The Voice in the Fog - Harold MacGrath (new reading txt) 📗

It was a narrow escape. To have been found wanting the first night out!

"Come in," said a voice in answer to his knock.

[Illustration: "Come in," said a voice.]

He set the tray down on the stool, his heart insurgent and his fingers all thumbs. He might live to be a steward eighty years old, but he never would get over the awe, the embarrassment of these invasions by night. Each time he saw a woman in her peignoir or kimono he felt as though he had committed a sacrilege. True, he understood their attitude; he was merely a serving machine and for the time wiped off the roster of mankind.

A long blue coat of silk brocade enveloped Kitty from her throat to her sandals; sleeves which fell over her hands; buttoned by loops over corded knots. An experienced traveler could have told him that it was the peculiar garment which any self-respecting Chinaman would wear who was in mourning for his grandfather. Kitty wore it because of its beauty alone.

"Thank you," she said, as Thomas went out backward, court style. Kitty smiled across at her maid who was arranging the combs and brushes preparatory to taking down her mistress' hair. "He looked as if he were afraid of something, Celeste."

Celeste smiled enigmatically. "Ma'm'selle shoult haff been born in Pariss."

This was translatable, or not, as you pleased. Kitty sipped the chocolate and found it excellent. At length she dismissed the maid, switched off the lights, and then remembered that there was no water in the carafe. She rang.

Thomas replied so promptly that he could not have been farther off than the companionway. "You rang, miss?"

"Yes, Webb. Please fill this carafe."

"Is it possible that it was empty, miss?"

"I used it and forgot to ring for more."

All this in the dark.

Thomas hurried away, wishing he could find some magic spring on board. For what purpose he could not have told.

As for Kitty, she remained standing by the door, profoundly astonished.


CHAPTER VII

Third day out.

Kitty smiled at the galloping horizon; smiled at the sunny sky; smiled at the deck-steward as he served the refreshing broth; smiled at the tips of her sensible shoes, at her hands, at her neighbors: until Mrs. Crawford could contain her curiosity no longer.

"Kitty Killigrew, what have you been doing?"

"Doing?"

"Well, going to do?"-shrewdly.

Kitty gazed at her friend in pained surprise, her blue eyes as innocent as the sea-and as full of hidden mysterious things. "Good gracious! can't a person be happy and smile?"

"Happy I have no doubt you are; but I've studied that smile of yours too closely not to be alarmed by it."

"Well, what does it say?"

"Mischief."

Kitty did not reply to this, but continued smiling-at space this time.

On the ship crossing to Naples in February their chairs on deck had been together; they had become acquainted, and this acquaintance had now ripened into one of those intimate friendships which are really sounder and more lasting than those formed in youth. Crawford had heard of Killigrew as a great and prosperous merchant, and Killigrew had heard of Crawford as a millionaire whose name was very rarely mentioned in the society pages of the Sunday newspapers. Men recognize men at once; it doesn't take much digging. Before they arrived in Naples they had agreed to take the Sicilian trip together, then up Italy, through France, to England. The scholar and the merchant at play were like two boys out of school; the dry whimsical humor of the Scotsman and the volatile sparkle of the Irishman made them capital foils.

Killigrew dropped his Rodney Stone .

"Say, Crawford," he began, "after seeing ten thousand saints in ten thousand cathedrals, since February, I'd give a hundred dollars for a ringside ticket to a scrap like that one,"-indicating the volume on his knee.

Crawford lay back and laughed.

"Well," said his wife, with an amused smile, "why don't you say it?"

"Say what?"

"'So would I!'"

"Men are quite hopeless," sighed Mrs. Killigrew, when the laughter had subsided.

"You oughtn't object to a good shindy, Molly," slyly observed her husband. "You'll never forgive me that black eye."

"I'll never forgive the country you got it in,"-grimly. "But what's the harm in a good scrap between two husky fellows, trained to a hair to slam-bang each other?"

"It isn't refined, dad," said Kitty.

He sent a searching glance at her; he never was sure when that girl was laughing. "Fiddle-sticks! For four months now I've been shopping every day with you women, and you can't tell me prize-fights are brutal."

Crawford applauded gently.

"By the way, Crawford, you know something about direct charity." Killigrew threw back his rug and sat up. "I've got an idea. What's the use of giving checks to hospitals and asylums and colleges, when you don't know whether the cash goes right or wrong? I'm going to let Molly here start a home-bureau to keep her from voting; a lump sum every year to give away as she pleases. I'm strong for giving boys college education. Smooths 'em out; gives them a start in life; that is, if they are worth anything at the beginning. Like this: back the boy and screw up his honor and interest by telling him that you expect to be paid back when the time comes. There's no better charity in the world than making a man of a boy, making him want to stand on his own feet, independent. When you help inefficient people, you throw your money away. What do you think of the idea?"

