CHAPTER VII

When Mr. Huntington Wood, at luncheon aboard the _Shark_, had asserted that the real explanation for the extraordinary devotion of the Pilot-fish was a sentimental emotion, inspired by one of the Misses Bell, Cécile found much matter for her maiden meditation.

Not for one instant did it occur to this self-satisfied young lady that the cause of this infatuation might be one of her sisters. Paula was not the sort of girl of whom one would think in this connection, and Hermione was still regarded by Cécile as a mere child, though, as a matter of fact, the younger sister's superior height and dark colouring might readily have caused the careless observer to consider her the elder. Cécile was apt to be somewhat careless in her observation of anything outside of her own interests. Wherefore, she complacently appropriated Mr. Applebo in her mind as her own enamoured swain.

For all of her innumerable conquests, Cécile found, in the peculiar methods of the Pilot-fish, something singularly piquant. Here was a lover who asked absolutely nothing in return for his passion. He merely desired to be in her general neighbourhood, to accomplish which he put at inconvenience nobody but himself. To be sure, many others had striven for this same result, but these had insisted on a gradual constriction of what might be considered a "general neighbourhood," eventually finding the length of a transome all too wide a separation. Where Cécile had previously been compelled to throw cold water on her all too ardent suitors, here was one who insisted on at least a half mile of this pure element, in varying depths, between them.

Thinking it over in the privacy of her room, Cécile decided that this point of view was just as extreme, of its kind, as that which demanded but a single deck-chair for two people. Moreover, for Mr. Applebo to choose his own line of conduct in the matter was not good discipline. Cécile was in the habit of herself outlining the régime to be observed in affairs of this kind, and she did not care to have it prescribed for her. In addition to this, Cécile had been very much interested in the distant views which she had got of the poet, and was curious to see him at close range. All that Wood had told them of his eccentric personality had served to sharpen this interest, and the girl found herself wondering if perhaps he might not be the one who was to take captive her heart and her desire. She had always felt that the man to do this would not be the ordinary individual. It gave her a very lively emotion to picture this fair young viking threading his way through fog and storm, reef and shoal, drawn onward by his unselfish, unchanging devotion to her ideal self. Cécile decided that such fidelity merited at least the reward of some slight token of her appreciation.

Wherefore, she decided to attach Mr. Applebo forthwith, to keep him on the end of her line until she made up her mind just what she wanted to do with him. She came to this conclusion shortly after awakening, and she was lazily studying out some plan for bringing the Pilot-fish within reach of her landing-net, when there descended through the skylight of her room the sound of the quartermaster's voice, as in low but excited tones he conveyed to Captain Heldstrom certain information regarding "der Bilot-vish..."

Cécile lay listening, and a moment later heard Heldstrom's gruff voice say, "Yoomp back in der gig ... get a move on you, now ... lower avay, dere..." followed by the squeal of the falls and the splash of the boat as it took the water just outside her port-hole. Cécile looked out, but could see nothing of interest. She was still looking when she heard Olesen growl something about, "Miss Hermione svimmin' a r'race mit der Bilot-vish..."

Cécile was "brought up all standing" at the coupling of these names. She sprang out of bed, slipped on her kimono, and hastened to the companionway, where she thrust up through the hatch a very lovely face, flushed and still dewy with sleep, a heavy, opalescent chevelure which seemed to gather all of the sunlight in its vicinity, and two eyes of a deep, misty grey.

Even as she looked, the gig, with Heldstrom in the stern, leaped clear of the schooner's side.

"What's the matter, Olesen?" cried Cécile, alarmed.

The quartermaster turned, with a tug at his watch-cap.

"It vas Mees Hermione out dere svimmin' ar'round mid der Bilot-vish. Dot's mighty funny. She vent avay mit her skiff, and here she comes back mitoudt it und der Bilot-vish. Dot's awful funny."

He handed her his glasses, which Cécile raised to her eyes. The faces of the two swimmers were quite distinct, but as she looked Hermione's head was eclipsed by that of Applebo. Cécile could see that they were apparently treading water and waiting for the boat.

