrian Smith and his blond wife, Eva, went up to the

promenade deck, passed the melancholy ship's officer, and, finding a

quiet aerie, put their elbows on the rail.

"We're going!" he cried presently, and they both laughed in

ecstasy. "We've escaped. They can't get us now."

"Who?"

He waved his hand vaguely at the civic tiara.

"All those people out there. They'll come with their posses and

their warrants and list of crimes we've committed, and ring the bell

at our door on Park Avenue and ask for the Adrian Smiths, but

what ho ! the Adrian Smiths and their children and nurse are off for

France."

"You make me think we really have committed crimes."

"They can't have you," he said, frowning. "That's one thing they're

after me about they know I haven't got any right to a person like

you, and they're furious. That's one reason I'm glad to get away."

"Darling," said Eva.

She was twenty-six five years younger than he. She was something

precious to everyone who knew her.

"I like this boat better than the Majestic or the Aquitania" she

remarked, unfaithful to the ships that had served their honeymoon.

"It's much smaller."

"But it's very slick and it has all those little shops along the

corridors. And I think the staterooms are bigger."

"The people are very formal did you notice ? as if they thought

everyone else was a card sharp. And in about four days half of them

will be calling the other half by their first names."

Four of the people came by now a quartet of young girls abreast,

making a circuit of the deck. Their eight eyes swept momentarily

toward Adrian and Eva, and then swept automatically back, save for

one pair which lingered for an instant with a little start. They be-

longed to one of the girls in the middle, who was, indeed, the only

passenger of the four. She was not more than eighteen a dark little

beauty with the fine crystal gloss over her that, in brunettes, takes

the place of a blonde's bright glow.

"Now, who's that?" wondered Adrian. "I've seen her before."

"She's pretty," said Eva.

"Yes." He kept wondering, and Eva deferred momentarily to his

distraction ; then, smiling up at him, she drew him back into their

privacy.

"Tell me more," she said.

"About what?"

"About us what a good time we'll have, and how we'll be much

better and happier, and very close always."

"How could we be any closer?" His arm pulled her to him.

"But I mean never even quarrel any more about silly things. You

know, I made up my mind when you gave me my birthday present

last week" her fingers caressed the fine seed pearls at her throat

"that I'd try never to say a mean thing to you again."

"You never have, my precious."

Yet even as he strained her against his side she knew that the mo-

ment of utter isolation had passed almost before it had begun. His

antennae were already out, feeling over this new world.

"Most of the people look rather awful," he said "little and

swarthy and ugly. Americans didn't use to look like that."

"They look dreary," she agreed. "Let's not get to know anybody,

but just say together."

A gong was beating now, and stewards were shouting down the

decks, "Visitors ashore, please!" and voices rose to a strident

chorus. For a while the gangplanks were thronged ; then they were

empty, and the jostling crowd behind the barrier waved and called

unintelligible things, and kept up a grin of good will. As the steve-

dores began to work at the ropes a flat-faced, somewhat befuddled

young man arrived in a great hurry and was assisted up the gang-

plank by a porter and a taxi driver. The ship having swallowed him

as impassively as though he were a missionary for Beirut, a low,

portentous vibration began. The pier with its faces commenced to

slide by, and for a moment the boat was just a piece accidentally

split off from it; then the faces became remote, voiceless, and the

pier was one among many yellow blurs along the water front. Now

the harbor flowed swiftly toward the sea.

On a northern parallel of latitude a hurricane was forming and

moving south by southeast preceded by a strong west wind. On its

course it was destined to swamp the Peter I. Eudim of Amsterdam,

with a crew of sixty-six, to break a boom on the largest boat in the

world, and to bring grief and want to the wives of several hundred

seamen. This liner, leaving New York Sunday evening, would enter

the zone of the storm Tuesday, and of the hurricane late Wednes-

day night.

II

Tuesday afternoon Adrian and Eva paid their first visit to the

smoking room. This was not in accord with their intentions they

had "never wanted to see a cocktail again" after leaving America

but they had forgotten the staccato loneliness of ships, and all ac-

tivity centered about the bar. So they went in for just a minute.

