And for a moment something of the gaiety and youth seemed to fade a little from her face, and then suddenly Sir John called across the room to her:
“Come and join us, you two, or do you prefer your own company?”
Rocky started up at once. “Come along,” she ordered, and Clive followed her reluctantly.
Sir John and Wheeler rose to their feet as the girl approached. “We’ve been playing deck tennis,” she told them, “or at least Mr. Wheeler played deck tennis and we did our struggling best.”
“I thought you played quite a good game,” Wheeler said politely. Rocky sat down beside him.
“Henceforth,” she said determinedly, “I have only one ambition, which is—to beat you at your own game.”
His blue eyes met hers very directly.
“I might return the compliment,” he said, “if only I knew what your particular game is.”
Rocky flushed crimson and her eyes wavered, though she said lightly: “I must think about it and let you know.”
“I am entirely at your disposal,” he answered, and somehow she felt absurdly chilled as if he had put out one of those strong, capable-looking hands to prevent her from drawing near to him.
“May I order you something to drink?” Sir John asked.
Rocky shook her head. “We’ve had one, thank you—at least, I knocked mine over, but I’m not thirsty any more.” Her fingers began to play a nervous tattoo on the chair arms, and Sir John said with a twinkle, “I understand that you are called ‘Rocky’—I have seldom heard such an apt nickname.”
Rocky laughed, and her fingers were quiet. “I know what you mean,” she said breezily, “but the trouble is I can’t help it. I always feel as if I’m on wires—like one of those dancing dolls—dreadful, isn’t it?”
“Nerves,” Clive said calmly. “Perhaps when you were a baby, someone tipped you out of your pram.”
They all laughed, and even Wheeler’s eyes were friendly, and presently he said: “I am told that you will be staying with friends in Colombo. I wonder if I know them by any chance?”
“Oh no, you wouldn’t know them,” she said hurriedly. “You see—well, they’ve only just gone there—in the ship before this— they left Paris just before I did, and so—you see you couldn’t possibly know them. Besides, they’ve never been to Ceylon before.”
“I see,” he said casually.
Gina Savoire suddenly appeared in the open doorway which led on to the deck.
“Good morning, everyone,” she said in her attractive broken English. She gave Rocky a very special smile.
Sir John rose. “Please take my seat.”
Gina subsided gracefully, treating him to a dazzling smile of thanks.
She was dressed in a sort of pyjama suit of woolly material, with long trousers and a pullover, and she wore a bright red belt and a scarf to match was twisted round her head.
“It is the first time I see the sun—since we leave London,” she sighed. “I think I will take the air—but it is so cold,” and she gave a little theatrical shiver.
“I’ll shut the door,” Rocky said quickly, but Wheeler was before her. “Allow me.”
They came back to the table together, and Gina spoke to Rocky. “You come in this ship yesterday—yes? And your name?”
“My name is Rocky Chandler.”
“Chandler … !” It was Wheeler who repeated it. “That is rather an uncommon name—at least, I only know one Chandler—”
Rocky broke in airily. “Oh, there are hundreds of us in the telephone book.”
Wheeler looked at her.
“Wilfred Chandler was the man I knew.”
Sir John, quietly watching the girl’s mobile face, saw a little flicker of her long lashes before she answered cheerfully, “I don’t know anyone named Wilfred.” And he said with a smile:
“Perhaps, Wheeler, you are like the man who expected to find all the Smiths and the Jones related.”
“What an enormous family!” Rocky laughed. She suddenly started to her feet and turned to Clive Durham.
“Come and have another game while the sun shines,” she ordered. “ I must practise hard if I am to beat the champion before we get to Ceylon.”
She glanced at Wheeler, smiling, but he was intent on his pipe.
Outside the smoking-room Clive linked his arm through hers.
“I think you’re right about Mr. Wheeler,” Rocky said.
“Oh! … you do, do you?” Durham looked pleased.
Rocky nodded.
“Um,” she said. “I have come to the conclusion that he is just —a conceited prig, and I don’t care if I never speak to him again.”
Chapter
3
It was the same evening when Rocky was leaning against the ship’s rail, her eyes on the most glorious sunset she had ever seen, that Richard Wheeler came along the deck and stopped beside her.
“Good evening,” he said.
Rocky started violently, for her thoughts had been many miles away, and her colour rose a little as she met his gaze.
“Oh, good evening,” she said flippantly.
He leaned his arms on the railing beside her.
“Admiring the sunset?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Yes—if you saw it in a picture you’d say it couldn’t be true, wouldn’t you? You’d say that the artist had gone mad—or something,” she added vaguely.
Her eyes went back to the riot of colour that seemed to spread across the sky in a blaze of fiery glory, growing fiercer towards the horizon where the sun was slowly sinking into the bosom of the sea, as if an unseen giant hand was dragging it down.
“There are many things in life like that,” Wheeler said.
“Like what?” she demanded.
“That look too good to be true,” he explained.
“What a depressing thing to say,” she objected, and then she laughed. “But then you are rather inclined to be a pessimist, aren’t you?”