"How very odd!" exclaimed Cécile, sharply. "What is that mad girl up to now, I wonder?"

Much disturbed, she laid down the glass ... just in time to miss the cream of the performance! Had Cécile witnessed that good-bye kiss it would have changed considerably subsequent events, and have saved herself much wear and tear. But when she looked again, Heldstrom was lifting Hermione into the gig, and she caught the flash of Applebo's hand as he flourished it in farewell. Cécile then went below and waited impatiently for her sister's arrival on board.

A few minutes later she heard outside a light step and the swish of a wet bathing skirt as Hermione hurried to her room.

"Is that you, Hermione?" called Cécile.

"Yes." Hermione looked in at Cécile's door. Her face was quite pale, and her eyes looked almost black.

"What _have_ you been up to?" cried Cécile.

"I'll tell you all about it when I've changed..."

"Can't you relieve my curiosity a little, at once? What became of your boat ... and Applebo..."

"Oh, well..." Hermione gave a brief and rather impatient outline of her adventure. Cécile listened attentively.

"How dreadful!" she exclaimed. "I hope that this will teach you not to run about alone in that wild way. Now go and take off your wet things and get a pot of good hot coffee. You look very badly."

It occurred to Hermione that, since she looked so badly, her sister might have sacrificed her own curiosity and let her change before telling her tale. But she was feeling rather gone, and with very little fight left in her body, so she turned and hurried off without a word.

Her maid gave her a vigorous rub-down, then put her to bed, and brought coffee, with eggs and bacon, which Hermione devoured with great enthusiasm, despite the varying emotions through which she had so recently passed. Her breakfast finished, Hermione fell into a deep and refreshing sleep, from which she was awakened a couple of hours later by a stamping and roaring overhead, which she recognised as proceeding from her father, and from which she gathered that he was being put in possession of the facts concerning her adventure. This was indeed the case, but in the meantime there had arrived from the diplomatic superintendent of the gun club a note of apology and regret for the too great zeal of his minion.

Wherefore, balked in his opportunity to raise a tremendous row, Captain Bell was working off steam in storming about and vituperating the club, Shoal Harbour, the State of Maine, the Pilot-fish, Hermione, and generally, as sailors put it, "cursing everything a foot high and a minute old."

This innocent pastime exhausted, it occurred to him that, after all, he owed a duty to the Pilot-fish, but for whom Hermione would have been subjected to great indignity. From the account given him by Cécile, Mr. Applebo had apparently done a hammer-throw with the game-keeper, then swum off to the schooner with Hermione trailing from his shoulders. Captain Bell was a stickler for etiquette, and therefore he decided to call immediately upon the poet and express his obligation.

"You say that you have seen him somewhere?" he asked of Heldstrom.

Christian Heldstrom shook his big, shaggy head. There was a distant brooding look in his blue eyes, usually so keen and alert.

"I am not sure. Dere vas somedings ... like an echo in his voice. Like somebody I haf known ... long ago, in Norvay ... or some odder place. His name, Applebo, vas Scandinavian, too. I do not know."

Bell shot him a quick, curious look. Heldstrom looked old ... and it suddenly struck the choleric owner that his sailing-master was getting on in years. He observed that Heldstrom's thick, curling hair, formerly of a rich, lustrous chestnut colour, was grizzled almost to the point of being white, while the bushy eyebrows, heavy moustache, and thick, curling beard were fast becoming snowy. The big Norwegian's face was very deeply lined, and at this moment the creases looked like those of age and suffering, rather than the result of exposure to all winds and weather. Bell was a little startled, for Heldstrom was but slightly older than himself, and it occurred to the ex-naval officer that if Heldstrom were becoming an old man, then he must be doing the same.

"He seems to have given you a bad turn," said Bell, crossly. "You look as if you'd just come from a funeral."

"Und I feel like it, too..." muttered Heldstrom. "It is a long time since I have let myselluf t'ink of my old home. Someding about dis yoong man br'rought back der fjords und der midnight sun und der big fires on der heart' of my fadder's gaad..."