It was full. There were those who had been there since luncheon,

and those who would be there until dinner, not to mention a faithful

few who had been there since nine this morning. It was a prosperous

assembly, taking its recreation at bridge, solitaire, detective stories,

alcohol, argument and love. Up to this point you could have matched

it in the club or casino life of any country, but over it all played a

repressed nervous energy, a barely disguised impatience that ex-

tended to old and young alike. The cruise had begun, and they had

enjoyed the beginning, but the show was not varied enough to last

six days, and already they wanted it to be over.

At a table near them Adrian saw the pretty girl who had stared at

him on the deck the first night. Again he was fascinated by her love-

liness; there was no mist upon the brilliant gloss that gleamed

through the smoky confusion of the room. He and Eva had decided

from the passenger list that she was probably "Miss Elizabeth

D'Amido and maid," and he had heard her called Betsy as he walked

past a deck-tennis game. Among the young people with her was the

flat-nosed youth who had been "poured on board" the night of their

departure ; yesterday he had walked the deck morosely, but he was

apparently reviving. Miss D'Amido whispered something to him, and

he looked over at the Smiths with curious eyes. Adrian was new

enough at being a celebrity to turn self-consciously away.

"There's a little roll. Do you feel it?" Eva demanded.

"Perhaps we'd better split a pint of champagne."

While he gave the order a short colloquy was taking place at the

other table ; presently a young man rose and came over to them.

"Isn't this Mr. Adrian Smith?"

"Yes."

"We wondered if we couldn't put you down for the deck-tennis

tournament. We're going to have a deck-tennis tournament."

"Why " Adrian hesitated.

"My name's Stacomb," burst out the young man. "We all know

your your plays or whatever it is, and all that and we wondered

if you wouldn't like to come over to our table."

Somewhat overwhelmed, Adrian laughed: Mr. Stacomb, glib, soft,

slouching, waited ; evidently under the impression that he had de-

livered himself of a graceful compliment.

Adrian, understanding that, too, replied: "Thanks, but perhaps

you'd better come over here."

"We've got a bigger table."

"But we're older and more more settled."

The young man laughed kindly, as if to say, "That's all right."

"Put me down," said Adrian. "How much do I owe you?"

"One buck. Call me Stac."

"Why?" asked Adrian, startled.

"It's shorter."

When he had gone they smiled broadly.

"Heavens," Eva gasped, "I believe they are coming over."

They were. With a great draining of glasses, calling of waiters,

shuffling of chairs, three boys and two girls moved to the Smiths'

table. If there was any diffidence, it was confined to the hosts ; for

the new additions gathered around them eagerly, eying Adrian with

respect too much respect as if to say: "This was probably a mis-

take and won't be amusing, but maybe we'll get something out of it

to help us in our after life, like at school."

In a moment Miss D'Amido changed seats with one of the men

and placed her radiant self at Adrian's side, looking at him with

manifest admiration.

"I fell in love with you the minute I saw you," she said, audibly

and without self-consciousness ; "so 111 take all the blame for butting

in. IVe seen your play four times."

Adrian called a waiter to take their orders.

"You see," continued Miss D'Amido, "we're going into a storm,

and you might be prostrated the rest of the trip, so I couldn't take

any chances."

He saw that there was no undertone or innuendo in what she said,

nor the need of any. The words themselves were enough, and the

deference with which she neglected the young men and bent her

politeness on him was somehow very touching. A little glow went

over him ; he was having rather more than a pleasant time.

Eva was less entertained; but the flat-nosed young man, whose

name was Butterworth, knew people that she did, and that seemed

to make the affair less careless and casual. She did not like meeting

new people unless they had "something to contribute," and she was

often bored by the great streams of them, of all types and conditions

and classes, that passed through Adrian's life. She herself "had

everything" which is to say that she was well endowed with

talents and with charm and the mere novelty of people did not

seem a sufficient reason for eternally offering everything up to

them.

Half an hour later when she rose to go and see the children, she

was content that the episode was over. It was colder on deck, with a

damp that was almost rain, and there was a perceptible motion.