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“You so seldom smile or look as if you are enjoying yourself,” she explained a little haltingly. “Even this morning—over that game—you were in such deadly earnest—or you seemed to be.”
“What did you expect me to do?” he asked. “Stand on my head and shout all the time?”
“That’s silly,” Rocky said calmly. “There’s a difference between standing on your head and looking as if the world has come to an abrupt termination.”
The ghost of a smile crossed his face.
“Are you always so downright?” he enquired.
Rocky made a little grimace. “I’m afraid so. Do you object?”
She was utterly taken aback when he said calmly:
“What have I done to deserve to be called a conceited prig?”
For a moment she stared at his profile—for he was not looking at her—before she stammered out: “Who—who told you?”
“You have a very penetrating voice. We all heard what you said —Sir John, and mademoiselle, and, I imagine, the entire smoking-room.”
“Well!” she said blankly; and then, recovering quickly, she said: “I’m very sorry—I didn’t mean you to hear.”
“So I imagine.”
She made a helpless little gesture with her slim hands.
“It’s no use apologising, is it?” she asked in a subdued voice.
“You might explain,” he suggested.
Rocky flushed.
“Well—”she said helplessly, and then with a little impulsive rush: “I can’t explain, except that you—you make me feel—as if— as if I’m—not worth talking to—or being polite to—as if—as if —I just don’t count. Oh, I know it must sound silly, but I like to be friends with everyone, and I like everyone to be friends with me. Clive Durham is—and I think Sir John too—but you …” She broke off, and Wheeler said ironically:
“Go on—I’m enormously interested.”
; Rocky sighed heavily.
“There you are!” she said. “Even that is the kind of thing you wouldn’t say if you liked me! I mean—” She stopped in utter confusion.
Wheeler turned round with his back to the sunset.
“Is it possible to really ‘like’ someone you don’t know?” he asked.
She flushed. “Of course it is. I always like people at first sight or not at all. I believe in first impressions. I think they’re always right. You meet someone new and you look at them, and you know in a minute whether they’re—nice or not—or whether they won’t make any difference to your life at all.”
“And you came to the conclusion that I belonged to the latter category,” he said.
“Must you use such long words?” she protested, and then, as he did not answer, she went on determinedly: “This is very silly, isn’t it? I’m sorry you heard what I said—but that’s my voice again. I know it’s the kind of voice that always seems to make itself heard—Sir John said it was—but—well, I’ve said I’m sorry—” Her eyes were very appealing.
“You also said that you didn’t care if you never spoke to me again,” he reminded her.
Rocky pushed the hair back from her forehead with agitated fingers.
“I think this is getting dreadful,” she said in despair; and then, with childish defiance: “I don’t suppose it matters, does it? I don’t suppose you care whether I speak to you again or not, do you? It’s a big ship and——”
Wheeler broke in upon her agitation with his quiet voice.
“Do you know that you and I have met before?”
Rocky stared at him, her eyes wide with amazement.
“Met before? When? Where?”
“In Paris.”
“In—Paris? …”
Her voice died away, and there was a profound silence before she laughed. “In Paris! … You’re making a mistake now. I never saw you in my life till I came on board this ship. I shouldn’t have forgotten you if we’d met before—I never forget people.” But there was a note of uncertainty in her gay voice, and at last, as if she found his silence unbearable, she said hardily: “Well, if you’re sure—where was it?”
“In a house in the Rue Corbeau. I was taken there one night by an acquaintance, and”—he glanced at her and stopped, to resume after a moment—”I was not sure until you declared so positively that you did not know Wilfred Chandler, and then suddenly I was —quite sure. That’s all; there is no need to look so tragic.”
Rocky was standing quite still, her arms hanging limply at her sides, as if she had no control over them, her face quite expressionless, and when at last she spoke she seemed to drag her voice back from a great distance.
“And—did you lose your money?” she asked.
A wry little smile crossed his face.
“Oh yes. Wasn’t that the idea?”
Clive Durham came hurrying towards them, and Rocky said in an agonised whisper: “You won’t tell—everyone, will you?”
“I can modulate my voice,” he answered with a faint smile.
Rocky leaned her arms again on the ship’s rail.
“We’re just admiring the sunset,” she told Clive with forced gaiety. “Mr. Wheeler says it’s too good to be true—or did I say that? Anyway, it’s fading now.” And suddenly she knew it was not the only thing that was fading, because her happiness was fading too, and her newly found sense of freedom and of escape.
Clive, who had already changed for dinner, glanced at the sky indifferently.
“You’re going to be late, my child,” he warned her.
“Gracious! I forgot about the time,” Rocky said, and she sped away, leaving the two men alone.
Clive looked after her graceful figure admiringly.
“Attractive, isn’t she?” he asked, with a note of satisfaction in his voice.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Wheeler agreed.
The younger man laughed.
“You old misogynist,” he said, but Wheeler answered:
“When you have travelled as much as I have, you will learn to regard all shipboard acquaintances with the same caution.”