"You think he's a Scandinavian?" demanded Bell.

"No, zir; I t'ink he vas American like myselluf. But he is from Scandinavian stock. It is so t'at he can find his way ar'round in der fog..."

And his deep-set blue eyes roamed across the intervening water to where the _Daffodil_ lay at anchor.

Bell ordered away the gig, and as he was about to set off on his formal call, he turned to see Cécile, fresh and lovely, in pink muslin, with a little panama hat wound about with a rose-coloured pugaree. In her hand was a tiny parasol to match. Cécile made it a point never to wear anything nautical.

"Huh..." snorted Bell; "where are you going?"

"With you, papa."

"But I am going to call on the Pilot-fish."

"So I imagined. As Hermione's sister I thought that I ought to go with you. You see, in a way, I stand in _loco parentis_."

Bell wrinkled up his nose. He was, on the whole, pleased with the idea, but he guessed that Cécile's object was less inspired by a sense of social obligation than a feminine curiosity to see the man reputed to be following them about through hopeless love of herself. He determined to tease her a little.

"Oh, it ain't necessary. I'm parent enough. It would only embarrass him if you were to go too. He's shy as a red-head duck."

Cécile bit her lip. "Very well," said she. "If you don't want me. I merely felt that I ought to go because the situation was a rather delicate one ... those two wandering about at daybreak in their bathing suits. My instinct told me that some official recognition of such an incident should be taken by a woman of the family; it seems scarcely the thing to be left for two men..."

"Oh, well, well..." interrupted her father. "Come along then. I ... eh ... it had never occurred to me in just that light. You are quite correct, my dear, quite..." He ushered her to the rail with great ceremony. Yachting etiquette requires that the owner shall be the first one to board his vessel and the last to leave her. Bell invariably observed these details, which are, of course, modelled after naval etiquette. There was a little smile in the corner of Cécile's pretty mouth as she descended the accommodation-ladder. These three girls were all quite able to manage their father: Cécile by guile, Paula by sweetness, and Hermione by violence. Heldstrom, on the other hand, managed all three by the same quality: quiet, dominant force of will which was, of course, backed by deep affection.

Off they started then, crisply and with four lusty oars. Bell would have no "chugging stink-pot" for a gig, although not disdaining power for errands and market work. His gig was a beautifully modelled, diminutive man-o'-war's whaleboat, with the official arrow on the bow, the insignia of a gig. She slipped through the water like a barracouta, light, easy-pulling, buoyant and dry in any sea-way, and swift under sail. The distance to the _Daffodil_ was quickly spanned, and they drew close aboard to find Mr. Applebo, immaculately clad in ducks, regaling himself with tea and macaroons in the cock-pit.

As the gig shot alongside, the poet arose and saluted. In response to his deep-toned order, the Finn squeezed out of a small hatchway up forward in a way that suggested a crab coming out of a hole, and sidled aft, boat-hook in hand. Cécile observed that the bow-oar, an Irishman, crossed himself.

Mr. Applebo's manner was dignified and polite, but had he been discovered sitting atop of an iceberg in Davis' Strait he could not have been more cool and distant. His leonine features betrayed no hint of any sort of emotion, and the deep, amber eyes, half hidden behind his long, dark eyelashes, blinked sleepily at his guests.

"Good-morning," said he, and bowed again. Seeing a little hesitation on the face of Captain Bell, he added, "Will you do me the honour to come aboard?"

Had the words been rather, "Will you do me the honour to clear out and not bother me," the hospitable desire behind them could not have been more distinctly expressed. Bell was sadly taken aback. He had expected to be met with embarrassment, which he would graciously seek to allay. While himself the heart and soul of hospitality, he always clung to a certain punctilious formality and detested the social negligée of the Corinthian sailor, in spite of which it was a little discomposing to be received aboard a little two-by-six shallop with this, "Sir, I have the honour to request..." manner. If Cécile shared his surprise she did not show it. Leaning slightly forward she regarded the poet with that expression of polite inquiry which one might bestow upon an unfamiliar entrée served at the table of a friend.

