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Contents

<table><tr><td>XXVII.</td><td>Plantarion</td><td>233</td></tr><tr><td>XXVIII.</td><td>Shock</td><td>235</td></tr><tr><td>XXIX.</td><td>Ripples</td><td>240</td></tr><tr><td>XXX.</td><td>He Was Pacing</td><td>244</td></tr><tr><td>XXXI.</td><td>Six At A Table</td><td>248</td></tr><tr><td>XXXII.</td><td>Hugh and Tilden</td><td>255</td></tr><tr><td>XXXIII.</td><td>Twenty Minutes Forward</td><td>260</td></tr><tr><td>XXXIV.</td><td>From the Bridge</td><td>268</td></tr><tr><td>XXXV.</td><td>Plus Ten</td><td>278</td></tr><tr><td>XXXVI.</td><td>Sea Weather</td><td>285</td></tr><tr><td>XXXVII.</td><td>Odd Ends</td><td>295</td></tr><tr><td>XXXVIII.</td><td>A Scare and a Fresh Scandal</td><td>305</td></tr><tr><td>XXXIX.</td><td>Plantarion</td><td>311</td></tr><tr><td>XL.</td><td>Deep Waters</td><td>313</td></tr><tr><td>XLI.</td><td>On and On</td><td>331</td></tr><tr><td>XLII.</td><td>Preparations for the Ball</td><td>341</td></tr><tr><td>XLIII.</td><td>Bal Masque</td><td>347</td></tr><tr><td>XLIV.</td><td>The Day After</td><td>354</td></tr><tr><td>XLV.</td><td>A.F.</td><td>361</td></tr><tr><td>XLVI.</td><td>Maniacs</td><td>368</td></tr><tr><td>XLVII.</td><td>Plantarion</td><td>372</td></tr><tr><td>XLVIII.</td><td>At the Crack</td><td>377</td></tr><tr><td>XLIX.</td><td>Jolie Brise, Mer Belle</td><td>382</td></tr><tr><td>L.</td><td>Salute</td><td>389</td></tr><tr><td>LI.</td><td>Note-Book</td><td>394</td></tr></table>

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Chapter I

Vera

A passion obsessed Vera Arnold to possess Hod Lorimer, to lock herself with this man whose spirit remained a stranger to her spirit after years of apparent intimacy. Stronger than her will to free him was the power that pushed her tentacles into him and made her scheme of ways to bind him tighter, ever on the alert to contrive new means when old means failed. That it was a species of insanity which made her want to hold a man who no longer loved her, she readily granted. But the mental label did no good. Reason and understanding were futile against her involuntary vow that no other woman should have him.

Vera had never thought of herself as a strong woman; but this strength she had; or, rather, this strength had her - as, with a horror, she sometimes realized.

A passive woman, a blandly tragic female - this was her habitual uncomplimentary picture of herself. A person at whom people would not bother to take a second look. Just another human soul brought into the world with indifference. Her straw-colored hair, her pale eyes of no pronounced shade, her lips which were not repulsive and yet not lovely - all indifferent.

If her skin was fresh and smooth, her complexion as clear as an attractive young girl's, this was only because she had what more than one person had called "uninteresting health". If her body was desirably soft and feminine with a sort of slinky quality, she could have no pride in it, or joy, because a man's interest in it soon turned to disappointment. Some vital element had been left out of

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her make-up. True, she could be quite beautiful if someone loved her, but a man's love lasted so short a while - and when it passed, all glamour went with it.

In the case of the one man of her life before Hod, her love had endured after the man's died out. So it was with Hod. Three years ago Hod had stopped loving her. He'd fallen in love with Barbara, married Barbara - and Vera had continued loving him. Now, tomorrow, with Barbara ready to divorce him, he was sailing for Europe - in his own words, "pushing out, and I'll leave my past at the pier". And Vera - she was giving him a farewell party the motives for which she knew very well.

To hold him. To try to resurrect his old passion. To destroy whatever feelings he still had for Barbara. At the last desperate moment to try to do these things which reason told her were impossible. Impossible and not really desirable.

Hod, the plunger, who steamrollered life and went his eccentric way, could not be pinned down by her or by any woman. Her attempt was futile, her means were contemptible and uncivilized, bound to preclude the wonder, the high sense of life, which she deemed the very essence of a love-relationship. She, who took no pride in her body, did have pride in being civilized. She was not beautiful but she could be human. Her sense of values revolted against the plight which this mad attachment placed her in. But neither did this revolt release her - at least, so it seemed, when, after a terrific struggle to be a sane person on a sane earth, she became aware that the dark forces of her underworld had again rushed up with new schemes to get and bind this man to her.

During sane periods a horror was in her, horror at herself as

3

an example of the seemingly endless battle waged in human life
between wild powers for which there was no reconciliation.

Mentally she was disillusioned and quite convinced that there was
no such thing as an undying love; that, moreover, people who gave
way to love of any kind were the world's worst fools. Emotionally she
still believed in it, still had faith that love was the means of
surrender to the great beauty which lies within and yet beyond ordinary
life. Even if she had not believed, the feeling itself would have
arisen and she, against all reason and the repeated evidence of
experience, would have followed its beckoning.

Without avail she had tried to kill faith, tried to make the
darkness in her realize that in any case Hod was not the man for
her. Only an idiot would devote time and energies to such an obvious-
ly idiotic pursuit. Often she lashed herself with the thought that
Hod meant to her what he did only because she knew no other men. Let
another man be presented and she would transfer all feelings to him
with a readiness that would make even herself xlaugh with mockery
at "undying love". She had no doubt but what this was true; that,
someday, it would work out in just this fashion. Love, with her, was
merely a matter of limitation. A restricted insanity...thank God!

At the times when she thoroughly persuaded herself of this, she
was able to let Hod go. She let him go. She resigned herself to a
seat on the side-lines, a passive woman indifferently caught by life,
by lack of life, denied participation with any human being.

Then again the frenzy would arise...

And all the while she appeared calm and fresh, showing no marks
of internal battles, with some amazing capacity of renewal working
its way.

4

At any moment she was ready to forget herself and take on the problems of some friend to the degree of having her wish to help be imposed upon by people who were so harassed in themselves that they had no energy with which to think of her except in retrospect when they would exclaim a brief, "What a peach Vera is! I don't know what I'd do without her." At best she had little enough of life, and what she had was not her own.

To have her own, she deserved it. To get and hold her own, she should do it. With ideas such as these, which were true enough, she justified her actions when the frenzy to possess possessed her. And she knew she was right; yet always was the awful feeling that she was wrong. Right or wrong she could not help herself.

The human predicament is that we are tied and bound to each other - and yet remain separate and alone. A maniacal force compells us to hold and possess others in a relentless web-work of captivity. Entangled, ensnared, and sometimes almost smashed against our friends and lovers, we feed on them, they feed on us. Yet, at the same time, some contrary compulsion makes each single human being, even the smashed, keep secret and solitary in the ego-prison which has been fashioned for him and from which, except for brief periods of liberation and essential interchange, there is no escape.

Out of it all, this was the one great realization that had come to her.

The afternoon of the farewell party for Hod found Vera trailing about her apartment doing little things as though she were making the place a home which he would be pleased with. That Hod would not notice them did not stop her. Nor did the irony of it, though she saw the irony. That she was nesting a place for a man who would come to say goodby. On she went. She even began humming.

Silly phrases came into her head. "Custer's last stand." The title of a book. Soon she had a queer sense that she herself was going away. She caught herself looking at familiar objects as if viewing them for the last time. She caught herself wondering how it would be if she pushed out and left her past at the pier. Not very different. A sense of relief from insane clutterings and bonds. Perhaps, for a while, a sense of adventure. But not very different. Not sufficiently valuably different to warrant the bother of going. She could leave New York; she could not leave Vera. Never could she surmount the tendency to alternate between an unsatisfying independence and an unsatisfying giving of herself.

She heard the doorbell ring. With her usual casualness she went to answer - and there were Sid and Betty come to ask if they could help with preparations. This was how they explained their visit. Vera felt something else.

