“You refuse me your help, then,” he concluded sadly, as he rose to his feet.
“Oh, I will not say that altogether” she temporised, “but I have no inducements to offer, and I do not wish to hurt or offend this young American gentleman whom Lucienne esteems so highly. A word of mild advice I might give him if the subject arises naturally. That is all.”
The Baron’s valedictory smile and bow were pleasant, but she recognised a somewhat sinister air of disappointment lurking beneath. She watched his disappearing figure with a certain amount of uneasiness. Her husband approached and sank into the vacant chair by her side.
“Our friend did not pay us a long visit to-day,” he observed.
“Albert has lost the art of being interesting,” she said. “He is learning to be prolix. He dwells upon trifles.”
“Nevertheless,” he said, “I am sorry that he hurried. I wanted to ask him about this new colonial loan. Its success depends entirely upon whether Mermillon gives it his blessing.”
“My dear Henri,” she replied reproachfully, “I thought that you had altogether abandoned your interests in high finance.”
The Marquis smiled cryptically.
“An occasional speculation is permitted,” he remarked, “when one knows.”
CHAPTER X
Table of Contents
Lucienne scrambled up the steps of the Bird of Paradise and wrapped herself in the peignoir which its owner was holding out for her.
“I hope you keep my belongings safely locked up,” she laughed. “If you have any more people searching the ship you will lose your reputation if it is discovered that you have my powder-box, my peignoir, and spare bathing suit on board.”
“Your possessions have a cupboard to themselves,” he assured her. “Sometimes at night when I am feeling very sentimental, I take them out and have a little conversation with them.”
“Not the bathing suit, I hope?”
“The bathing suit more even than any.”
“Most improper,” she decided, “but rather charming of you.”
“Why are you so late?” he asked.
She settled herself comfortably in the lounge chair he was holding.
“Some slight trouble with the elders of the family,” she confided, holding out her hand for a cigarette, “backed up in this instance by the yellow-haired young Duke who I discovered yesterday bathes in a bracelet and an anklet! They all thought that I ought to have gone to our neighbour’s swimming picnic party. I came to the conclusion it would bore me. The discussion, however, took up valuable time.”
“Well, you are here at last,” he remarked cheerfully, if a little tritely.
“You have enough luncheon for two?” she asked.
He reflected.
“Nothing good enough for you, but whatever I have is at your service. There’s fruit—some peaches and nectarines. There is a small ham which could be released from its glass covering, and a brawn. Salad, of course, some of your favourite cheese, and a Vin Blanc de Bellet.”
“It sounds like a feast for the gods,” she declared. “May I stay and share it with you?”
“Of course you may,” he assured her. “I should have had fish, too, but this wretched gunboat seems to have driven them all out of the bay. Anyway, I hauled up my baskets empty this morning. Auguste can cook some vegetables, though.”
“When I left you the other day,” she meditated, “there was a delicious smell of fried potatoes floating out of the galley porthole.”
“There shall be fried potatoes,” he promised her. She sighed contentedly.
“What a joy it is to be greedy,” she murmured. “Until I face the family wrath I shall now be perfectly happy.”
“Why don’t you let me get this marriage affair fixed up, Lucienne?” he pleaded. “It wouldn’t matter any more about the family, then.”
She smoothed his hand gently.
“I don’t want to run the slightest risk of spoiling this adorable summer.”
“Might be the making of it.”
“It could not be,” she assured him. “For one thing, it would not be nearly so piquant it I were allowed to steal down here to spend an hour or two with you instead of doing it when I am supposed to be somewhere else. And then—I wish I could explain it to you, mon cher—marrying and getting married is not so simple a thing in my country as in yours. My mother, I think, would have no objections. She has developed a somewhat belated penchant for mild flirtations, and she is always afraid that I might interfere. With my father it is another matter. He would be terribly formal. He would want to know such a great deal about you, and even I know so little.”
Wildburn frowned slightly. His good humoured face took on a new expression.
“What sort of things?” he asked. “Money social stuff—my genealogical tree—that kind of rubbish?”
“That kind of rubbish is considered rather important,” she answered, a trifle unsympathetically. “But, leaving that out for the moment, he would want to know what you were doing living down here by yourself on a mystery yacht which everyone wants to buy.”
“Not everyone,” he remonstrated. “There was the beautiful adventuress out of the story book who swam aboard and disappeared after leaving all the contents of my cupboard upon the bed and me very clumsily doped. Then your famous statesman, Mermillon, and his banker friend, de Brett. No one else that I know of.”
“Behold another would-be purchaser!” she exclaimed. “I want to buy it, Hamer.”
“Don’t be absurd,” he scoffed. “I saw your father’s yacht, the Hermione, in Marseilles Harbour only a few weeks ago. It is 20 times the size of this—a perfect palace of luxury.”
“I want something I can sail myself with a little help,” she confided. “I want this yacht—this particular one.”