Opening the door of her stateroom she was surprised to find the

cabin steward sitting languidly on her bed, his head slumped upon

the upright pillow. He looked at her listlessly as she came in, but

made no move to get up.

"When you've finished your nap you can fetch me a new pillow-

case," she said briskly.

Still the man didn't move. She perceived then that his face was

green.

"You can't be seasick in here," she announced firmly. "You go and

lie down in your own quarters."

"It's me side," he said faintly. He tried to rise, gave out a little

rasping sound of pain and sank back again. Eva rang for the stew-

ardess.

A steady pitch, toss, roll had begun in earnest and she felt no sym-

pathy for the steward, but only wanted to get him out as quick as

possible. It was outrageous for a member of the crew to be seasick.

When the stewardess came in Eva tried to explain this, but now her

own head was whirring, and throwing herself on the bed, she covered

her eyes.

"It's his fault," she groaned when the man was assisted from the

room. "I was all right and it made me sick to look at him. I wish he'd

die."

In a few minutes Adrian came in.

"Oh, but I'm sick ! " she cried.

"Why, you poor baby." He leaned over and took her in his arms.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was all right upstairs, but there was a steward Oh, I'm too

sick to talk."

"You'd better have dinner in bed."

"Dinner ! Oh, my heavens I "

He waited solicitously, but she wanted to hear his voice, to have

it drown out the complaining sound of the beams.

"Where've you been?"

"Helping to sign up people for the tournament."

"Will they have it if it's like this? Because if they do I'll just lose

for you."

He didn't answer ; opening her eyes, she saw that he was frown-

ing.

"I didn't know you were going in the doubles," he said.

"Why, that's the only fun."

"I told the D'Amido girl I'd play with her."

"Oh."

"I didn't think. You know I'd much rather play with you."

"Why didn't you, then?" she asked coolly. '

"It never occurred to me."

She remembered that on their honeymoon they had been in the

finals and won a prize. Years passed. But Adrian never frowned in

this regretful way unless he felt a little guilty. He stumbled about,

getting his dinner clothes out of the trunk, and she shut her eyes.

When a particular violent lurch startled her awake again he was

dressed and tying his tie. He looked healthy and fresh, and his eyes

were bright.

"Well, how about it?" he inquired. "Can you make it, or no?"

"No."

"Can I do anything for you before I go?"

"Where are you going?"

"Meeting those kids in the bar. Can I do anything for you?"

"No."

"Darling, I hate to leave you like this."

"Don't be silly. I just want to sleep."

That solicitous frown when she knew he was crazy to be out and

away from the close cabin. She was glad when the door closed. The

thing to do was to sleep, sleep.

Up down sideways. Hey there, not so far I Pull her round the

corner there! Now roll her, right left Crea-eak! Wrench!

Swoop I

Some hours later Eva was dimly conscious of Adrian bending over

her. She wanted him to put his arms around her and draw her up

out of this dizzy lethargy, but by the time she was fully awake the

cabin was empty. He had looked in and gone. When she awoke next

the cabin was dark and he was in bed.

The morning was fresh and cool, and the sea was just enough

calmer to make Eva think she could get up. They breakfasted in the

cabin and with Adrian's help she accomplished an unsatisfactory

makeshift toilet and they went up on the boat deck. The tennis

tournament had already begun and was furnishing action for a

dozen amateur movie cameras, but the majority of passengers were

represented by lifeless bundles in deck chairs beside untasted trays.

Adrian and Miss D'Amido played their first match. She was deft

and graceful ; blatantly well. There was even more warmth behind

her ivory skin than there had been the day before. The strolling

first officer stopped and talked to her ; half a dozen men whom she

couldn't have known three days ago called her Betsy. She was al-

ready the pretty girl of the voyage, the cynosure of starved ship's

eyes.

But after a while Eva preferred to watch the gulls in the wireless

masts and the slow slide of the roll-top sky. Most of the passengers

looked silly with their movie cameras that they had all rushed to get

and now didn't know what to use for, but the sailors painting the

lifeboat stanchions were quiet and beaten and sympathetic, and

probably wished, as she did, that the voyage was over.

Butterworth sat down on the deck beside her chair.