"All is done," she said cheerfully. "Thanks just the same," and she stepped back to let them enter.

She was glad they had come. Dashing Sid, short, dapper, with his peculiar mixture of affection and peevishness, immediacy and mind-wandering. Betty, a well-groomed young matron whose figure was putting on flesh. Vera was very fond of them both; but now, suddenly, she resented them. She felt she had to struggle to keep from being brushed aside, or, worse, losing her individuality in their lives.

Betty sort of bounced into the sitting-room, exaggerating the knowledge that her husband was trailing after. She always did this when she met Vera, preened herself on the possession of a man, and in this way felt she had the upper hand over this friend of hers who in all other ways was superior.

The two women settled themselves on the same lounge, obliquely

6

facing each other with every show of candor. All at once Betty was exasperated with Vera. Vera need not be so tragic and lonely. There were men for her. If she would only stop clinging to Hod. It was this clinging, this mania, this passion for punishment, this shutting herself away from all other life.

Sid had slouched into a nearby armchair. He tried to check his racing tempo so as not to disturb Vera's desire for tranquility. His eyes softened. He was seeing something in Vera that made him sad for her, concerned too. He hoped Betty would be careful.

Then he found himself looking at Vera's eyebrows. They were so faint that at a distance she didn't seem to have any. They fascinated him, and whenever he noticed them he fell to wondering about other parts of her body...Vera's certainly lovely figure, a body with flavor and fragrance, but it never really attracted him because, so he felt, it was curiously sexless.

"I wish you'd leave this apartment," was Betty's first shaft.

Vera hid what she felt, shifted her position with a langorous grace which she knew Betty would see and envy - "I thought you liked it."

"It's not that. I do. It's **KARL** grand. I wish we had enough money to live in a place... It's too large for you, that's all. You need something smaller, more cozy. Of course you couldn't give parties, but then... Will you keep it another year?"

"Haven't decided."

"Give it up," Betty pleaded. Then she hurried on and chatted about other things, leading up to a talk about Hod.

Vera was quite aware that Betty, womanlike, had come to spy, to ferret out what effect Hod's leaving was having. Betty too, in a

7

mothering way that wanted to make him into a great man, was in love
with Hod. Between Betty and herself was a rivalry which thus far,
fortunately, had never seriously damaged their real feeling for
each other. But it was there, and now Vera could see it working to
obtain the intimate glimpses which rivalry always wants. In enemies
one could deal with such things; in friends one had to suffer and
endure them.

"Does Hod know what he really wants?" It was Betty's question.
Vera would never bring the matter up. She had felt she had best
plunge in.

Sid was not addressed, but he leaned forward and shot out, "No!
He finally had lunch with me today. The talk got so hot that people
thought we were coming to blows. No! I can tell you that."

"I'm not so sure," said Vera pensively. Betty's eyes were on
her, and she wasn't going to let Betty see a thing.

"Then what is it?" came from Sid.

Vera hesitated - "Barbara."

The other two exchanged quick glances. Betty asked, "And do you
think Barbara wants him?"

Vera shrugged, reached for cigarettes and passed them. "Why else
is she crossing on the same boat?"

Sid blurted out, "Now you're wrong, Vera, dead wrong. I happen to
know that the passage was booked for her, and besides I'm pretty
sure she hasn't the faintest notion that Hod will be on the
Burgundy. He may still have foolish ideas about her, but believe me
she hasn't about him. Barbara is through. I know a little something
about that young lady. She may be weak and spoiled and all that you
and Betty think she is, but I can tell you this: Barbara has a will

8

and a mind of her own and once it's made up an army of Hods can't
change her. Why do you think she left him? Why do you think she's
going to Paris for a divorce?"

Vera was willing to let him believe what he would. She had her
own private opinions and if they weren't worth anything to Mr Sidney
Case she'd rather keep them to herself.

Sid knew how sensitive she was. He might have known that by barg-
ing ahead he'd be sure to miff or hurt her. But he wasn't consider-
ing Vera now. Now he was all worked up about Barbara and Hod. Betty
was worked up. Between them they bore on Vera, drawing her secret
feelings nearer the surface. And she - soon she came to feel very
close to them because it was evident that they too wanted to hold
Hod. It was like a conspiracy.

At one point Sid sprang up impatiently and paced the floor,
striding his short legs, bringing down his heels with thuds,
muttering to himself as he struggled to be fair to the man who was,
after all, his inseparable friend.

Suddenly he wheeled about and let fly an attack of such vehemence
that Vera quickly arose to Hod's defense. Now she could see that
Sid was merely using this circumstance, in which Hod was at a
disadvantage, to vent his protests. It was no secret that Sid had
long been jealous of Hod because of the influence Hod had with
Betty.

"You might ask yourself why _you_ are so overwrought," she said
with forced coolness. "Hod is not that bad off. Suppose he had lost
his money - which I don't believe for a moment. Even so, he'd get
it back in a year or two. Suppose he is, as you say, at loose ends.
A man of his energy just doesn't go to pieces so easily."

"That's not the point," Sid cut in. "It's not a question of

9

going to pieces - though you're wrong. Just his kind of men do.
It is a question of making something of him. Ever since I've known
Hod he's been thundering about the lot, spilling over, fancing himself
a prodigal, a genius whom the world can't resist. Nothing of the
sort. He's been a lucky chaser, that's all. A chaser of dollars. A
chaser of women. He sleeps with women so much that the wonder is
he doesn't grow one on him."

Vera and Betty

In spite of themselves, Vera and Betty laughed at this last. Sid paused
to laugh with them - but not long. He was unwidning and he didn't
want to stop.

"He's utterly irresponsible with no sense of discipline. What's
he doing now? Chasing away. He's a chaser, I tell you. And he ought
to be something else. He's got the stuff. If he'd only take hold,
quit indulging himself, quit being such a slave to his own power.
As for his ego..." Sid threw up his arms. "Now's the time. Now,
right here in New York. The world needs the best from men like
him. He's given it his worst. We ought to lock him up somewhere and
not let him out until he swears to put his shoulder to the wheel."

"But why should we?" asked Vera. "Selfishness...our own egos...
After all, it's his life, not ours. I want to hold him for one
reason, Betty for another. As for you, I should think you'd be
glad to be rid of him for a time. Simply because we've known him
all our lives doesn't give us the right to possess him. It's all
rather silly, anyway."

Betty opened her mouth as if to ask, "You, you, Vera Arnold,
saying that?"

Vera smiled at her friend. "I suppose you think it is a pose.
I can assure you it is not. A large part of me would consider it

my greatest triumph if I could let Hod go forever."

Asked Betty, "And the other part?"

Vera tilted her head and pursed her mouth in wistful, wry,
humorous manner. "That, I'm afraid, is another matter."

Betty agreed.

"Sid," said Vera, suddenly turning on him, "why don't you tell him all this?"

"I have," said Sid. "If you'll remember, I caught him at lunch today. He's been dodging me. I told him all I've told you and more. And what did he say? Just a lot of bad philosophy - to be a free man, to find himself, to find some meaning in life that will make life worthwhile. All right, I grant it sounds good, but why go over there? All that he says he wants to do can be done in New York better than in Europe. Besides, it's all talk. You and I know that Hod talks big but continues being Hod. And if he thinks he's going to win Barbara back... That young lady has signed off, and I don't blame her. Neither would you two if you didn't idolize him and if you weren't jealous of her."

The eyes of both women snapped. He felt better now. He smiled and wagged his head and settled into a chair, offering them cigarettes as a conciliatory gesture. "As for him," he added, "I'm going to get him again at the party tonight."

Vera asked, "And what do you expect to accomplish?"

"Don't know," said Sid, "but I'm going to do it all the same."

Which was just about the way she herself felt. She thought she
ought to warn, "Better not bait him too much or he may turn about
and do something unexpected to you. Remember what happened to
Fred Light?"

