Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-07-28
CHAPTER X-Continued.

GUS sympathy SNOue III Aci 6o1c. d.,
perhaps fortunately for him, he was
blindly distracted.
"Then you're just little sorry -"
the girl asked. after moment, her tone
mot l." said Crittenden. rousing. Its
more comfortable. this way-standing by
to take my share Of responsibility In case
anything does happen >"
You ought to feel that way. fairly,
objected Cynthia more serious. It's no
more your fault than mine. Through you
I found this position, through me you
were drawn aboard the ship. It's the
Red Man, really. who's to blame. We're
only his manikins-bits OF flotsam In the
race of the tide. 80
Partners OF strange fortunes said
Crittenden, under the contagious spell
of phrase mongering.
lis that a bargain?" she caught him
up quickly.
.Another?" he laughed.
But Cynthia met his odd, whimsical
stare with eyes naively earnest and SIN
cere. Don't joke" she said, quietly.
Il mean 1t. And we owe 1t to ourselves,
and defensive-you and / against them
all. Is 1t a bargain?" she repeated. Of
fering her hand with a pretty gesture at
once generous and appealing.
Crittenden took her hand with more
reluctance than he let her see. He could
not refuse it, but he was wary of letting
himself become too intimately interested
in her, of letting himself drift with the
tide Of inclination and desire He feared
her, just little. She was just that much
too bewitching. 1t wouldn't be hard to
become more than fond Of creature SO
artless and yet so pleasing, SO dangerous
ly armored in unusual charm and yet so
helpless.
And Lefty, in her idle malice, had put
this constraint upon him. with her casual
and contemptuOus insinuation that he
wished to put aside his wife that he
might be free to marry again. Such In
significant, baseless suggestions thought
lessIy sown in the minds of men often
take root and grow and flourish. casting
shadows over their lives as long as the
span thereof. AS now, when Crittenden,
unable to forget that groundless charge,
fearful Git may be) that it had some
footing in fact. felt himself curbed to
grinding circumspection in all his rela-
tons with this girl. to whom he was
nothing. even as she was nothing to him.
friendship. binding himself to her In a
clandestine understanding, with all its
dangers.
He grew afraid : afraid of himself.
doubling his strength, and afraid Of Gym
thia for the very strength OF her fragility.
And in succeeding hours and days OF
that curious voyage he grew increasingly
more apprehensive as meeting succeeded
meeting and confidence led to closer con-
hdence, forging link by link the bonds of
an intimacy hardly to be broken save at
a cost he would willingly have spared
them both; though it was for Cynthia
that he was ever the more SolicitOus and
pitiful. Without diScOurteSy amounting
to boorishness he could not avoid the girl,
nor without disqualification be blind to
the gladness that lightened in her eyes
when they encountered his own, the
deepening unwilingness with which she
parted from him; nor yet could he be
numb to his own constantly augmented
qualification in her company, his abiding
delight in her unconscious allure, the joy
he had of her delicate audacity Of spirit,
her heart-free laughter. her pensive 81
lences
with the clearness of vision that only
bitter unhappiness brings to man, step
by step the progress of infatuatiOn and
its inevitable end; while he had at his
command a word to break the spell Of
that fond enchantment, but not the Will
or the power to utter it and rob himself
of what he was learning to prize be-
yond all things desirable.
BY degrees he came to desptSe him.
self and to look forward, with some
thing of the yearning of a life prisoner
foreseeing the approach of death In his
dungeon. toward that unacceptable hour
when he must either speak the truth or
deny his manhood. He had one hope, of
the fantest-that the elimination of the
intrigue involving them all would come
in time to afford him some honora BILE
means Of escape.
Those days, while yet that crisis was
deferred, TO Crittenden were strangely
bitter-SWeet.
To Cynthia they were only sweet, days
that ran their courses in an irideScent
glamour Of romance. Unlike Crittenden,
she did not ana1yze what rendered them
SO precious to her. The capacity for
self-delusion is not singular to man. Gym
thia lived only for the hour, her soul
asleep-though dreaming. In her under
standing the sunlight shone with added
luster only because she had no longer
that gaunt shape of care for company,
the air she inspired was rarely stmuat
ing only because of the mystery of their
great adventure. She was happy because
she was loved by Nine Savaran. of
course, who petted her Unfortunately, to
an extent that would have spoiled an
other nature; she was light of heart and
prone to frequent laughter because she
was kept continually diverted by an un-
familiar mode of life; she was constantly
mindful of Crittenden because he was a
ing fellow-conspirator and of making be-
lieve that this was a most desperate
hazard-Whereas, as she knew in her
heart, the outcome of it could not pos
sibly be anything but for the happiness
of every one concerned.
Thus Cynthia In infrequent moods Of
introspection. -
Meanwhile the Cynthia ploughed stead
lily southwark her blind furrow on the
face of the waters Little of moment
happened to disturb the tranquility of
shipboard existence The great conspir-
acy simmered gently in covered vessel:
only occasional jets of steam escaped to
remind one of the existence of the brew
The several cooks responsible for its con-
coction lowered solicitously round the
pot exceedingly jealous of it's ultimate
perfection, but without open dissension
Treating one another with admirable If
studied tolerance. the head chefs, Rhode
and Perez, walked apart, wrapped each
In his mantle Of remote inscrutability.
Small incidents proved disproportion-
ately amusing. Capt. Lobb, waxing bold
on sufferance. contrived to overstep the
underlined bounds OF madame'S tolerance
and got himself severely snubbed. He
Sulked for an hour, and then, deSpairing
Of making any impression upon Cynthia,
who somehow ineXplicably remained un-
conscious of his charms, began casting
sleeps eyes at Sidonie.
Mr.. Youngling, mildly saturated, enter
tanned the company at one luncheon with
long, loud and lachrymose monolOgue
anent the virtues of his deceased spouse,
blandly refusing to be silenced or squelch-
ed by Nine. Savarans acrid commentary
or basilisk stare.
Senior Perez continued consistently at
tentive to the ladies, implacably super
ciliouS toward Rhode
The latter gentleman, between morning