"A first-rate one. I'd like to come in."

"No; this is all my own and Molly's. But how'll I start her off?"

"Get an efficient young man to act as private secretary; a fairly good accountant; no rich man's son, but some one who has had a chance to observe life. Make him a buffer between Mrs. Killigrew and the whining cheats. And above all, no young man who has social entrée to your house. That kind of a private secretary is always a fizzle."

"Any one in mind?"

"No."

"I have," said Kitty, rising and going toward the companion-ladder to the lower decks.

"What now?" demanded Killigrew.

"Let her be; Kitty has a sensible head on her shoulders, for all her foolery." Mrs. Killigrew laid a restraining hand on her husband's arm.

But Mrs. Crawford smiled a replica of that smile which had aroused her curiosity in regard to Kitty. And then her face grew serious.

Kitty had a mind like her father's. Her ideas were seldom nebulous or slow in forming. They sprang forth, full grown, like those mythological creatures: Minerva was an idea of Jove's, as doubtless Venus was an idea of Neptune's. Men with this quality become captains-general of armies or of money-bags. In a man it signifies force; in a woman, charm.

Kitty searched diligently and found the object of her quest on the main-deck, starboard, leaning against one of the deck supports and reading from a book which lay flat on the broad teak rail, in a blue shadow. The sea smiled at Kitty and Kitty smiled at the sea. Men are not the only adventurers; they have no monopoly on daring. And what Kitty proposed doing was daring indeed, for she did not know into what dangers it might eventually lead her.

"Mr. Webb?"

Thomas looked up. "You are wanting me, miss?"

"If you are not too busy."

"Really, no. I have been reading." He closed the book, loose-leafed from frequent perusals. "I am at your service."

"Do you read much, Mr. Webb?"

The reiteration of the prefix to his name awakened him to the marvelous fact that for the present he was no longer the machine; she was recognizing the man.

"Perhaps, for a man in my station, I read too much, Miss Killigrew."

Kitty's scarlet lips stirred ever so slightly. It was the first time he had added the name to the prefix: he in his turn was recognizing the woman. And this rather pleased her, for she liked to be recognized.

"May I ask what it is you are reading?"

He offered the book to her. Morte d'Arthur . Kitty's eyebrows, a hundred years or more ago, would have stirred to tender lyrics the quills of Prior and Lovelace and Suckling: arched when interested, a funny little twist to the inner points when angered, and when laughter possessed her. . . . Let Thomas indite the sonnet! Just now they were widely arched.

"I am very fond of the book," explained Thomas diffidently. "I love the pompous gallantry of these fairy chaps. How politely they used to hack each other into pieces!"

"Are you by chance a university man?"

"No. I am self-educated, if one may call it that. My father was a fellow at Trinity. For myself, I have always had to work."

"Do you like your present occupation?"

"It was the best I could find." How he would have liked to throw discretion to the winds and tell her the whole miserable story!

"Are you good at accounting?"

"Fairly." What was all this about? He began to riffle the leaves of the book, restively.

"Could you tell an honest man from a dishonest one?"

"I believe so." Thomas had eyebrows, too, but he did not know how to use them properly. Tell an honest man from a dishonest one, forsooth!

Kitty found the situation less easy than she had anticipated. The more questions she asked, the more embarrassed she grew; and it angered her because there was no clear reason why she should become embarrassed. And she also remarked his uneasiness. However, she went on determinedly.

"Have you ever had any contact with real poverty?"

"Yes,"-close-lipped. "Pardon me, Miss Killigrew, but . . ."

"Just a moment, Mr. Webb," she interrupted. "I dare say my questions seem impertinent, but they have a purpose back of them. My mother and I are looking for a private secretary for a charitable concern which we are going to organize shortly. We desire some one who is educated, who will be capable of guarding us from persons not worthy of benefactions, who will make recommendations, seek into the affairs of those considered worthy. We shall, of course, expect to find room for you. It will not be a chatter-tea-drinking affair. You will have the evenings to yourself and all of Sundays. The salary will be two hundred a month."

"Pounds?" gasped Thomas.

"Oh, no; dollars. I do not expect your answer at this moment. You must have time to think it over."

"It is not necessary, Miss Killigrew."

"You decline?"

"On the contrary, I accept with a good deal of gratitude. On condition," he added gravely.

"And that?"

"You will ask me no questions regarding my past."

Kitty looked squarely into his eyes and he returned the glance steadily and calmly.

"Very well;