## Chapter 11

### Hod

A self-condemnation was like a scourge in Hod as he rode down
Fifth Avenue, got off at Eighth Street, and strode to his hotel.
A man's man - yet all his life he'd done nothing but fool with women
and mess them up as he messed himself.

He was escaping. Wipe the slate clean and begin again, that was
difficult. Pull out, go to Europe where no one knew you and you
could have the satisfaction of going to the dogs without feeling
ashamed of yourself, that was easier; so that was what he was going
to do. Sid was right. But the windy bantam had better look out and
not dig his spurs in too far.

What a hoax, what a bluff, this Bull Lorimer. All along he hadn't
fooled himself. Now, because of what Sid had said, he knew he hadn't
fooled others. So an end to it. A man needed a man to talk to him
and give him the low-down. Women spoiled you with flattery
and truck.

It was true. At business he'd been lucky. But now, with no taste
for it, he couldn't puff up on dollar-success. There was nothing
else to take its place, nothing else he wanted to do. As for his
other affairs...oh God! His women...his women! In a fit of anger
Vera had once said the truth of it - "You'll fly from one to the
other until you've found someone silly enough to be your mother -
without criticism." Even now he could hear her say it. Even now
it rankled.

He became aware that he was standing in his room before the
mirror, looking at himself. His legs were spread, fists deep in
pockets, head thurst forward in his bull pose, one eye cocked.

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22 2

This mirror-gazing was his secret way of setting himself up. He'd done it automatically. He grinned. Dejected though he was, he could not help but like his looks - a handsome dark devil with a mass of romantic curly black hair, blue eyes spaced far apart, a bold face, a strong regular nose, his lips full, sensuous, with the touch of hardness and cruelty a man should have, a shrewd peer - but where was the fool? This, however, was a question. As long as he gazed at his reflection he could dismiss questions. As long as he saw his image he could dramatize himself without end and feel his ego swell with the vast powers proper to it.

Still grinning he turned from the mirror and looked out the window which opened on Fifth Avenue. Into his topsy-turvy room came the dying sunlight of this June day, his last day in America. His last day, his last night - and goodby to Vera and Sid and all the things that dogged him.

He fought the sadness of it, the sadness that held the wreckage of his life. He was not going to sniff and snicker and feel sorry for himself. Stronger men than he had crashed. Bigger men had became blue-heads and jumped out of airplanes. It was all show, anyway. Roles...roles... No one was ever himself. He seriously doubted if men existed. Only roles existed. So, then, only roles crashed and died. His "bull" role had collapsed. Rather than feel sad he ought to be glad of it.

As for the world at large, a hell of a lot he cared for it. Let it crash. Democracy or communism or fascism? To hell with them. Let Barbara divorce him. Let Vera kill herself. Let Sid plug on at his stupid job. Let Betty have a baby of her own and forget him.

123

Problems were stupid. Man needs only sex and food. And he'd have
food, damn good food, plenty of it. Oyster cocktail, turtle soup,
a broiled lobster, a whole Florida kingfish, foolish vegetables
because if you didn't order them you'd offend the waiter or the
cook or somebody, black coffee, and lots of beer. All in his room
because he didn't want to run into anybody in the dinking-room.

Hod snapped to, rubbed his hands, and began getting ready for
the evening.

As he gave the order a feeling of guilt crept over him. He
oughtn't dine alone. He owed it to Vera to ask her. She'd have no
date. But he'd see enough and too much of her at the party. She'd
see to that. That was why she was giving it. Damn fine of her, but
damn rotten too. Why couldn't she let him go off without any more
bother? A vague gnawing seemed to tell him that Barbara might
be asking the same of him. He owed it to Sid and Betty to ask them.
Oh, hell, he owed it to a hundred people - and he'd see too much
of the whole damn lot at the same damn party. If he followed his
honest feelings about them and it he wouldn't show up.

Hod ate in solitary estate, wolfing everything with gusty
sensuous relish. While waiting for the man to come and clear things
away he began drumming on the table, working his hands like a
pianist, humming a hot jazz tune. Into his mind came the words
of a verse which some tipsy rascal had dedicated to him -

Hod
They were called him and said

Hod,
They called him clod,
He had a rod,
A regular revolver;

BOND
BROOKSIDE

Spying her
On the spot he shot her;
Hod,
The gattling clod,
The lightning rod.

He threw his legs out and leaned back and guffawed, feeling that
the cockeyed lines did catch the spirit of him.

After the dinner things had gone, he stretched his large frame,
let his arms drop over the arms of the chair, a cigarette hanging
in his mouth. Gradually his head with the black brows sank down
towards his chest, and he began thinking of Vera again. This time
with positive feelings which he did not begrudge.

Vera was a peach. He was devoted to her. She had stood by him,
believing in him, demanding his best, always giving him the sort
of out-flowing love and helpfulness and admiration which he needed
from a woman - a rare thing, something he might never find again.
Certainly not from Barbara. Barbara was a thrilling child but she
was all wound up in herself and she didn't seem to have any body
at all. He was a fool for loving Barbara, for casting Vera off. He
couldn't help it. God was his witness that he could not.

If Vera wouldn't try to hold him. She seemed to have no idea of
how a man felt when his passion cooled. The hell she didn't. She
understood everything. Then why didn't she stop?

Hod jerked from his chair and began pacing. The obvious answer had struck him. She couldn't. Vera couldn't stop. He'd never thought of her this way. Always he had felt she was perfectly capable of doing whatever she wanted. Perhaps not. Evidently not. The poor dear was as caught in herself as she made him feel when he was with her. An awful way to look at it. He'd rather have

her willful and scheming than helpless and pityful. If she were
weak he ought to stay in New York and do something. Perhaps he
ought. He wouldn't because he couldn't. He was pushing out. This
damn party tonight was the only thing that stood between him and
freedom.

He heard Sid's derisive voice asking, "Freedom for what?"

To hell with Sid, but he'd answer him truthfully from the
depths of his soul - "To be homeless and without goal. To be goaded
on in blindness, with no rest, no peace, no happiness, on and on
in futile search of glory." And he hoped that would satisfy the
bantam.

To join the march of orphans. Because of Barbara. She had packed
him off. She was telling the world she didn't want him. Eh? an
unsuccessful husband. The little fool didn't see that it was her
defeat too. Now she was an orphan. The only difference between them
was the very small *small* one that she could not bear him whereas
he still felt she was the most thrilling girl in the world - and
he wasn't done with her yet. Not by a damned-sight.

Orphans...two orphans...three orphans because Vera was an orphan...
hundreds of them...millions of them because all men and all women
were orphans...orphans begetting orphans...and the end was not. Nor
have we built upon the earth a good asylum.

Hod had stopped at the window. From Fifth Avenue came the drone
of motor-cars, the retching screech of buses. This was what he had
called home. Racket and stench, night assaulted by batteries of
bleary artificial lights. This was what he had called life. It was
like seeing death go by in modern dress. The machines moved on, and
bodies like machines, on and on, but blood and guts had left them,

life had gone off to some other land to try again to create a
new people and a New World.

As he gazed down he seemed to see a procession of the people
he had hurt. Vera, white face upturned, eyes staring at him with-
out reproach but with strained sorrow, passing in a hearse. Bar-
bara, frightened, fleeing, galloping by on a pony. Sid standing
on a speeding truck, haranguing. Betty on her knees, pleading.
The men he had jipped, hurling curses. And he stood in the god-
awful reviewing-stand, compelled to see his own handiwork.
No wonder he was pushing off!

The war of men against men, men against women. The dollar-
fighting war. The sex battle. The political war. All horrible and
futile. Everyone knew they were. Those who still lived, however
mutilated, wanted, like himself, to get from under. The great
ships were transport-hospitals. Each week with each sailing the
survivors departed.

"Mother Europe, I'm coming. Open your doors and heal me, or
open them and kill me quickly. Mother Asia, I'm coming. The West
and the East shall meet. Mother Africa, I'm coming. Don't make
no difference if ma skin is black or white. Don't make no
difference if ah believe in Christ or voodoo. Coming, coming..."