"They're operating on one of the stewards this morning. Must be

terrible in this sea."

"Operating? What for?" she asked listlessly.

"Appendicitis. They have to operate now because we're going into

worse weather. That's why they're having the ship's party tonight."

"Oh, the poor man ! " she cried, realizing it must be her steward.

Adrian was showing off now by being very courteous and thought-

ful in the game.

"Sorry. Did you hurt yourself? . . . No, it was my fault. . . .

You better put on your coat right away, pardner, or you'll catch

cold."

The match was over and they had won. Flushed and hearty, he

came up to Eva's chair.

"How do you feel?"

"Terrible."

"Winners are buying a drink in the bar," he said apologetically.

"I'm coming, too," Eva said, but an immediate dizziness made her

sink back in her chair.

"You'd better stay here. I'll send you up something."

She felt that his public manner had hardened toward her slightly.

"You'll come back?"

"Oh, right away."

She was alone on the boat deck, save for a solitary ship's officer

who slanted obliquely as he paced the bridge. When the cocktail

arrived she forced herself to drink it, and felt better. Trying to dis-

tract her mind with pleasant things, she reached back to the sanguine

talks that she and Adrian had had before sailing : There was the little

villa in Brittany, the children learning French that was all she

could think of now the little villa in Brittany, the children learn-

ing French so she repeated the words over and over to herself until

they became as meaningless as the wide white sky. The why of their

being here had suddenly eluded her; she felt unmotivated, acci-

dental, and she wanted Adrian to come back quick, all responsive and

tender, to reassure her. It was in the hope that there was some se-

cret of graceful living, some real compensation for the lost, careless

confidence of twenty-one, that they were going to spend a year in

France.

The day passed darkly, with fewer people around and a wet sky

falling. Suddenly it was five o'clock, and they were all in the bar

again, and Mr. Butterworth was telling her about his past. She took

a good deal of champagne, but she was seasick dimly through it, as

if the illness was her soul trying to struggle up through some thick-

ening incrustation of abnormal life.

"You're my idea of a Greek goddess, physically," Butterworth was

saying.

It was pleasant to be Mr. Butterworth's idea of a Greek goddess

physically, but where was Adrian? He and Miss D'Amido had gone

out on a forward deck to feel the spray. Eva heard herself promising

to get out her colors and paint the Eiffel Tower on Butterworth's

shirt front for the party tonight.

When Adrian and Betsy D'Amido, soaked with spray, opened the

door with difficulty against the driving wind and came into the now-

covered security of the promenade deck, they stopped and turned

toward each other.

"Well?" she said. But he only stood with his back to the rail,

looking at her, afraid to speak. She was silent, too, because she

wanted him to be first; so for a moment nothing happened. Then

she made a step toward him, and he took her in his arms and kissed

her forehead.

"You're just sorry for me, that's all." She began to cry a little.

"You're just being kind."

"I feel terribly about it." His voice was taut and trembling.

"Then kiss me."

The deck was empty. He bent over her swiftly.

"No, really kiss me."

He could not remember when anything had felt so young and fresh

as her lips. The rain lay, like tears shed for him, upon the softly

shining porcelain cheeks. She was all new and immaculate, and her

eyes were wild.

"I love you," she whispered. "I can't help loving you, can I? When

I first saw you oh, not on the boat, but over a year ago Grace

Heally took me to a rehearsal and suddenly you jumped up in the

second row and began telling them what to do. I wrote you a letter

and tore it up."

"We've got to go."

She was weeping as they walked along the deck. Once more, im-

prudently, she held up her face to him at the door of her cabin. His

blood was beating through him in wild tumult as he walked on to the

bar.

He was thankful that Eva scarcely seemed to notice him or to

know that he had been gone. After a moment he pretended an inter-

est in what she was doing.

"What's that?"

"She's painting the Eiffel Tower on my shirt front for tonight,"

explained Butterworth.

"There," Eva laid away her brush and wiped her hands. "How's

that?"

"A chef-d'oeuvre:'

Her eyes swept around the watching group, lingered casually upon

Adrian.

"You're wet. Go and change."

"You come too."