A person familiar with good form, however, need never be more than momentarily embarrassed. Captain Bell arose as though there were but three joints in his body, only one of which was needed for his bow. "Thank you," said he, and turned to Cécile, who floated up from her cushions and gave the tips of her fingers to her father. Bell preceded her aboard, using two joints in the manœuvre, and shook hands with Mr. Applebo, whose expression suggested a person roused from a beauty-sleep. "H'm ... h'm ... daughter, permit me to present Mr. Applebo..." said Bell to Cécile, and added, turning to the Pilot-fish, "My daughter, Miss Bell ... h'm ... huh!"

With the face of one oppressed by the recollection of a sad dream, Mr. Applebo assisted Cécile to the deck of the _Daffodil_.

"Pray, come below," said he, "the glare is rather intense."

A one-and-a-half-jointed acknowledgment from Bell, and a swift, curious look from Cécile, were the receipt of this invitation. The Pilot-fish shot back the sliding hatch, and led the way down, the others following with something of the manner of people who inspect an apartment still occupied by a polite but greatly bored tenant.

On entering the cabin, the two guests were forcibly struck by its peculiar atmosphere of warm and immaculate emptiness. One does not, as a rule, associate warmth and emptiness, but the former quality was, in this case, conveyed by the peculiar rich and mellow light which pervaded the place, and which Cécile quickly discovered to be due to the sun shining through amber-coloured skylights and reflected from the yellow enamel of the paint-work. It was a peculiar effect, but, unlike that of red, blue, or green lights, extremely restful and agreeable.

People whose homes are on the wave usually like to surround themselves with personal trinkets suggestive of the land, which is, after all, their natural element. Cécile's room aboard the _Shark_ was a sans-souci of delicious luxury in exquisite taste. But here in the _Daffodil's_ cabin, aside from a vase of yellow roses, there was not one single object which did not have its distinct and practical use. Not a picture, not a curio nor knick-knack of any sort. Books there were, no doubt, in the double row of lockers on either side, but nothing of ornamentation. There were two big nickelled lamps set in gimbals, one over a gravity table, the other over the head of the single bunk. A large watch hanging on the forward bulkhead furnished noiselessly the time; above it were a telltale compass and a small aneroid barometer, while a battered and archaic-looking sextant was jammed against the bulkhead under a yellow leather strap.

The poet produced a couple of camp-chairs, which he opened and offered to his guests.

"I hope that you do not object to yellow light," said he. "Yellow is my colour. I find it intellectually stimulating."

"It is said to be the mental colour," observed Cécile.

"In France," Bell remarked, "they say that it is the symbol of a _mauvais ménage_. But since you are not married it does not matter."

"I am wedded to my Muse," said Applebo, "and it is true that we sometimes quarrel. Perhaps that is the reason."

Bell shot his daughter a glance which said as plainly as words, "There! I said that he was balmy!" The poet looked sleepily unconscious. The dreamy expression of his eyes would have led one to believe that he was dreaming of meadows sown with asphodel. Bell made noises in his fat throat.

"H'm ... huh ... huh ... my daughter and I have called to thank you, Mr. Applebo, for your services rendered this morning to an indiscreet member of our family ... h'm ... huh..."

The poet made a graceful, undulating motion with his hand, expressive and deprecatory. Cécile, regarding him intently, decided that he was quite correct in saying that yellow was his colour. Her eyes clung to him, fascinated by his odd, unusual type. The yawl swung a trifle on her cable, and a golden shaft of light which struck diagonally through the skylight, travelled slowly across the bulkhead and bathed the leonine head of Applebo in a golden effulgence, wreathing his wavy hair with a true aureole. A golden man he looked. Cécile was unable to take her eyes from him.

[Illustration: Cécile was unable to take her eyes from him]

"My sister is much to be congratulated," said she, "in finding a champion at the critical moment."

"Oh," said the poet, "the one to be congratulated is the keeper. Miss Bell was about to fill him full of shot."

"What!" cried Bell, much startled.

"Quite so. He meant to drag her off by force and she felt differently about it. When I arrived she had him covered and was promising to blow his head off." He blinked.