After a passage of time of which he had no consciousness, Hod
heard the phone jangle. With a start he brushed a hairy hand over
his face and snapped to.

It was Vera.

"Coming," he shouted.

A bottle of gin, he grabbed it, took it straight, a long
swig. "Waw!"

He hitched himself, jammed on a hat, and bowled out.

第7

Chapter one

2.

Party

"I'll miss you, Hod." Vera said this and waited, accepting his power to dwarf and constrict her and make her throat so tight she could hardly speak.

Hod tensed and felt, "She's weak. I'll have to do something for her."

They were dancing, clasped yet separate, in the dead-end of a relationship; she straining to hold him, he alternately half-yielding and all-tugging to get away.

The party was well on. Couples were side-slipping and banking around about them. Smoke-hazed forms and faces, masks and nakedness through haze. Jazz, jazz...and those happy feet, tapping, shuffling to imagined jungle-drums... A suave smirking bartender in cool white coat brought in a fresh bowl of punch.

No warmth in Hod's hand. It was like a stranger's. Her touch was a stranger's to him. She wondered if he remembered that once upon a time he had said she had the most beautifully patrician hand in the world.

And she wondered why she had lost her nerve, why the strength to make him love her had faded into this weak sadness. Two hours before there had been nothing in her which said, "I'll miss you."

"God, you're beautiful." Hod knew what was expected of him. He tried to put into his voice what he would feel when he got out of this trap. Once he was in Paris with the ocean between them he really would miss her. "I'll miss you." And he

BROOKLYN

rubbed his cheek against her hair as he used to do when he loved her.

"You are not very convincing."

He felt bad for her. She should have had the grace to let it
pass. He shrugged his wide shoulders and looked off. "Guess not.
Sorry. I'm not very convinced about anything."

"Not about Barbara?"

Oh, Christ, now this was coming up. Vera at times was most
exasperating and tactless. "Keep still and dance!" he almost
shouted. Through his body burned the sensation of a diabolical
locking. All the time she was pulling him. All the time she was
trying to get in. If he opened himself even the slightest he was
lost. If he held himself tight he only increased her insistence.
What in God's name was a man to do?

"Barbara's out."

Vera moved her head so as to look at him. Her brows arched in
that provoking way of hers. He knew she knew he was lying. Cats
and damn! To be held against his will, to be made a lair by the
very woman he had loved. There was violation in this. Hod felt it
so keenly that inspite of caution he suddenly blurted out that
they'd do best to drop everything about himself and herself and
Barbara.

"If that's how you feel - very well."

Now she was hurt. He was sorry. He didn't want to hurt Vera.
But how else could he cut the thing?

They were this way when the dance ended and he took her to the
punch-bowl. Vera laughed and chatted with others. Not once did she
go out to them and free him. All the time he felt her pulling,
holding him, winding him about in a web-work. He stood there like
a helpless galoot, his eyes with a haunted look roving for

3 9

help - Betty, Sid, anyone to rescue him. He wanted gin. Punch was
nothing. But he didn't dare go into the back room without asking
her if she'd like to go with him.

"Come on, then," she said, smiling sweetly.

So back they went. Sid barged by with Thelma X Carrow, Betty
with Art Hastings. They exchanged shouts. Hod was left in his plight.

Hod tossed off a drink, another. Vera's eyes were on him. Now
they were bright and luminous. He could see love for him coming out,
blinding her to his defects, coloring him into a man wholly worthy
of it. He wanted to choke her, to smash the picture once and for
all. And he didn't know how.

Desesperation caught him.

Desesperation caught her.

"Yes!" her force commanded.

"No!" his force countered.

They were leaning against an improvised bar. Suddenly something
snapped in Hod. Down came his glass with a crash. A distorted face
was thrust out. He started to speak, stuttered - then wheeled about
and strode off. Off he went through the crowd, and she heard a door
slam.

Her fingers clenched the glass. Her knees grew weak. She almost
reeled to a table. There she sat in a daze. People swished in and
out. Those who noticed her let her alone with the thought, "Of
course, Vera in one of her states again."

Nothing seemed real. Not herself, not Hod. Nothing had happened.
Two haze-figures oblique in a hazy world, a grotesque pantomime,
that was all. Even the pain was filmy - but it crucified.

Flung back, driven out of her body, driven out and smashed.

Now a blackness was in her, swirling, suffocating. Her sight
was awry. People were horrible gargoyles careening and making an
awful din to awful drums; and the din beat upon her like Hod's
fist. She had no sense of anything that was herself; only this
black M.M.M. upheaval, this burning devastation which engulfed.

Far down in her was the realization that she had been pushed to
an extremity with such violence that some irrevocable thing had
come about.

The dark powers of her body had let go. At last, the attachment
to Hod was cut. His final cruelty had accomplished what all her
struggles had not. The thing was done.

Vera straightened herself. Then she became aware that pain was
in her fingers. They still held the glass. A shudder ran through
her body as she saw the way they were clenched. Of themselves they
let go. Over her came an immense relief. With a rush of feeling she
wanted to thank someone, even thank Hod. She folded her hands upon
her lap and looked up and off, beyond the ceiling of the room,
beyond the buildings of New York, beyond the prison of her ego. And
up there she saw bright visions unfold, visions of what she would
do with her life. She went on and on until a hard little voice
spoke in her throat,

"No you won't. You won't do a thing except sit here and dream
about it all. You'll sit on the sidelines as you've done. For the
rest of your days you'll be just as you are now, off in a corner,
looking into yourself, counting your slim gains and your larger
losses, while all the world goes by in the living stream. You'll
be thanking some man for having been cruel to you. You'll make your-
self believe that any crude bungler is the surgeon your soul needed
most. Your crippled limbs will kneel to him. Your lascerated heart

88 11

will sing his praises. The first goat that comes along you'll make
into a God. And when he tramples off, you'll say, 'How marvelous
that I am free again.' And all the while you will be sitting just
where you are.* you're silly, jilt.*

The voice was hard. The voice was true.

She envisaged the end of the party. She saw all the people
leaving her with empty goodbys. Leaving her in the apartment which
Betty had truly characterized - an elegant barn. She saw Hod
on the *Burgundy*, Thelma, Morgan and Marsh Bradley going off on the
same boat. Betty pitying her. Worst of all, she saw herself pitying
herself as she shrank smaller and smaller into an abyss of loneli-
ness. And to the hard voice she *cried*, "This time I'll fool you."

This day she too would be off. This day she would keep on moving
from her ego-prison, accelerating the already given start. It had
to be done now, if ever. And it would be done, so help her.

But where? One could not actually go off through the ceiling to the
beyond. Besides, the beyond had to be somewhere, peopled, inhabit-
ed by men and women not so very different from herself.

Again she saw the *Burgundy*. Why not? There were other boats.
There were trains to other parts. She tried to redirect her picturings.
But she saw the *Burgundy*. Thelma, only last week, had urged her to
go, offering to share her cabin. It could be done. Her passport
was good for another year. Her maid could take care of the apart-
ment - or not take care. She was going away and she might never
return.

Everyone would say *HK* she was going only so as to be with Hod.
She could hear Hod himself - "Oh, God, here's Vera again. What's
the matter with the little fool?"

Let them say what they would. Let it be the maddest thing she'd ever done. Within herself it was settled.

She saw Thelma passing and called her.

Thelma came over, dragging Art Hastings. Vera took Thelma's free hand and held it while gazing up with strange and rather misty eyes.

"I'm not all here," Thelma warned.

"I'd like to see you later about...well, just remember that I want to see you, will you? That's a dear."

"Swell... party," mumbled Art, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. He leaned on his companion's arm and rolled his eyes and listed as if he were still sober enough to want to be drunk.

Vera lifted her hand and smiled. "Take him away. I'm sure he needs another drink."

Then Sid dashed through. Vera called him. Hex jerked to an abrupt halt and wheeled around with a scowl.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she said. "Do you expect there's always something the matter with me?"

"Where's Hod?"

"I don't know."

"Weren't you with him? Betty -"

"Yes, but I'm not his kepper."