He looked at her thoughtfully, lit a cigarette, and blew out a cloud of smoke.
“You would resell it?” he asked.
“How clever you are!” she exclaimed. “I should hate to, but I might be tempted. But listen, Hamer—not before I had ransacked her from end to end, tapped every panel for secret hiding-places, felt in the boards for springs, gone over her with a shipbuilder, inch by inch. Then, when I had either possessed myself of her secret or discovered that she hadn’t one, I might sell.”
“But I have already searched everywhere,” he reminded her. “And now, listen,” he went on gravely. “There is something kind of mysterious to me in your having joined the little company of people who want this boat. You shall have her with pleasure, my dear Lucienne, as a wedding present. What about that?”
“It’s an idea,” she admitted. “I will give you time to think it over,” he suggested, rising to his feet. “I know what that thirsty gleam in your eyes means.”
“The perfect lover,” she murmured.
“I will go through all the necessary business with your father whenever you tell me to,” he continued. “There are some things about me he may not like, but I don’t see that there is anything to which he could seriously object. No one is good enough for you, of course, my dear,” he added, leaning over her chair.
“You really, think that?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then kiss me, please.”
He obeyed, with flattering alacrity. Her arms left his neck a moment or so later with reluctance.
“I never thought of myself as a marrying man.” he confessed. “I had all sorts of ideas, but they didn’t exactly shape themselves that way. I expect I shall get the hang of it all right, though.”
“I am beginning to think that you will do for me very well,” she assured him. “You notice things so beautifully. I like your having seen that thirsty gleam in my eyes.”
“Two minutes—no longer,” he promised.
In less than that time he reappeared from the companionway, and she was listening with lazy pleasure to the tinkling of ice in the silver shaker.
“Well, is it to be a bargain?”
“Suppo
sing I am not allowed to marry you?”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Then you can marry me all right if you want to. You won’t starve. You may lose, perhaps, what you call your social position or a portion of it. You will probably like some of my friends and dislike the others cordially. You may hate my profession, still, if you care for me enough to marry me you will probably make allowances.”
She held out her arms and drew his face downwards. This time there were people upon the plage, but there was a certain recklessness about her action.
“Of course,” she murmured as their lips met, “if anyone has seen this you will have to marry me.”
Their cocktails were served on deck in picnic fashion, and with a pleasant absence of formalities. Lucienne was more silent than usual. He, on the other hand, had abandoned for the moment his natural taciturnity. He pointed to one of the small cutters returning to the gunboat.
“This is really,” he declared, “a bay of mysteries. Can you imagine why that old hulk is here?”
“I think so,” she answered. “Father called on the commander yesterday, and he came to dinner. The Admiralty are issuing a new chart of the smaller Mediterranean bays, and they are here to take soundings.”
“Seems queer to me,” he observed. “I should not have said there were any soundings in this bay worth a snap of the fingers to the French or any other navy.”
“Well, that’s what the commander said,” she told him. “He asked questions about you, too. You really are an American, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“Half and half. My father was an American, my mother French. There was a great struggle about where I should be brought up. My father won. He was a pretty lenient sort of man, but there were some things he was firm about. I spent four years at Harvard, and I have been on the Continent most of the time since.”
“You are becoming more interesting every moment,” she declared.
“You had better hold on a bit,” he warned her. “There’s nothing very romantic about me. I am a journalist. I write regularly for the Paris edition of one of our home newspapers in which my father is interested.”
“That’s not so bad,” she told him encouragingly. “I know several French journalists who come to my mother’s receptions. Is your father very rich that he has an interest in a newspaper?”
“I should think he was fairly well off,” Hamer acknowledged.
“That may help with dad,” she reflected. “He pretends to think more of family than anything else, but he is really a terrible money grubber. I have a little money of my own, too, left me by an aunt. All that I shall want from you on our wedding day, if not before, is this boat.”
“As a journalist,” he confided, “nothing is more unsettling to my peace of mind than unsatisfied curiosity. Couldn’t you tell me just what you’ve got on your mind, all of you people, about this ‘Bird of Paradise‘?”
“I couldn’t,” she replied firmly, “for the simple reason that I haven’t the faintest idea. You see, the whole point of the matter is this—the secret of the ‘Bird of Paradise‘ is the secret of other people.”
“It is the first duty of a journalist,” he observed, “to find out other people’s secrets. I expect they would be awfully bucked at my New York office if I sent them a marvellous original story.”
“Well, you may do that some day,” she promised him. “The day after our wedding day, perhaps.”
“What about making that to-morrow?” he suggested.
“Absurd! We are not living in Hollywood. We have to be married in a church and before the Mayor, and we have to have the consents of our parents, and there have to be some sort of legal papers—even when settlements are not necessary. I know all about it. My hand was once asked in marriage by one of my own country people. Then came that wretched little war in Morocco, and, alas! he disappeared.”
“Sorry,” the young man murmured.