"I want another champagne cocktail."

"You've had enough. It's time to dress for the party."

Unwilling she closed her paints and preceded him.

"Stacomb's got a table for nine," he remarked as they walked

along the corridor.

"The younger set," she said with unnecessary bitterness. "Oh,

the younger set. And you just having the time of your life with

a child."

They had a long discussion in the cabin, unpleasant on her part

and evasive on his, which ended when the ship gave a sudden gigan-

tic heave, and Eva, the edge worn off her champagne, felt ill again.

There was nothing to do but to have a cocktail in the cabin, and

after that they decided to go to the party she believed him now, or

she didn't care.

Adrian was ready first he never wore fancy dress.

"I'll go on up. Don't be long."

"Wait for me, please ; it's rocking so."

He sat down on a bed, concealing his impatience.

"You don't mind waiting, do you? I don't want to parade up there

all alone." /

She was taking a tuck in an oriental costume rented from the

barber.

"Ships make people feel crazy," she said. "I think they're awful."

"Yes," he muttered absently.

"When it gets very bad I pretend I'm in the top of a tree, rocking

to and fro. But finally I get pretending everything, and finally I have

to pretend I'm sane when I know I'm not."

"If you get thinking that way you will go crazy."

"Look, Adrian." She held up the string of pearls before clasping

them on. "Aren't they lovely?"

In Adrian's impatience she seemed to move around the cabin

like a figure in a slow-motion picture. After a moment he de-

manded :

"Are you going to be long? It's stifling in here."

"You go on ! " she fired up.

"I don't want "

"Go on, please ! You just make me nervous trying to hurry me."

With a show of reluctance he left her. After a moment's hesitation

he went down a flight to a deck below and knocked at a door.

"Betsy."

"Just a minute."

She came out in the corridor attired in a red pea-jacket and

trousers borrowed from the elevator boy.

"Do elevator boys have fleas ?" she demanded. "I've got everything

in the world on under this as a precaution."

"I had to see you," he said quickly.

"Careful," she whispered. "Mrs. Worden, who's supposed to be

chaperoning me, is across the way. She's sick."

"I'm sick for you."

They kissed suddenly, clung close together in the narrow corridor,

swaying to and fro with the motion of the ship.

"Don't go away," she murmured.

"I've got to. I've "

Her youth seemed to flow into him, bearing him up into a delicate,

romantic ecstasy that transcended passion. He couldn't relinquish it ;

he had discovered something that he had thought was lost with his

own youth forever. As he walked along the passage he knew that he

had stopped thinking, no longer dared to think.

He met Eva going into the bar.

"WhereVe you been?" she asked with a strained smile.

"To see about the table."

She was lovely ; her cool distinction conquered the trite costume

and filled him with a resurgence of approval and pride. They sat

down at a table.

The gale was rising hour by hour and the mere traversing of a

passage had become a rough matter. In every stateroom trunks were

lashed to the washstands, and the Vestris disaster was being re-

viewed in detail by nervous ladies, tossing, ill and wretched, upon

their beds. In the smoking room a stout gentleman had been hurled

backward and suffered a badly cut head ; and now the lighter chairs

and tables were stacked and roped against the wall.

The crowd who had donned fancy dress and were dining together

had swollen to about sixteen. The only remaining qualification for

membership was the ability to reach the smoking room. They ranged

from a Groton-Harvard lawyer to an ungrammatical broker they had

nicknamed Gyp the Blood, but distinctions had disappeared ; for the

moment they were samurai, chosen from several hundred for their

triumphant resistance to the storm.

The gala dinner, overhung sardonically with lanterns and stream-

ers, was interrupted by great communal slides across the room, pre-

cipitate retirements and spilled wine, while the ship roared and com-

plained that under the panoply of a palace it was a ship after all.

Upstairs afterward a dozen couples tried to dance, shuffling and

galloping here and there in a crazy fandango, thrust around fan-

tastically by a will alien to their own. In view of the condition of

tortured hundreds below, there grew to be something indecent about

it, like a revel in a house of mourning, and presently there was an

egress of the ever-dwindling survivors toward the bar.

