This remark from the lips of a man who undoubtedly knew more than is usually known of the feminine side of humanity appeared to suggest material for thought to the somewhat shallow brain of his hearer. She dropped the lightly reckless style at once, and the thought that this honest and simple-hearted sailor was in love with her slowly died a natural death. There followed, moreover, upon its demise an uncomfortable suggestion that, although he was probably honest, he was not consequently simple-hearted—that he was, in fact, a match for her, and, knowing it, was not at that moment disposed to measure mental blades with her.
“I am glad,” she said humbly, “that my sister will be at Plymouth to meet me.”
“Did you,” inquired the sailor, “write from Port Said to Miss Gilholme?”
She raised her head with a questioning air, but did not look up.
“Miss Gilholme,” she repeated—“how do you know her name?”
“Oh,” laughed the captain, “I am a sort of walking directory. There is a constant procession of men and women passing before me. Many of them turn aside and say a few words. Sometimes we find mutual acquaintances, sometimes only mutual interests. Sometimes they pass by again, and on occasion we become friends.”
“Then you have not met her?”
“No—I have not had that pleasure.”
“It is a pleasure,” said the beautiful woman very earnestly. Had she only known it, her face was infinitely lovelier in grave repose than in most piquante bouderie.
“I can quite believe it,” replied the sailor, with a gallantry which even Mrs. Huston could not take as anything more than conventional.
“She is my guardian angel!” murmured she pathetically.
Her companion smiled slightly, in a very unsympathetic way. His opinion of “guardian angels” was taken from a practical and lamentably unpoetical point of view. Having played the part himself on several occasions with more or less conspicuous success, he inclined to a belief that the glory of guardian angelism is of a negative description. There are certain people in the world who will accept all and any service, and to whom the feeling of indebtedness is without a hint of shame. In time they come to consider such service as has previously and hitherto been rendered them in the light of a precedent. Gradually the debt seems to glide from the shoulders of the debtor to those of the creditor, and having once rendered a service, the renderer has simply placed himself under an obligation to continue doing so.
When Mrs. Huston, therefore, mentioned the fact that her sister was her guardian angel, the pathos of the observation was somewhat lost upon her hearer; who, moreover, was slightly prejudiced against Brenda because such guardian angels as had crossed his path were of a weak and gullible nature. He never made her acquaintance, but the impression thus conceived—though totally erroneous—was never dispelled by such small details of her story as came to his knowledge in later years.
“I hear,” the captain went on to explain, in his cheery impersonal way, “scraps of family histories here and there, and then am rather surprised to meet members of these families, or persons connected with them.”
Mrs. Huston bravely quelled a desire to talk of her own affairs, and smiled vaguely.
“I have no doubt,” she said with mechanical pleasantness, “that we have a great many mutual acquaintances—if we only knew how to hit upon the vein.”
“Of course we have—the world, and especially the Indian world, is very small.”
“I wonder who they are?” murmured Mrs. Huston, raising her eyes to her companion’s face.
“Mention a few of your friends,” he suggested, looking down into her eyes somewhat keenly.
“No—you begin!”
He changed his position somewhat, and stood upright, free from the rail, but his glance never left her face.
“Theodore Trist!”
Instantly she averted her eyes. For a moment she was quite off her guard, and her fingers strayed in a nervous, aimless way among the pages of her open book. To her pale cheeks the warm colour mounted as if a glowing ruby reflection had suddenly been cast upon the delicate skin.
She expressed no surprise by word or gesture, and there was a pause of considerable duration before at length she spoke.
“Where is he now?” she asked in a low voice.
The captain stroked his grizzled moustache reflectively. He acted his part well, despite her sudden and lamentable failure.
“Let me think … He is in Constantinople to the best of my knowledge. He is engaged in watching Eastern affairs. It seems that Turkey and Russia cannot keep their hands off each other’s throats much longer. At present there is an armistice, but Trist has been through the late war between Serbia and Turkey.”
“Do you know him well?” she asked at length, after a second pause.
“Yes. He is a friend of mine.”
“A great friend?”
“I think I may say so.”
“He is also a friend of ours—of my sister and myself,” said Mrs. Huston calmly.
She had quite recovered her equanimity by now, and the pink colour had left her cheeks.
“I have known him,” said the captain conversationally, “for many years now. Soon after he made his name he went out to the East with me, and we struck up a friendship. He is not a man who makes many friends, I imagine.”
“No,” murmured Mrs. Huston, in a voice which implied that the subject was not distasteful to her, but she preferred her companion to talk while she listened.
“But,” continued the sailor, “those who claim him as a friend have an unusual privilege. He is what we vaguely call at sea a ‘good’ man—a man upon whom it is safe to place reliance in any emergency, under all circumstances.”
“Yes,” said the lady softly.
“He has been