"Where's he gone?"

Vera said casually, "He's somewhere up front I guess. Didn't you see him?"

"No I didn't. I was looking for him. I thought he was back here with you."

"Think again. He's probably gone out to catch a little air. You

know what a fresh-air fiend he is."

"Yup, I know. He'll come back."

Said Vera, "I'm not so sure."

Sid studied her. Something had happened. She wasn't fooling him. The more she was hurt the more casual she appeared. Hod had done something. She was suffering.

"The blunderbuss," he shot out. To her surprised look he added, "You know who I mean. That thundering blunderbuss of ours. That Hod. If he's hurt you again I'm going to jump on him as I've never done. I'm going to get him anyway. I told you I would. Just been waiting for the right time. The minute he comes back..."

Sid, dear scrappy Sid, her champion. Vera tugged him by the arm into the chair beside her and looked into his scowling face with a mixture of humor and very real fondness. "Yes," she prompted, "the minute he comes back..."

And while Sid rehearsed what he would do to the blunderbuss, Vera's interior mind worked over the details of what she'd have to do to find herself, at sailing time, on the great ship. And then, almost without her external consciousness being aware of it, two voices engaged in a conversation -

I'm sailing on the *Burgundy*.

Oh, all right. The trip will do you good.

Do you want me?

Suit yourself.

I am going to do that. I asked if you wanted me. You don't have to turn away. Well, Mr Hod, I don't want you. When you see me on board don't think for a moment that I'm there to hold. That's over. I'm doing this for myself, not you. I'm going to give myself a chance

第 15

3. Hod and Sid

Half an hour later they heard shouts up front, voices raised
in greeting, laughs, badgering - and Hod's deep rumble answering
back.

Vera and Sid exchanged glances.

"I told you," said Sid.

Vera nodded and looked within herself to see how she felt. Nothing except a natural curiosity as to what would happen.

Hod's hulking form loomed in the doorway. Sid saw Vera's express-
ion and jerked around.

Hod it was, with Betty holding him by the arm. His hair was
blown. His evening suit looked dusty, as if he had fallen on the
street. His eyes were looking straight at Vera, but all of him was
sheepish and dejected.

He came up slowly, as if he were very weary and very ashamed
of himself. How much was put on, Vera could not tell. His mouth
opened to say something.

"Mind if I sit down?"

"Of course not," said Vera.

A number of others had followed Hod in to see what was up. Vera gave them a tongue-lashing and drove them away.

Hod mopped his forehead, shambled to get a chair for Betty, and
pulled up one for himself. Sid's accusing eyes were on him. To
avoid the glare he lowered his head and kept it that way until
Betty, who knew nothing of what had occurred, asked.

"Me again," said Hod. He threw a furtive glance at Vera and
brought out, "I'm awfully sorry."

She smiled indulgently and felt a twinge of sorrow. That was all.

"You ought to be," flared Sid.

Hod turned on him. "What do you know about it?"

"Enough."

Again Hod lowered his head. Then, without more ado, Sid pitched
into him, letting him have all that had been stored up.

For a while Hod took the beating humbly and in silence with a
grim acceptance as if he were telling himself that every bit of
it was deserved. However, when he happened to glance up and see
a number of people standing around, all with gaping mouths, all
snickering at him as if he were getting licked, he hitched himself
and gave back. And the fight was on.

Sid pelted Hod with variations of the accusation that Hod was
a thundering blunderbuss; Hod pelted Sid with variations of the
come-back that Sid was a windy bantam.

Vera's amusement soon passed. The senseless noise of it! Their
voices pounded on her ears. Her head began throbbing. Over her
crept a weariness. She wanted to pack them off - Hod, Sid, Betty,
the entire party - and set about her business.

The sun must have arisen. Outside it was light.

And think of it, two men hammering away at each other with
words and words, after an all-night party!

The absurdity of it began doing strange things to her. She got
angry and tried to stop them. They would not stop. Then she felt
suffocated, suffocated in futile complexities.

Oh, to be silent and voiceless! To simplify life, to get down
to simple real things, real feelings and clear human contacts!

Hod and Sid were all wound about, choking each other, clashing

22 '17

because it was so easy to clash, so difficult simply to live together. And these two men were friends! Friends of hers, two of the human beings closest to her.

To get out! To leave them all! To find someone who understood what real life was!

All at once she felt she would scream. Hysteria was in her. Their voices drummed on her, droned like the ravings of lunatics. She wanted to cry at them, "Life is not this! I tell you, I scream to you, *life is not this!*"

She quickly got up, pushed through the crowd, and left the room. The next thing she knew she was in the kitchen helping to prepare breakfast. Even there the voices pelted her. Then Betty was at her side, Betty's soft plump body and brown eyes.

"Goodby, Vera. It's been a fine party."

Vera smarted and would have called her a little liar. She could have shouted, "You know it's been awful. Listen to those men!" But she made her face show a surprised concern. "You aren't going? Don't you want breakfast?"

"Thanks just the same. I feel one of my headaches coming on."

"You might," said Vera, nodding towards the other room. "I can give you something."

"No thanks. I better go. I've said goodby to Hod."

"Did he hear you?"

Betty bristled, "Of course he did."

"You won't go down to the boat?"

Betty shook her head. "You know how I hate last farewells. Besides, he and Sid will be at it till leaving time. Have you ever heard anything like it?" She stepped forward impulsively and clasped her

22 18

friend's hand. "There are some things I want to talk you about. Come over and have dinner with us tonight. You are not going to stay in your elegant barn all by yourself. Do come."

Betty was her own lovable self now. Vera really thanked her for thinking ahead on her account. She smiled strangely. "Thanks a lot. Maybe I will." And she came very near telling Betty of her sudden plan to sail. What restrained her she did not know.

"No maybes," said Betty. "We'll expect you for cocktails at seven."

Vera called a cab and saw Betty to the door.

After making certain that everyone had breakfast, she beckoned to her maid and took the girl into the front room. There she broke the news of her departure. Now her own words seemed strange; and to see the idea objectified gave her a curious trembling fear. Some madness was abroad, catching up everyone...

From the rear room a great babble broke out. Vera went back, walking more quickly than was her wont. Again she pushed through the crowd until she could view Hod and Sid.

Sid was exclaiming with disgust, "What's the use? If he wants to jump off the bridge let him jump."

Hod laughed with the tone of victor. "Sid, old boy," he rumbled, "you'd be a swell person if it weren't for your mind. So slow it is."

He chuckled, and Vera could see that he was all set up, in very good spirits again. He went on to Sid, "You're the kind of fellow who looks at the sun, says it is the moon, argues at length to prove it is the moon, and then, with the thrill of sudden discovery proclams, 'Gentlemen, it is the sun.'"

The party guffawed. Vera noted with amazement, as she had on more than one occasion before, that Hod had some miraculous way of

BROOKSIDE

becoming clear and coherent after a party such as this when everyone else was either crazy or stupid.

Hod, chuckling, leaned over, grabbed Sid's head and rough-housed him. Sid drew back in anger. Hod thumped the table, jerked to his feet.

Something was going to happen. The party had been waiting for it. Kept going by his exuberance, they had stayed on with the certainty that he'd suddenly arise and put on a show that would be worth their loss of sleep. At last, here it was.

Poking a finger at Sid, he bellowed, "Friends, I've got it!"

"What?" came shouts.

"This bantam has been at me all night. You are my witnesses."

"Right!" came shouts.

"So, then, I'm going to turn about and fix his business. What's say? I'll take him along with me on the <u>S.S. Burgundy</u>!"

It was improbable-sounding, but it would be just like Hod. The others shouted bravo. "That's the stuff! Grab Sid under your arm and take him along!"

A thing thrown out, something to get a rise from Sid; but, now, with the crowd urging him, Hod himself all at once became wholly convinced it must be so. And Sid, gazing in sudden consternation from Hod to the others, felt a mad current sweep the air, the madness that sometimes came out of Hod. A look at Vera, and he remembered she had warned him. At this <u>MM</u> minute Hod seemed capable of anything insane: his grinning mouth, an eye cocked, his head thrust forward, his looming shoulders, his arms hanging down with an ominous readiness...