“I cannot claim much sympathy,” she replied. “I had only seen him twice, and then in a crowded salon. I am afraid that the chief feelings I had about him were of mild dislike. Still, I should have married him, I suppose, if he had come back from Africa.”
Auguste announced luncheon, and they took their places at the improvised table, set out aft under the awning.
“Nothing makes me so domestic,” she sighed, “as these little a deux. I think I shall make you a good wife, Hamer.”
“You will make an adorable one.”
“If I am as well fed as this, I shall at least be a good tempered one,” she assured him, as she finished mixing the salad and served it.
“Hamer, there never was such a ham. Where ever do you get them?”
“Ship’s stores,” he told her. “We put them on at Gibraltar.”
“And to think that all my wretched house guests,” she reflected, “are squatting in uncomfortable positions on the sands or leaning against jagged rocks, and eating sandwiches from one hand and balancing a luke-warm drink in the other! I am afraid I shall be a better wife than a hostess, Hamer.”
“Don’t let’s entertain at all then,” he proposed. “Two is such a wonderful number.”
“Hamer,” she broke in, looking downwards, “who is that villainous looking foreign person in the small dinghy? He has been round the boat twice.”
“No idea,” was the somewhat indifferent reply.
“Remember,” she warned him, “you must take the greatest care of your boat now that it has become a consideration of our marriage. It must be delivered to me in good condition the day afterwards.”
“I hope my boat is not the only consideration?”
“It is not. I like you very much, Hamer, dear. I have never really quite understood what it means to love anybody, but I think that I love you. I am quite sure that I am going to very much. Nevertheless, I must have the boat.”
“Before I part with her I shall give her a good overhauling myself,” he announced. “The Bird of Paradise is a nice little craft, and I think I bought her cheap, but I really do not know what there is about her to send people crazy.”
“You have had quite an interesting time, anyhow, since you tied up your corps mort here,” she remarked.
“You bet, I have. The most interesting and the most wonderful time of my life.”
There was a brief but happy pause. She leaned back and straightened her hair.
“We are going to have such fun up at the château this evening,” she told him. “My revered father is sufficiently ruffled already because I backed out of going to the party, but when he knows how I have spent the day, and what the result of it all has been, there will be, as you say, don’t you, fur flying?”
“He’ll want to kick me out, you mean, when I pay my formal visit?” Hamer suggested.
“Father would never kick anybody. His manners are the most perfect thing about him. He may make difficulties, however.”
“Shouldn’t take a bit of notice of them,” the young man advised her confidently. “I feel that I shall make a marvellously good husband.”
“You fulfil the first qualification of a husband all right,” she declared, laughing. “You are full of assurance and you amuse me tremendously. You know what Moliere said in one of his comedies—that the husband who keeps his wife amused never loses her?”
“Don’t try me too high,” he begged. “Remember, there is no international standard of humour, and I shan’t want to part with you.”
“I shall be a wife worth keeping,” she promised him hopefully. “Not only am I, as you may have noticed, remarkably pretty, but I can be very affectionate.”
“You are the prettiest girl I ever saw,” he pronounced. “I always adored chestnut hair and brown eyes. Your mouth too—well, I could write a column, being a professional journalist, on your mouth alone.”
She glanced in the mirror which she had withdrawn from her bag.
“Yes, I think you are right,” she agreed. “It is a wonderful mo
uth—tender and yet provocative. I am not sure about my ears, though. You had better examine them.”
“You will drive me crazy presently,” he warned her.
“I’ll yet you off my ears then for the time being. We will set Auguste’s mind at rest and go and have our coffee. I see it at the other end of the deck.”
They resumed their deck chairs, and she leaned back happily.
“Hamer, darling, I think it is wonderful to be engaged,” she declared. “I always had a strange fancy for you, you know. The first time I ever saw you you were on deck wringing out your own bathing suit, and you seemed so capable…I wonder who that villainous-looking foreigner can be? He is still drifting about.”
“And interested in the boat,” Hamer remarked with a frown. “Never takes his eyes off it.”
Chicotin, who was the solitary occupant of the dinghy, stared at them aggressively, as though he were aware of their criticism. Hamer rose to his feet and leaned over the side.
“What do you want round here?” he demanded. “Are you looking for anyone on board?”
Chicotin stared at him insolently.
“I make small promenade,” he said. “I not hurt your boat.”
“Where do you come from?”
“My business,” was the prompt reply.
“He’s a horrible fellow,” Hamer observed, turning round to his companion. “I don’t, quite see what we can do, though. The sea is free to him as well as to us.”
She came to his side and took his arm, frowning slightly. The longer she looked at the intruder the deeper grew the disgust in her face. The man suddenly bent to his oars and moved off.
“Hamer,” she confided, “the most unpleasant idea has come to me.”
“What is it?”
“You have had three mysterious offers to buy the Bird of Paradise. You are unwilling to sell. If these people wish to give so much more money than the boat is worth it must be for one of two reasons.”
“Go on, clever girl.”
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