CHAPTER II

While Captain Bell, Cécile, and Huntington Wood were idly discussing the manœuvres of the Pilot-fish, and different members of the crew were engaged in settling their bets, there was one person aboard the schooner who was taking measures to put an end to the peculiar devotion of Mr. Harold Applebo, poet.

In her roomy cabin below, Miss Hermione Bell had heard the exclamations which announced the sighting of the Pilot-fish. The port-hole over her bunk commanded a view of the harbour-mouth, and resting on brackets overhead was a big, battered old-fashioned telescope. Hermione threw down her book, reached up for the glass, and took a dead rest on the brass rim of the port-hole, when the _Daffodil_ sprang to meet her vision, swimming unsteadily in the vivid reflection of the sun.

Once the yawl was clear of the glare, Hermione was able to examine her in detail. The first object to catch her eye was a figure squatting in a toad-like way up forward, and which, even as she looked, scrambled upright, as though in obedience to an order, and began to clear the anchor. Hermione observed that the man's body was disproportionately wide for its height, that his head resembled a deck-swab, and that the legs were very bowed.

"The Finn..." she muttered. "What a brute! He looks like a sea-spider."

Passing from the Finn, she tried to distinguish the figure at the wheel, but all that was visible above the high coaming was a mop of reddish-yellow hair and one big, bare shoulder. As though conscious that he were under scrutiny, Applebo kept his face persistently turned away, and Hermione had learned by experience that when he was presently forced to go about, he would shift himself to the other side of the cockpit, keeping his back to the _Shark_. The wheel of the yawl was placed very low and almost hidden by the high coaming.

"Hang him!" Hermione burst out, and closed the telescope with a vicious snap.

For several minutes she sat on the edge of her bunk, lost in thought, her head tilted slightly forward and her eyes unfocussed. One graceful leg hung straight down; the other was tucked under her, schoolgirl fashion. Her kimono, open at the throat, showed that splendid, arching bust seen most frequently in singers. Hermione was not a singer, but she was a strong swimmer, and the lung development is similar. Her neck was straight and strong, the little _nuque_ a detail for sculptors to dream of, carrying its subtle curve to hide in the thick, black, lustrous hair. Hermione's type was Keltic; Irish and French would both have claimed her, the latter for an Auvergnatte, because of her very deep violet eyes and the little nose with the retroussé tip, which all three of the girls had from their mother. Hermione was taller than her sisters and was destined to be a big woman at maturity, this promise being so far draped in youth.

Europeans found Hermione far more beautiful than Cécile, and Paula lovelier than either. But to the American taste the girl's type was too tropical, even her indigo eyes commonly passing for black. There was also about her a tempestuosity which appalled most people. Hermione was not a hoyden; she was far too feminine for that, but she was temperamentally impetuous, often to the point of violence, and her discourse, when angered, was not always what it should be. Christian Heldstrom worshipped the planks she trod on ... and she had given him more trouble than both of the others put together. Which is to say, that she gave him more trouble than did Cécile, as Paula was always good.

Hermione had already many beaus, whom she treated like dogs. Yet her method was kinder than Cécile's, for Hermione never flirted. If she liked a man, she permitted him to row and sail and swim with her; if she did not like him, she told him to clear out. For gallantry she had no patience and was apt to receive with contumely the most subtle of flatteries.

And yet...

Hermione's long, round arm reached for the lid of a little locker beside her bunk. Therefrom she took a large package of cream, or rather, corn-coloured note-paper closely covered by a small, regular handwriting which at the first glance resembled Greek script. From this package Hermione selected a sheet at random, then flinging herself face downward on the bunk, dropped her pretty chin into one hand, and resting on her elbow, she proceeded to acquire the following interesting information:--

TO HERMIONE

_The fog may blanket the sleeping sea, Hermione; Sunbeams may falter, moonbeams pale May swoon at the frown of the darkling gale. I follow thee, Hermione._

_The skies may weep or the tempest shrill, Hermione; Tide-rips may growl and the rock-fangs yawn And sea-traps be set in the lightless dawn. I follow still, Hermione._

_I may not see thee nor hear thy voice, Hermione; Nothing I ask but to feel thou art there, To share thy ocean, to breathe thy air. So I rejoice, Hermione._

_Thus if I sing one little song, Hermione, 'Tis the cry of the gull swept off on the wind. One soundless sigh of a love that is blind. Forgive my wrong, Hermione._

Hermione read the verses twice through, then stared at the white bulkhead.