"Come along, old boy! The boat sails at eleven sharp. The

thundering blunderbuss and the windy bantam will ride the seas as
all world-riders should!"

Vera started to interfere, then changed her mind. In some strange
way, though mad, it was right. She was going. Hod was going, Thelma,
Marsh, Morgan... So, then, let Sid and Betty too. They'd all pull
stakes and move out. Wild it was, but just the thing, a mad
inevitability.

Sid blurted, "Shake yourself. Are you crazy?"

"Sure," said Hod, "but you're coming. Get that? You and Betty."

"It's impossible. Hear me?" Sid shouted, banged the table, and
struggled to his feet, stretching his short body as high as he could.
"You seem to forget I still have to earn money even if you don't. I've
got a job to hold down, a wife to support -"

Hod Stormed, "Enough! To hell with everything! You've been belly-
aching, squealing like a pig because you were caught in the machine.
This morning is the great moment of your life. You cut loose. You,
too, little bantam and dear friend, become a free man! You come along
with me, Hod Lorimer, the liberator!"

Sid was trying for all he was worth to summon his fighting
force. As fast as he mustered a little it was dissipated by the
madness in the room. "For Christ's sake!" he let out lamely.

"You should have thought of Christ sooner," boomed Hod. To the
person at his left he winked and said under his breath, "Guess I'm
pulling the little fellow's cork, what!"

The party, laughing at Sid, egged Hod on. Some of them wished
that Hod would turn on them and treat them in the same fashion.
What a swell way to get from under and leave the things they'd
always wanted to leave. A war, an earthquake, a hurricane, or - Hod.

54 21

Sid burst out, "You crazy bull, there's Betty to consider and money and a cabin and things to buy and notice to the school. A woman can't just pick up and -"

"You're not a woman."

"No, but Betty is. You can't do this, Hod. I mean it. You simply can't."

Hod hitched himself. With a glint in his eyes he strode around the table and grabbed Sid by the coat. "Now listen to me, young fellow. If there's anything that makes me wild it is to have somebody tell me I _can't_ do a thing. The hell I can't! I can do any goddam thing I want. See? Now don't forget it." He released Sid, turned to the party with one of his grins and announced, "Friends, I'm going to hustle the bantam to his apartment. We'll need help. Let come along all who wish. To the others -" and he flourished an arm, "goodby, and God bless you and may fate treat you well!"

There was a great hullabaloo as Hod badgered and bundled Sid off. A protesting, fighting, helpless Sid.

Hod was so absorbed in his escapade that he completely forgot to say a single word to Vera.

On the street he hailed all the cabs in sight.

Hod thumped on the apartment door. Betty opened it. The crowd rushed in, sweeping her aside. She fought the idea. She got furious with Hod. But the madness had charged in and caught her too. In a short time she and Sid, bullied, overborne, but now feeling the thrill of it, the thrill of being swept by an irresistible wind towards the open world, fell to and helped Hod pack things in any old way.

An hour later they jumped into taxis. The first stop was at Hod's

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23

To Sea Alone

New York that June day was a sunny isle. It was hot but festive,
possessed by one of those periodic outbursts of merriment which
redeems subways and skyscrapers and makes the Empire City the most
fascinating capital of the world. Above New York the sky was blue,
bride-blue and sparkling, as if it had come in response to the
wishes of a thousand American brides, thrilled, trembling, wide-
eyed, the morning of that day. Brine from the bay salted the
Battery and gave throngs of busy and loafing men the dual taste
of potency and sterility - the taste of the sea. Tug-boats and
ferries criss-crossed on the waters, whistling signals. On land,
bay, and river all was jolly commotion.

The Hudson River waterfront...

At her pier the **Burgundy**, bow to Manhattan, stern to the river,
lifting skyward above her sheds, was ready to unleash and swathe
the ocean. Low red-black funnels faintly smoked into the sky. She
knew she was going. Everyone knew it. All of New York seemed converg-
ing towards her as if drawn by a huge magnet - speeding taxis,
swarming passengers dressed to astound if not to kill, hundreds who
would remain on the pier and wave goodby. A day before she had been
an inert shell. Now she was filling herself with excited life,
preparing to form of this life an eight-day world.

Hod Lorimer...world-rider...

Hod was on board rumbling at the purser, asking the purser to
find him a berth. He'd given his cabin to Sid and Betty.

The purser, a medium-sized affable man with close-cropped hair

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and sharp blue eyes, besieged by many others, remained cool and pleasant. Luckily he knew Hod of old. He told Mr Lorimer that a single cabin was out of the question. However, he'd see what could be done.

Hod gathered the people who had come to the boat from Vera's party and rushed to the other side to look for Sid and Betty. Now, with a thud, he remembered he hadn't said goodby to Vera. A god-awful oversight. No use trying to reach her by phone.

Bells began ringing.

Sid and Betty were dashing about in the milling crowd of the pier. Hod spotted them and yelled. He bowled down the gangplank, caught them, and dragged them on board. "Do you want to get left?"

"No, no!" laughed a breathless Betty. "After all this, it would be terrible." Chestnut curls danced about the rim of her white fabric hat. Her brown eyes, upturned to Hod, laughed and sparkled. She squeezed his arm possessively. Across her exasperation cut a picture of lonely Vera. Strange, Vera was always left out. It seemed her fate. Tragic, but what could one do?

Hod turned on Sid. "What say you, you little stiff?"

Sid scowled. He grinned too.

Gongs were sounding. A last warning to those who were going ashore.

People exchanged hasty farewells, shouted parting messages, kissed, bumped into each other as they raced forward along the deck, bunched in a solid swirling mass near the gangplank.

Ship's officers in spruce uniforms, stewards in cool white, were looking on, a bit amused, quite disdainful of the bustle and stampede.

ROUNDROUNDS

The party thought it high time they get off.

"Goodby!" shouted Hod. "Thanks for coming down. Goodby and God bless you and may fate treat you well! And whatever you do, don't forget the motto of all world-riders - 'A strong hand, a throbbing heart, and a clear head!'"

To Sid and Betty he said, "Come on, I've got something for you in the cabin. Last night's stuff has worn off. One should keep half-drunk on the ocean."

As they dashed along the deck he shouted in her ear, "Look at this mess of people. And they tell me I should love my brothers. What the hell! We're off! We're off!"

The ship's great whistle blew once, a throaty commanding reverberating sound that penetrated down to the inmost cabins and carried over adjacent New York and the river, telling the pilots of river-craft that the great **Burgundy** was about to push out.

Hod and Sid tossed off some Johnnie Walker. Betty was forced to gulp a mouthful. Then they dashed out to see the departure, Hod bowling along with a shoulder-swing and a roving gait, his eyes alert for Barbara.

Excitement was in him, the kind that only she could stir, a strange tremulous fear that made his heart beat like a little boy's. It had started when he got out of the taxi at the pier and **Mr** realized that from then on he might run into her any minute. God, how he wanted to; but he'd be damned if he'd go out of his way.

How would she meet him? Would she be changed and want to make-up and love him again? "O, love! Ah, darling! Such a darling as never was!" Perhaps the gods themselves had arranged it. Why else had they chanced to pick the same ship?

As they hurried aft trying to find space by the rail, Hod saw

a heavy-set

a heavy-set pugnacious man looming their way. He felt sudden hate and aimed to veer so they wouldn't bump. So did the man. Instead, they listed and brushed shoulders.

"Funny thing," said Hod to Betty. "See that fellow? I've never seen him before and I hate him. Swell way to start a trip."

Betty said nothing but felt a lot. A toss of a hat, and Hod would be in a fight. Then she became occupied with something else. "Of all things," she suddenly exclaimed, "Vera!"

Vera it was, approaching them up the deck with the unmistakable air that she too was a ship's passenger.

With a rush of jealousy Betty wanted to fly at her and scream, "Go away! Get off this ship! You don't belong here!"