“Thanks awfully,” Clive said dryly.
“I was referring to the opposite sex,” Wheeler explained, and then he stretched his arms and yawned. “Well, I suppose I must get into a boiled shirt.” And he strolled away.
Durham remained standing with his back to the sunset. He was —as he would have explained it—struck all of a heap with Rocky because he had recognised that something different about her which the modern girls of his acquaintance did not possess.
He could not have described his meaning, but it intrigued and fescinated him so much that a girl from whom he had parted in London only ten days ago, with very real regret on both sides, was already becoming a shadowy figure whom it made him slightly uncomfortable to remember. Sometimes he thought that Rocky’s difference was sophistication, and then no sooner had he decided the point in his mind than she would do or say something so innocent and schoolgirlish that he would realise he was wrong, and that nothing less sophisticated had ever crossed his path.
It annoyed him because Constance obviously disapproved of Rocky. “Jealous,” he decided; jealous of her charm and high spirits and her effortless determination to squeeze every ounce out of life and to make the most of it.
Girls were queer, he told himself, and it was no use trying to understand them and then as the ship’s bugle sounded for dinner he gave it up and wandered towards the saloon.
Rocky was late for dinner, and when at last she appeared she was wearing a solemn little black lace frock, severely cut and entirely without ornament or relief of any sort.
“Anyone dead?” Constance enquired a little sharply.
Rocky laughed.
“Only Queen Anne,” she answered saucily. “But this was the first rag I could find, so, as I was late already, I got into it.”
“Rag!” Edith Palmer echoed. “It looks new to me; all your clothes look new.”
“It’s the way I wear them,” Rocky declared.
The steward put the menu before her, but she sighed as she picked it up.
“I don’t believe I’m hungry,” she said, as if it were a matter for deep regret. “I’ll just have some fish and then an ice——”
“Dieting?” the Second Officer enquired.
She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I’m too fond of good things.” And then she asked if anyone had noticed the sunset.
“I did,” Edith answered. “It means fine weather, thank goodness. I shall have to get out my white frocks.”
“Don’t you wear shorts?” Rocky asked. “I’ve got the duckiest pair.”
David, the third young man at the table, made one of his rare comments. “I don’t like shorts,” he said rather ponderously.
“You’ll like mine,” Rocky assured him. “They came from one of the smartest shops in Paris, and—” And then suddenly she glanced across to Wheeler’s table and lowered her voice. “But you’ll see them tomorrow—if it’s fine,” she promised him.
“So now you’ve got something to live for, David,” Constance said with sarcasm.
David blushed and fidgeted with the menu card.
He was rather a dull-looking young man with studious eyes.
“Clever, I suppose,” Rocky had long since decided.
She had a surprising way of being right in her judgment of people, a sort of instinct which unwaveringly hit the right nail on the head.
“Any dancing tonight?” she enquired presently, and was told that the band was playing in the tourist class that evening.
“Well, we can go there and dance, can’t we?” she urged.
The Second Officer laughed. “You can, but you won’t be popular if you do,” he said. “You see, they are not allowed in your part of the ship.”
“Oh,” she said disappointedly. She looked across at Sir John Stannard. “Perhaps he’ll let me talk to him,” she decided, and then she realised that no do
ubt, as usual, he and Wheeler would be together in the smoking-room, and that, therefore, she would not be wanted.
“What made you late for dinner?” Edith Palmer enquired. She had an inquisitive sort of mind, and loved facts more than anything in the world.
“I was watching the sunset,” Rocky told her, but she knew that was not the reason, for she had gone through some bad moments afterwards in her cabin, during which she had made no attempt to change her frock, but had just sat on the side of the bed trying to persuade herself that nothing mattered but the present—that nothing could possibly matter.
She had still been sitting there in her day frock when the stewardess came to the door.
“Oh, I thought you were at dinner,” she apologised.
Rocky had jumped at once.
“I ought to be, I know,” she admitted. “But I was just thinking, and I forgot the time,” and she shivered.
When dinner was over she managed to avoid Clive Durham and went out on deck in the darkness.
A lovely night—the sea was glass-smooth and the many stars made the sky look like spangled velvet.
Rocky walked up and down—very slowly for her—blowing little rings of smoke from her cigarette, and followed by disapproving glances from the two maiden ladies who, arm in arm, were taking the air.
And tonight Rocky was feeling a little lonely—no doubt, she told herself sensibly, because she was alone on board.
The two old ladies had one another; Mr. and Mrs. King, the world tourists, were always together; Constance had her brother— everyone except herself seemed to have a relation of sorts.
Independence had been part and parcel of her joy until this evening, but now, well—it must be rather nice to have someone belonging to you, she thought reluctantly—someone to talk to when you felt in need of companionship, someone to fall back upon when, as now, one’s spirits were not soaring quite so high.
She glanced through the smoking-room window and saw Edith and Constance sitting with Richard Wheeler.
Their heads were bent intently over some game which they seemed to be playing with matches, and suddenly an absurd little feeling of being left out rose in her heart.
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