As the evening passed, Eva's feeling of unreality increased. Adrian

had disappeared presumably with Miss D'Amido and her mind,

distorted by illness and champagne, began to enlarge upon the fact ;

annoyance changed slowly to dark and brooding anger, grief to des-

peration. She had never tried to bind Adrian, never needed to for

they were serious people, with all sorts of mutual interests, and satis-

fied with each other but this was a breach of the contract, this

was cruel. How could he think that she didn't know ?

It seemed several hours later that he leaned over her chair in the

bar where she was giving some woman an impassioned lecture upon

babies, and said:

"Eva, we'd better turn in."

Her lip curled. "So that you can leave me there and then come

back to your eighteen-year "

"Be quiet."

"I won't come to bed."

"Very well. Good night."

More time passed and the people at the table changed. The stew-

ards wanted to close up the room, and thinking of Adrian her

Adrian off somewhere saying tender things to someone fresh and

lovely, Eva began to cry.

"But he's gone to bed," her last attendants assured her. "We saw

him go."

She shook her head. She knew better. Adrian was lost. The long

seven-year dream was broken. Probably she was punished for some-

thing she had done ; as this thought occurred to her the shrieking

timbers overhead began to mutter that she had guessed at last. This

was for the selfishness to her mother, who hadn't wanted her to marry

Adrian ; for all the sins and omissions of her life. She stood up, say-

ing she must go out and get some air.

The deck was dark and drenched with wind and rain. The ship

pounded through valleys, fleeing from black mountains of water

that roared toward it. Looking out at the night, Eva saw that there

was no chance for them unless she could make atonement, propitiate

the storm. It was Adrian's love that was demanded of her. Deliber-

ately she unclasped her pearl necklace, lifted it to her lips for she

knew that with it went the freshest, fairest part of her life and

flung it out into the gale.

Ill

When Adrian awoke it was lunchtime, but he knew that some

heavier sound than the bugle had called him up from his deep sleep.

Then he realized that the trunk had broken loose from its lashings

and was being thrown back and forth between a wardrobe and Eva's

bed. With an exclamation he jumped up, but she was unharmed

still in costume and stretched out in deep sleep. When the steward

had helped him secure the trunk, Eva opened a single eye.

"How are you?" he demanded, sitting on the side of her bed.

She closed the eye, opened it again.

"We're in a hurricane now," he told her. "The steward says it's

the worst he's seen in twenty years."

"My head," she muttered. "Hold my head."

"How?"

"In front. My eyes are going out. I think I'm dying."

"Nonsense. Do you want the doctor?"

She gave a funny little gasp that frightened him ; he rang and sent

the steward for the doctor.

The young doctor was pale and tired. There was a stubble of beard

upon his face. He bowed curtly as he came in and, turning to Adrian,

said with scant ceremony :

"What's the matter?"

"My wife doesn't feel well."

"Well, what is it you want a bromide?"

A little annoyed by his shortness, Adrian said: "You'd better

examine her and see what she needs."

"She needs a bromide," said the doctor. "I've given orders that

she is not to have any more to drink on this ship."

"Why not?" demanded Adrian in astonishment.

"Don't you know what happened last night?"

"Why, no, I was asleep."

"Mrs. Smith wandered around the boat for an hour, not knowing

what she was doing. A sailor was set to follow her, and then the

medical stewardess tried to get her to bed, and your wife insulted

her."

"Oh, my heavens!" cried Eva faintly.

"The nurse and I had both been up all night with Steward Carton,

who died this morning." He picked up his case. "I'll send down a

bromide for Mrs. Smith. Good-by."

For a few minutes there was silence in the cabin. Then Adrian

put his arm around her quickly.

"Never mind," he said. "We'll straighten it out."

"I remember now." Her voice was an awed whisper. "My pearls. 1

threw them overboard."

"Threw them overboard ! "

"Then I began looking for you."

"But I was here in bed."

"I didn't believe it ; I thought you were with that girl."

"She collapsed during dinner. I was taking a nap down here."

Frowning, he rang the bell and asked the steward for luncheon

and a bottle of beer.

"Sorry, but we can't serve any beer to your cabin, sir."