"So," said Vera laughingly, "tonight we shall have dinner after all."

"Vera!" said Betty. She stared.

Astonished Sid grinned foolishly and shook Vera's hand as if he were congratulating her for something which he himself did not at all understand. So beautiful she looked, so radiant and jaunty in her cream-white dress and a green feather in her hat. So strong too. She completely dominated them.

Hod's face broke into pieces. He blinked, flushed, stammered a few words, and lowered his head in confusion and guilt. Life, at this minute, was profoundly dislocated; and he was to blame for it.

"Why is it so strange?" asked Vera.

Hod shot a peering glance. "Are you really crossing?"

"Of course. Why not? Aren't you going, and Sid and Betty, and all these hundreds of not extraordinary mortals? Why make an exception of me?"

"You're right. Of course you are. But a fellow -" and then he

27

began remonstrating. "Why didn't you let me know? I could have seen
to everything for you. The party should have been for both of us.
Did Sid and Betty know? Were they holding out? When did you decide?
Tell a fellow something."

Her scornful glance said, "Now don't do that, Hod." Her words -
"It appears that one can do a great deal if one really wishes. I
decided early this morning and you were so busy with Sid and Betty
that I didn't want to bother you. Perhaps I am intruding?"

"Don't be foolish." Hod squirmed. He was amazed, such pride, such
spirit she had! Never before had he seen this Vera; and a sly voice
reassured him, among other things, that the transformed woman
standing there would be the very last person on earth to cling to
him.

Betty's ill feelings abruptly changed as it was borne into her
what a daring thing her friend had done. "Vera," she cried, and
impulsively hugged her with a rush of admiration. "I'm so glad!"
And now, of course, she was just dying to know all about it.

Vera smiled and returned the hug. "Thank you, Betty." And to
Hod - "Well?"

"I'll be damned!" Hod exploded. He growled and chucked. "Glad? Of course I am!" and he threw an affectionate, though still guilty arm around her.

She had won! "So she let them welcome her. But she did not surrender. For a while yet she wanted to retain her advantage, even to punish them somewhat. "Then let's forget it," she said. "Here I am. Here we are. And that is that."

Without more ado she took Sid's arm and started walking. Sid
wanted to know what had happened, but she was so mysteriously imperi-
ous that he dared not ask.

Hod and Betty followed, looking at each other all the while.

"It's got me," said Hod.

"Me too," said Betty. "And here I was feeling sorry because we
were leaving her behind."

"Same here. It's got me. Never seen a person change so. Would you
believe that this Vera and the one who gave the party are the same?
It'll come out. Well, as she said, here we are! Cheerio! The more
the merrier! But I don't mind telling you - I've got a queer feeling
I'm pulling the world down on my head. And say! What was that about
me leaving my past at the pier?"

The four of them moved along until they found a vacant rail-
space. To their left was a man who caught Hod's interest, Vera's
too.

He was as tall as Hod but of finer bone. A slender body, a
sharp face with a sort of wing-spread <u>XXXXXXXX</u> to the forehead.
Curious dark eyes. Something intense, something relaxed, aloof
and familiar at the same time. The fingers that held a cigarette
were long and nervous. He wore a double-breasted suit of dark
blue serge. He seemed careful about everything <u>except</u> his hat. This,
a brown felt, was sort of slanted on his head as if he didn't know
it was there.

At the first sight of him Vera felt a catch. Perhaps this was
the man she had come aboard to find. Perhaps not. Certainly not.
She ground the feeling out of her. A man? Nonsense. This man?
Absurd. She might be a cast-<u>koff</u>; but she'd die before she'd
build up a lot of romantic rot about the first male who happened to
glance at her with a mixture of mental appraisal and sensuous
admiration.

Hod glanced a second time. The man looked at him. Both seemed to say, "Hello, I've seen you somewhere, haven't I?"

Betty, hunched over the railing, was looking down at the tugs
as they manoeuvered to push their bandaged noses against the ship.
She had a frightening sensation of sheer height. The black steel
plates, the churning waters, the powerful but diminutive boats. She
had forgotten that a ship's side arose so sheer above the sea-line.
She'd forgotten that an ocean liner so was gigantic.

Just suddenly, with a sound which seemed to issue from the sky
and from the throat of the earth all at once, the <u>Burgundy's</u> deep
whistles opened in a long sustained lion-roar.

Amid the cheers and waving of those on board and those on the
pier, with amazing ease the great ship moved, backing into the
river, out, out...

Three red-black funnels passed across the sky.

The ship's stern, the whole boat, lengthened out.

Betty caught a picture of the entire form in motion. It looked
as if one of New York's fixed structures had suddenly become loco-
motive and was now detaching itself from the side of the city. The
*Burgundy* seemed larger than everything else.

The whistles sustained their deep throaty roaring.

Goodby! Goodby!

Look out, little river-craft!

Already, far over there, was Manhattan's waterfront with its
piers and ships and piles and sheds and the tall buildings rearing
up behind.

Vera, standing in a sort of stateliness, head poised, eyes level
with the world, held her gaze on receding New York.

All at once she felt a wrenching. Something of herself was being
left back there. She had abandoned it, left it to die. It would
die. Surely it would. Like a starved kitten it would shrink to
nothing and blow away. Something of herself which she would never
see again. And she wanted it. Under it she could hide and feel safe
and protected. With it she could fend off life. That of her which
she had not realized she would leave at the pier. Now she wanted
it frantically. She'd give all she had to be taken back to port.

"Let me, let me! I've been too rash. Who am I to believe that I can master life?"

The **Burgundy** relentlessly pulled out. What is done is done. Each minute widened the gulf. Each added length of water increased the certainty of death of what she had left back there. What is done is done.

The fatality of it, the irrevocability, was terrifying.

She was caught. She was committed to a desperate way - and who would companion her? Out...being swept out...

Weak, exposed, utterly at the mercy of the vagaries of sea and
earth, the wild malicious freaks of the earth's people. And how
cruel, how devastating, human beings could be!

She was a defenseless subject of the ship; and the ship could
carry her to mid-ocean, straight into the uncovered tragic core
of life; and there, helpless as an infant but terribly more
sensitive, she could be stricken with agony.

"O, **Burgundy**, go back and let me get my cloak!"

The tugs worked, helping the huge ship turn and get under way
with her own power.

In mid-river - eastward, the jagged amazing skyline of Manhattan,

43 3/1

the skyline gliding past.

They passed ferry-boats; and Sid, now with the sickening fear
of a small boy who has done something he'll catch the very devil
for, gazed down at them; and he recalled the times, years ago, when,
as a ferry-rider, he had looked up with longing and envy at the
people crowded about the rails of an out-bound ocean liner. Now
once again he was one of the favored mortals who looked down and
up and away towards France - thanks to that ever crazy Hod.

Damn him, damn Hod! He thought he was God. Not a rap did he care
what happened to others so long as they fit into his awful ego.
One of the world's worst lunatics who never stopped to realize
that he was destroying what he could not create. Just for a prank
he'd wrecked their New York life, which was all their life -
literally placed them in the same boat with himself. All because _he_
was smashed. They'd have to eat out of his hand, borrow money -
and all to show that _he_ was superior. To prove his boast, "I can
do any goddam thing I want." The damn maniac!

Sid worked himself into a rage. And he was helpless. He knew
he was. Not a thing he could do but rave to himself and let off
steam. But...his chance would come!

Prow-straight, engines pulsing, the _Burgundy_ with her cargo of
_beneath the sun, was cutting a clean far lane through
criss-crossing harbor-craft. Through glistening choppy waters she
was gliding with steady speed down the bay against a fresh head-
wind, away from New York and from America.

Soon they would be out upon the vast spread.

BROOKSIDE

5.

Meetings

Vera felt unanchored. Her guards were down. Gone was her sense of strength. Gone was her self-sufficiency. With a fix dizzy fear she imagined the rail might give way and she'd pitch headlong overboard into the swashing waters. She reached out. In her quivering state she wanted to touch a hand that was sure. No longer was she pretending indifference to the stranger at the other side of Hod. From the corner of an eye she could see his face. Something told her that if she knew him he would help her to recover herself.