"Fool!" was her polite comment.

There were a great many of these poems, each bearing a different date, and each a souvenir of some port where the _Shark_ had visited. Over a period of three months ran the verses, and not once during that time had the poet been within a quarter of a mile of her to Hermione's knowledge. Once or twice she had caught a glimpse of Applebo's face through her telescope, but never a satisfactory one. Paula was the only one of the girls who had ever seen him at close range; she had come on him face to face in the post-office, but had been quite unable to say whether or not he was good to look at.

The verses always came most prosaically through the mail. All three of the sisters had a large correspondence, so that Hermione's corn-coloured letters, with their peculiar calligraphy, had excited no especial comment. Once or twice she had been asked from whom they were. "A darn fool..." Hermione had answered, for which her father, old sinner that he was, saw fit to reprove her.

Hermione lay on her bunk and kicked up her heels and read her verses, sometimes with a curling lip when the sentiment impressed her as particularly mushy. Yet, oddly enough, there was a flush glowing darkly through the olive of her cheeks, and any one would have sworn that her eyes were a very velvety tone of black. Once or twice her long, lithe young body squirmed uneasily and her broad forehead clouded as though from displeasure.

Certainly, there was, aside from the presumption of the poet in sending her the verses at all, nothing to give offence in Applebo's effusions. All were of the very essence of delicacy, and each carried somewhere in its text a little word of apology.

Hermione rose suddenly, flung the leaflets back into the locker, and sat for a moment with brooding eyes and the warm flush burning through her clear, olive skin. The girl never burned nor tanned nor chapped; her complexion preserved invariably its delicacy of tint and texture.

"What a lot of rot..." muttered Hermione to herself. "The man's an idiot. If I make him feel like that, why doesn't he come over and kick about it instead of flopping around in that little tub and writing me fathoms of slush? Here's where he gets a little sonnet from his Hermione."

With her flush even darker, she reached for her writing block and penned the following epistle:--

SCHOONER-YACHT _Shark_, Shoal Harbour, August fourth.

HAROLD APPLEBO, ESQ., Yacht _Daffodil_.

Dear Sir:--Has it ever occurred to you that it is scarcely fair to my sisters, Cécile and Paula, that I, the youngest, should be the sole recipient of so many poetic gems? Inasmuch as your acquaintance with them is precisely that of our own, my sense of fairness no longer permits of my being the only favoured one.

I must, therefore, request that you transfer your delicate attentions for the next few weeks, at least. This measure will also give me an opportunity to recover from the emotions produced by your latest:--"Hermione's Eyes" ... which, by the way, do not happen to be "grey as the sleeping sea."

Thanking you for your delicate attentions, and in the hope that my sisters may appreciate them even more than my limited poetic faculty has permitted,

Very truly yours, HERMIONE BELL.

"There," said Hermione, "if that doesn't send the sentimental youth flapping out to sea, I'll give him something that will."

She sealed and addressed the letter and proceeded to dress, putting on a white-serge sailor blouse and skirt, the latter short enough to clear her trim ankles. The thick, black hair she wound in snug bands about her head, added a crimson ribbon, and capped the whole with a white tam. Thus costumed she appeared a tall, slenderly graceful girl with a pretty, tantalising face, of which one carried away an impression of warm, vivid colouring, sapphire eyes, tip-tilted nose, and red lips ever ready to return insults for the kisses which would seem to fit them. Hermione always looked slender to the point of being thin when smartly dressed; it needed her bathing-suit or a riding-habit to reveal her as the Diana which she was. Whether for good or ill, the mother had left a rich legacy of physical beauty to her three girls.