When he went out Adrian exploded: "This is an outrage. You

were simply crazy from that storm and they can't be so high-handed.

I'll see the captain."

"Isn't that awful?" Eva murmured. "The poor man died."

She turned over and began to sob into her pillow. There was a

knock at the door.

"Can I come in?"

The assiduous Mr. Butterworth, surprisingly healthy and immacu-

late, came into the crazily tipping cabin.

"Well, how's the mystic?" he demanded of Eva. "Do you remem-

ber praying to the elements in the bar last night?"

"I don't want to remember anything about last night."

They told him about the stewardess, and with the telling the situa-

tion lightened ; they all laughed together.

"I'm going to get you some beer to have with your luncheon,"

Butterworth said. "You ought to get up on deck."

"Don't go," Eva said. "You look so cheerful and nice."

"Just for ten minutes."

When he had gone, Adrian rang for two baths.

"The thing is to put on our best clothes and walk proudly three

times around the deck," he said.

"Yes." After a moment she added abstractedly: "I like that

young man. He was awfully nice to me last night when you'd dis-

appeared."

The bath steward appeared with the information that bathing

was too dangerous today. They were in the midst of the wildest

hurricane on the North Atlantic in ten years ; there were two broken

arms this morning from attempts to take baths. An elderly lady had

been thrown down a staircase and was not expected to live. Further-

more, they had received the SOS signal from several boats this

morning.

"Will we go to help them?"

"They're all behind us, sir, so we have to leave them to the

Mauretania. If we tried to turn in this sea the portholes would be

smashed."

This array of calamities minimized their own troubles. Having

eaten a sort of luncheon and drunk the beer provided by Butter-

worth, they dressed and went on deck.

Despite the fact that it was only possible to progress step by step,

holding on to rope or rail, more people were abroad than on the day

before. Fear had driven them from their cabins, where the trunks

bumped and the waves pounded the portholes and they awaited

momentarily the call to the boats. Indeed, as Adrian and Eva stood

on the transverse deck above the second class, there was a bugle call,

followed by a gathering of stewards and stewardesses on the deck

below. But the boat was sound ; it had outlasted one of its cargo

Steward James Carton was being buried at sea.

It was very British and sad. There were the rows of stiff, dis-

ciplined men and women standing in the driving rain, and there was

a shape covered by the flag of the Empire that lived by the sea. The

chief purser read the service, a hymn was sung, the body slid off into

the hurricane. With Eva's burst of wild weeping for this humble end,

some last string snapped within her. Now she really didn't care. She

responded eagerly when Butterworth suggested that he get some

champagne to their cabin. Her mood worried Adrian ; she wasn't used

to so much drinking and he wondered what he ought to do. At his

suggestion that they sleep instead, she merely laughed, and the

bromide the doctor had sent stood untouched on the washstand. Pre-

tending to listen to the insipidities of several Mr. Stacombs, he

watched her ; to his surprise and discomfort she seemed on intimate

and even sentimental terms with Butterworth, and he wondered if

this was a form of revenge for his attention to Betsy D'Amido.

The cabin was full of smoke, the voices went on incessantly, the

suspension of activity, the waiting for the storm's end, was getting

on his nerves. They had been at sea only four days ; it was like a

year.

The two Mr. Stacombs left finally, but Butterworth remained. Eva

was urging him to go for another bottle of champagne.

"We've had enough," objected Adrian. "We ought to go to bed."

"I won't go to bed!" she burst out. "You must be crazy! You

play around all you want, and then, when I find somebody I I like,

you want to put me to bed."

"You're hysterical."

"On the contrary, I've never been so sane."

"I think you'd better leave us, Butterworth," Adrian said. "Eva

doesn't know what she's saying."

"He won't go. I won't let him go." She clasped Butterworth's

hand passionately. "He's the only person that's been half decent to

me."

"You'd better go, Butterworth," repeated Adrian.

The young man looked at him uncertainly.

"It seems to me you're being unjust to your wife," he ventured.

"My wife isn't herself."

"That's no reason for bullying her."

Adrian lost his temper. "You get out of here ! " he cried.