"What!" cried the horrified Bell.

"How terrible!" exclaimed Cécile.

"It would have served him right," said the Pilot-fish. "If she had done so, I would have dug a hole in the sand and buried him and we would have said nothing about it."

"But ... but ... Bless my soul..." cried the horrified Bell. "It would have been .... eh ... manslaughter!"

"This fellow deserved to be slaughtered," observed the poet. "However, he was so fortunate as to escape. I persuaded him to go away. Then, while Miss Bell was recovering from her agitation, the scoundrel stole her boat. Unfortunately, my man was ashore with my only boat, and as I did not like to leave your daughter alone, and she assured me that she was a strong swimmer, we decided to swim. There was no great risk, as I could have towed her the whole distance at a pinch."

All of this in a sleepy voice, while the screened eyes blinked drowsily from Bell to Cécile. The girl's scrutiny was more intent than she realised, and her soft cheeks were slightly pale. Little lines had appeared, running vertically between her brows. One would have said that she was agitated at thoughts suggested by the recital of her sister's adventure, but that was not the case. Cécile was inwardly stirred at something in the quality of the deep, monotonous voice, low and vibrant as the purr of a great cat. The personality of Applebo had upon her an odd, exciting influence.

In rather ridiculous contrast to the effect he produced on the inner emotions of this accomplished coquette, the poet was sitting in the most uninspiring manner possible to conceive. He was perched on the extreme rim of his bunk, which, being rather low, brought his big knees chest-high. His feet, of generous proportion and elegantly shod in rubber-soled buckskin, were "toeing in," his forearms rested across his thighs, and his back was domed like the shell of a tortoise, so that the long, wavy hair clustered about his shoulders as he turned his head from one guest to the other. Add to this a sleepy, blinking face and a wide mouth, which seemed ever ready to yawn, and it seems odd that Mr. Applebo should have caused any acceleration of the pulses in a young lady who had successfully weathered many an impassioned declaration. As a matter of fact, it was the suggestion of swift, latent force masked in this somnolent pose which was discomposing. There was a deep, slumberous gleam in the amber eyes which told of a very wakeful spirit within, while the muscular contour of the inert limbs promised an output of tireless strength which their present laxity sought in vain to conceal. Both Captain Bell and Cécile felt the existence of this masked vitality, the former with the admiration of a man who had himself been athletic in his youth, and Cécile with the aforesaid stirring of some new and unclassified emotion.

"Fancy your being able to drag a big girl through the water for a mile or more!" said he. "You must be a very powerful man."

"It would be easier for a good swimmer to carry a person for a mile in the water than on the land," said Applebo. "The water takes most of the weight. Besides, one could never tire in performing a service for so charming a girl as your daughter."

Bell looked startled. "H'm ... huh..." he began, but Cécile interrupted.

"If you find a service of that kind so stimulating, I should think that you would lend yourself oftener to it."

There was the least touch of sharpness in her tone. Applebo eyed her inquiringly.

"I do," said he, "but in spirit rather than in body. Thus, following you" ... there was the faintest emphasis on the "you" ... "about all summer has been a sentimental though unasked service. All services should be unasked; otherwise they are obligations. It has been a service ... and I have never tired of it."

Bell's jaw slightly dropped. Cécile's glance was very intense. Applebo blinked.

"Huh..." said Bell. "It seems to me that the service was on our part, seein' that we were doing your thinkin' for you."

"The leader must always do the thinking for the one who follows," murmured the poet. "The stray dog who attaches himself to your heels follows blindly where you lead because of his unasked and often undesired devotion. The pilot-fish does not dictate his course to the shark."

Bell looked confused, then turned a slightly richer shade of pink. The idea was slowly permeating his intelligence that Applebo was chaffing them, and that so subtly that one hardly knew how to reply. The same idea had entered the head of Cécile. To this pampered beauty the idea that a young man should deliberately amuse himself at her expense was maddening. Cécile had plenty of fight in her and she was active-minded as well, and she did not propose to be set dancing on a string like a marionette for the pleasure of this sleepy-eyed enigma.

