“Yes, here we are,” said Billie.
“Yes, we’re here,” said Sam.
There was another pause.
“Mind if I join you?” said Bream.
“N-no,” said Billie.
“N-no,” said Sam.
“No,” said Billie again. “No … that is to say … oh no, not at all.”
There was a third pause.
“On second thoughts,” said Bream, “I believe I’ll take a stroll on the promenade deck, if you don’t mind.”
They said they did not mind. Bream Mortimer, having bumped his head twice against overhanging steel ropes, melted away.
“Who is that fellow?” demanded Sam wrathfully.
“He’s the son of father’s best friend.”
Sam started. Somehow this girl had always been so individual to him that he had never thought of her having a father.
“We have known each other all our lives,” continued Billie. “Father thinks a tremendous lot of Bream. I suppose it was because Bream was sailing by her that father insisted on my coming over on this boat. I’m in disgrace, you know. I was cabled for and had to sail at a few days’ notice. I….”
“Oh, hello!”
“Why, Bream!” said Billie, looking at him as he stood on the old spot in the same familiar attitude with rather less affection than the son of her father’s best friend might have expected. “I thought you said you were going down to the Promenade Deck.”
“I did go down to the promenade deck. And I’d hardly got there when a fellow who’s getting up the ship’s concert to-morrow night nobbled me to do a couple of songs. He wanted to know if I knew anyone else who would help. I came up to ask you,” he said to Sam, “if you would do something.”
“No,” said Sam. “I won’t.”
“He’s got a man who’s going to lecture on deep-sea fish and a couple of women who both want to sing ‘The Rosary’ but he’s still an act or two short. Sure you won’t rally round?”
“Quite sure.”
“Oh, all right.” Bream Mortimer hovered wistfully above them. “It’s a great morning, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Sam.
“Oh, Bream!” said Billie.
“Hello?”
“Do be a pet and go and talk to Jane Hubbard. I’m sure she must be feeling lonely. I left her all by herself down on the next deck.”
A look of alarm spread itself over Bream’s face.
“Jane Hubbard! Oh, say, have a heart!”
“She’s a very nice girl.”
“She’s so darned dynamic. She looks at you as if you were a giraffe or something and she would like to take a pot at you with a rifle.”
“Nonsense! Run along. Get her to tell you some of her big-game hunting experiences. They are most interesting.”
Bream drifted sadly away.
“I don’t blame Miss Hubbard,” said Sam.
“What do you mean?”
“Looking at him as if she wanted to pot at him with a rifle. I should like to do it myself. What were you saying when he came up?”
“Oh, don’t let’s talk about me. Read me some Tennyson.”
Sam opened the book very willingly. Infernal Bream Mortimer had absolutely shot to pieces the spell which had begun to fall on them at the beginning of their conversation. Only by reading poetry, it seemed to him, could it be recovered. And when he saw the passage at which the volume had opened he realised that his luck was in. Good old Tennyson! He was all right. He had the stuff. You could send him to hit in a pinch every time with the comfortable knowledge that he would not strike out.
He cleared his throat.
“‘Oh let the solid ground Not fail beneath my feet Before my life has found What some have found so sweet; Then let come what come may, What matter if I go mad, I shall have had my day.
Let the sweet heavens endure, Not close and darken above me Before I am quite quite sure That there is one to love me….’”
This was absolutely topping. It was like diving off a spring-board. He could see the girl sitting with a soft smile