The two men looked at each other for a moment in silence. Then

Butterworth turned to Eva, said, "I'll be back later," and left the

cabin.

"Eva, youVe got to pull yourself together," said Adrian when the

door closed.

She didn't answer, looked at him from sullen, half-closed eyes.

"I'll order dinner here for us both and then we'll try to get some

sleep."

"I want to go up and send a wireless."

"Who to?"

"Some Paris lawyer. I want a divorce."

In spite of his annoyance, he laughed. "Don't be silly."

"Then I want to see the children."

"Well, go and see them. I'll order dinner."

He waited for her in the cabin twenty minutes. Then impatiently

he opened the door across the corridor ; the nurse told him that Mrs.

Smith had not been there.

With a sudden prescience of disaster he ran upstairs, glanced in

the bar, the salons, even knocked at Butterworth's door. Then a

quick round of the decks, feeling his way through the black spray

and rain. A sailor stopped him at a network of ropes.

"Orders are no one goes by, sir. A wave has gone over the wireless

room."

"Have you seen a lady?"

"There was a young lady here " He stopped and glanced

tround. "Hello, she's gone."

"She went up the stairs ! " Adrian said anxiously. "Up to the wire-

less room ! "

The sailor ran up to the boat deck ; stumbling and slipping, Adrian

followed. As he cleared the protected sides of the companionway, a

tremendous body struck the boat a staggering blow and, as she keeled

over to an angle of forty-five degrees, he was thrown in a helpless

roll down the drenched deck, to bring up dizzy and bruised against a

stanchion.

"Eva!" he called. His voice was soundless in the black storm.

Against the faint light of the wireless-room window he saw the sailor

making his way forward.

"Eva!"

The wind blew him like a sail up against a lifeboat. Then there

was another shuddering crash, and high over his head, over the very

boat, he saw a gigantic, glittering white wave, and in the split second

that it balanced there he became conscious of Eva, standing beside

a ventilator twenty feet away. Pushing out from the stanchion, he

lunged desperately toward her, just as the wave broke with a

smashing roar. For a moment the rushing water was five feet deep,

sweeping with enormous force toward the side, and then a human

body was washed against him, and frantically he clutched it and was

swept with it back toward the rail. He felt his body bump against it,

but desperately he held on to his burden ; then, as the ship rocked

slowly back, the two of them, still joined by his fierce grip, were

rolled out exhausted on the wet planks. For a moment he knew no

more.

IV

Two days later, as the boat train moved tranquilly south toward

Paris, Adrian tried to persuade his children to look out the window

at the Norman countryside.

"It's beautiful," he assured them. "All the little farms like toys.

Why, in heaven's name, won't you look?"

"I like the boat better," said Estelle.

Her parents exchanged an infanticidal glance.

"The boat is still rocking for me," Eva said with a shiver. "Is it

for you ?"

"No. Somehow, it all seems a long way off. Even the passengers

looked unfamiliar going through the customs."

"Most of them hadn't appeared above ground before."

He hesitated. "By the way, I cashed Butterworth's check for him."

"You're a fool. You'll never see the money again."

"He must have needed it pretty badly or he would not have come

to me."

A pale and wan girl, passing along the corridor, recognized them

and put her head through the doorway.

"How do you feel?"

"Awful."

"Me, too," agreed Miss D'Amido. "I'm vainly hoping my fiance

will recognize me at the Gare du Nord. Do you know two waves went

over the wireless room?"

"So we heard," Adrian answered dryly.

She passed gracefully along the corridor and out of their life.

"The real truth is that none of it happened," said Adrian after a

moment. "It was a nightmare an incredibly awful nightmare."

"Then, where are my pearls?"

"Darling, there are better pearls in Paris. I'll take the respon-

sibility for those pearls. My real belief is that you saved the boat."

"Adrian, let's never get to know anyone else, but just stay together

always just we two."

He tucked her arm under his and they sat close. "Who do you

suppose those Adrian Smiths on the boat were?" he demanded. "It

certainly wasn't me."

"Nor me."

"It was two other people," he said, nodding to himself. "There are

so many Smiths in this world."