As Hermione went on deck she saw Wood pulling away in the dinghy in the direction of the _Daffodil_. He had declined the offer of a man to row him, and had promised to do his best to bring Applebo back for luncheon.

"Where is Huntington going?" asked Hermione of Cécile. "I thought he was to stay for lunch."

"So he is. We sent him over to see if he couldn't induce the Pilot-fish to come, too. It seems they were classmates at Yale."

"Applebo won't come," said Hermione.

"Why not?" asked her father.

"It would strip him of his sentimental pose to be formally presented. I'm going ashore to post a letter."

The quartermaster brought her own little cedar skiff alongside, and Hermione got aboard and pulled in for the landing of the Reading Room. Arrived, the boatman took charge of the skiff, and Hermione started to walk up the steep path which led through the scrub pines and was a short cut to the village. She had gone about half the distance when she saw, waddling rapidly toward her and resembling in the thicket some gnome or troll, a short, squat figure which she recognised immediately as the Finn.

Hermione had several times seen the man at close range, the last of these occasions being while he was propelled to the landing in a wheelbarrow, insensible with drink, and suggesting some great pulpy kraken or other fetid creature of the deep. It had taken the girl a couple of days to get over the effect produced by the sight of the sodden, inert body, bloated purple face with its shock of wild, black hair, and the misshapen limbs dangling and flopping grotesquely over the sides of the barrow.

Now, as she saw him approaching, Hermione felt a strong impulse to turn and bolt. Even at the distance of one hundred yards she could distinguish the pallid face which the sun seemed powerless to tan. As she drew closer she observed, with a shudder, the wide cleft in the upper-lip and the eyes set so painfully askew that the man was forced to turn his head almost at right-angles to his shoulders in order to look at an object in front of him.

Pride kept Hermione straight on her course; then, as the Finn drew near, it occurred to her to give her note to him. This would obviate furnishing information to a possibly curious and inquisitive postmistress, for both the _Shark_ and the _Daffodil_ had spent a good deal of the summer at Shoal Harbour, where the striking personality of Applebo must have attracted a certain amount of attention.

Therefore, as the Finn drew abreast of her, Hermione made a sign with her hand. His head still cocked sideways and somewhat curiously suggesting that of a sea-bird hunting its food in the spray, the man waddled up. Hermione, watching him half in disgust, half in curiosity, received a surprise. For the face of the Finn, distorted as it was, held, nevertheless, a sort of wild and spiritual beauty. Whether this was because of an expression of infinite pathos and suffering, or owing to the beautifully shaped forehead and deep, velvety brown of the eyes, Hermione could not have said, but suddenly all of her repulsion vanished, leaving only kindliness and pity. The expression in the great, melting brown eyes, twisted as they were, suggested that which one might see in the eyes of a faithful Newfoundland, his back broken by a motor-car.

Hermione held out her letter. The Finn took it with a smile, then bowed.

"For your master," said Hermione.

The Finn smiled and nodded.

"Yo, leddy..." said he.

Hermione, thinking to tip him, opened her purse. To her surprise the man sprang back, while an expression, almost of fright, filled the misshapen face.

"Na ... na ... na..." he mumbled. Hermione noticed that while he held up one big, gnarled hand, as if in protest, he was nevertheless drawing nearer, and that in a stealthy, sidelong way. Startled, she snapped shut her pocketbook.

"What's the matter?" she asked, sharply.

The Finn's face fell. He drew the back of his hand across his forehead. Hermione saw that it was beaded with perspiration.

The Finn looked at her with a tragic sort of smile, pointed to the purse, then made a motion as of one drinking deeply. Hermione understood.

"You are afraid that if I give you some change you may drink?" she asked.

The Finn nodded vigorously, stood for a moment regarding her, then, with a tug at his forelock, turned on his heel and scuttled off down the slope toward the landing.