"After all," said she, "one might consider that we were quits. You furnish us with some idle amusement which otherwise we might lack while we furnish you with some of our mind, which otherwise you might lack."

"Precisely," drawled the poet; "a fair exchange."

Bell cackled outright. The colour flared into the face of Cécile. Applebo blinked. Captain Bell came to the rescue of his daughter.

"Aboard the _Shark_," said he, "you are a sort of benefactor. You instil our monotonous lives with a great excitement. All hands make bets on how long after us you will arrive in port."

"In that case," said Applebo, in a tone of dreamy regret, "I must sometimes have thoughtlessly spoiled the game by carelessly permitting myself to arrive before you. Hereafter, I will not follow you out so soon."

Bell's face grew rather purple. While obliged to admit the dull sailing qualities of the _Shark_, he had never particularly relished comment on the topic, but to have it so "rubbed in" by a little sixty-foot sword-fisher was infuriating.

"Of course," he snapped, "on these short runs it's not difficult for you to pass us. But I am afraid that you may not find it so easy to stay with us for the next fortnight or so. We're tired of mud-holing and rottin' around with the small fry."

"If you are tired of me," observed the poet, "you know that you have only to say so. Not for worlds would I persecute you with undesired attentions."

"Not a bit of it!" exclaimed Cécile. "We find you very amusing. The question is, whether you will find your occupation so amusing from now on. As papa says, we are planning some good offshore runs. I do hope that you will not find your duties too arduous."

Here was a challenge directly thrown down. Applebo looked as if the mere thought of it made him overtired.

"Come, come..." said Bell, with an assumption of his hearty manner. "'Fess up now. What is your real object in trailin' us around? Wood says you find the proximity of three pretty girls stimulatin' to your poetry. Is that true?"

"Quite." Applebo looked slowly at Cécile. "Huntington exaggerates. The proximity of one of them would be quite enough. The focus of so many romantic and sentimental aspirations must, by its mere juxtaposition, inspire by repercussion the acme of poetic expression."

"H'm ... huh ... hough ... I don't precisely understand..." said Bell, with perfect truth.

Cécile drew back with a little sniff. Applebo showed actual signs of awakening. He leaned toward Bell and spread out his large, well-shaped hands.

"We poets," he said, "are souls highly sensitised to extrinsic emotions. We are less sentient beings than æsthetic interpreters of the passionate vibrations of art or nature. Like the æolian harp responding to the dalliance of a zephyr, thus do we translate soul-talk of alien origin."

He beamed at the agonised Bell, who was panting for air.

"Just as the compass swings to meet its electric affinity," pursued Applebo, in a rapt voice, "so doth the spirit of the Muse within us react to the atmosphere of Love, that divinest of all motive force. It is thus that I find your aura so stimulating" ... he looked at Cécile... "like tabasco on an oyster." He gave her a celestial smile.

"I see," she answered. "You use us as a sort of stove."

"Less for its warmth," said Applebo, "than for the fuel with which it is fed."

Captain Bell mopped his brow. "I am a practical sort of person myself," said he, vaguely. "Why don't you accept our invitations and get your inspiration at short range?"

"To do that," said the poet, "would be to sacrifice my sacred Muse upon the altar of my own selfishness. No. All that I ask is merely to continue as I am, a humble and devoted little pilot-fish."

Bell and Cécile both cast him glances of quick suspicion, but the face of Mr. Applebo expressed no more than a sad and somewhat sleepy resignation. Bell rose to his feet, and Cécile, somewhat reluctantly, did the same. She felt that she was quitting a considerable loser.

"Well," remarked Bell, a little snappishly, "keep on being a pilot-fish, if that suits you better. As far as following us is concerned, you can do that and welcome. Follow us till..."

"Oh, papa...!"

"H'm ... huh ... h'm ... but I'm afraid you'll find that you've got some swimming cut out for you that will wear the brisket off you."

"Where the _Shark_ swims," said Applebo, "the Pilot-fish will follow."

"We will see ... h'm ... we will see," said Captain Bell, oracularly.