Just then Hod spoke to him. "Well, we're off."

The man smiled and nodded.

Vera turned in time to catch a glance that passed by Hod to her.

Both she and the man, as if wishing this to develop into more than casual pleasantries, changed positions so as to see each other directly.

Hod himself shifted. With his back to the rail he slouched, leaning on an elbow, his strong teeth showing as he grinned. "No more cats," he threw out.

"Cats?" asked their fellow passenger, raising an eyebrow and fingering his mustache. He looked to Vera, asking her to explain.

Not about Hod's ridiculous cats; she wanted to say something that would interest the man in herself.

Hod bowled on. "Sure," he said, "this means goodbye to them," and he waved an arm towards diminishing New York.

Betty, expecting what was coming, drew near to see how the stranger was going to take it. Sid held off, face averted but ears

46 33

cocked.

"You've never heard the story?" asked Hod. "Vera, Betty, here's someone who's never heard of the cats, nor, of course, of the emboldened mouse. Guess I'd better tell him. It's a good thing to get and keep half-drunk on the ocean, but what I'm going to tell you is straight stuff. Here goes. Once there was a mouse who lived in a hole in a room in a house. Now in this room were many cats who always bullied and abused the mouse whenever he ventured out. In fine, the mouse lived a dog's life. One day, however, somebody spilled a bottle of Johnnie Walker near the hole of the mouse, and some of it ran down the hole. The mouse tasted it and liked the taste. He drank some, and felt good. He drank more and felt better. Finally he felt just marvelous, ready for all comers. So he stalked from his hole and shouted, 'Bring on the cats!'"

Hod chuckled and rocked. "Damn good story, what!"

Betty hastily explained, "So you see, Mr Lorimer uses the word cats to mean any kind of difficulty. We've left all difficulties behind us in New York. The mouse means anyone who will stand up and fight the cats." She smiled winningly and hoped that the stranger would not think they were fools.

"Yup," said Hod. He was still chuckling and didn't give a damn what the man thought. "That's it. Like the little fellow there. Mr Sidney Case this morning became an emboldened mouse and thumbed his nose at all the cats in the world. Eh, brother? Come over here. How does it feel? How do you like escaping? How's it feel to be my partner in the crime of deserting the dollar-fighting army? Does your greenback conscience hurt you? Miss the war? Feel like a culprit?"

46 34

Under his breath Sid said plenty.

The man was amused. "A greenback conscience," he said to Hod,
"I'll remember that. As for the cats - I should judge that you are
an expert, shall we say, cat-vanquisher?"

"Just what I am." Hod was pleased. "I've even invented a
special cat-gun. We'll understand each other, kindred souls as
it were. All fraternal orders have their tests. Mine is this - has
the fellow a sense of humor? If he hasn't got humor what has he
got? Well, brother, you're in. Shake. Let's introduce ourselves.
No use leaving till the last, what we can begin today. These are
Mr and Mrs Sidney Case. This is Miss Vera Arnold. I am Harold A.
Lorimer of New York, Chicago, and points west."

The man smiled and inclined his head. "I am Hugh Langley."

So that was his name! Vera wasn't sure she liked it, but she did
like his voice, and she did like the way in which he
took Hod's buffoonery. Why, however, was he ignoring her? Hod of
course, as always, was monopolizing. But couldn't Langley come
through Hod to her? Didn't he see, didn't he sense, didn't he
feel what she felt?

Or perhaps she wasn't coming through to him. This possibility
suddenly angered Vera against Hod, against the others, against her-
self. She let them absorb her and overshadow her. She let her
individuality merge with theirs, so that she didn't stand out as
a person at all. It always happened this way, and she shouldn't
permit it. Besides, precisely why was she with Hod, Betty, and
Sid? Some compromise. She should shake them off and go her own
way. What a pity she hadn't met this man, just chanced upon
him when she was by herself.

Hod was still mounting. "Good, good," he was saying to Langley.
"Hope we see a lot of each other. To make it more binding,
I'll lift the curtains at once. This, friend Langley, is patrician
Vera. This is brown-eyed baby Betty. And there - there is windy
bantam Sid." He stopped short.

"Go on," said Sid, stepping forward for the first time. "Tell
him yours. You won't? I will. This, Mr Langley, is thundering
blunderbuss Hod."

Hod came down with a thud, all wind gone from his sails. After
glaring at Sid he grinned foolishly at Langley and lowered his head.

Langley laughed outright. A blunderbuss, absolutely! Shooting
at random at close range. It was awfully good.

And Sid, for the moment, was revenged.

"Looks like a full ship, doesn't it?" he remarked to Langley.
He felt he ought to take things in hand and, for the sake of their
reputations, retrieve the situation so that this new fellow wouldn't
go off thinking they all were such idiots as Hod. "No signs of
depression here," and he knew he sounded stilted, but he couldn't
help it. "Of course, the _Burgundy_ is a favorite. She always draws
a rather smart crowd, don't you think? Urbane, cosmopolitan. You've
crossed on her before?"

Langley nodded. Now his attention was on Vera. He had a sense
that in some strange way she was looking at him without looking,
as if she had eyes somewhere else. It was almost psychic, and made
him uneasy as well as curious.

"On business?" asked Sid.

"Of a kind," said Langley off-handedly. "This time, however," and
he turned to Hod, "I would as soon that it be a holiday, a truce to

the cats, as you ~~Mr Lorimer~~ would say."

Hod brightened and spoke up. "You've met just the right ones. That's me, a holiday. Let's shake. And now, if you'll excuse us, we'll look up some people. See you again before long."

He grabbed Sid's arm and tugged him off. The women, both suddenly furious, had no choice but to smile to Langley as best they could and follow after.

37

~~MELISSA~~

6.

Hugh

Hugh had played fool with Hod, which was just as well. Under
cover of it he had been free to exercise the extraordinary
alterness which Lorimer and Vera Arnold evoked, an eagerness to
contact them, his nature to know theirs, he to know Vera particular-
ly. He felt he did know something.

Now he stood at attention watching the four go off- people who,
possibly, like himself, were trying to make a voyage to themselves,
to themselves and pure aloneness; across the waters, over the
earth, through the universe a voyage out of themselves, out and
towards pure connectedness.

He wanted to meet that strange combination again. He knew this
with a power of feeling that surprised him because, in the first
place, it was out of all proportion to what apparently had
happened, and, in the second, it was in stirring contrast to the
way his life had worked out for the past few years - a withdrawn,
mentally active but emotionally vacant phase.

Sid and Betty did not occupy him much. They possessed each
other and weren't very interesting. Neither of them, he felt,
were with possibilities for him. But Hod...and Vera!

Hod, a Fifth Avenue lumberjack, all sorts of things circulating
within and without him, his thick-fingered but arousing approach,
a vitality that beat upon you like the ocean's waves and came
near knocking you from your body, his buffoon-like but extraordinary
exuberance - or violence perhaps - from which almost anything might
be expected.

Vera, patrician Vera, self-effacing, elbowed under by Hod, but

BROOKSIDE

with a hidden force, a potent something, a curious perspicacity, an
amazing awareness of what was occurring under surfaces, the feeling
she gave that she was ready to experience. Because of this last
impression Hugh was certain she was not attached to Hod.

So much did he want to meet them again that he had an almost
ungovernable impulse to quit his tower and run and catch up with
them and cry, "Wait! You mustn't go off like this."

Of course he did nothing of the sort. Memory held him back, a
knowledge that had become lodged in his body: the disappointments
he had suffered from just those to whom he impulsively went out.

Besides, what was the use?

Relations with men were almost always twisted by rivalry, competi-
tion, a clash of egos. Sooner or later it came to this. This futility,
and he was weary of it. With a man of Hod's domineering type it
would come soon. Soon, then, he'd feel disgust. Relations with
women were almost always blocked by nonessentials, indirectness,
fear, and, most of all, by possessiveness. Not yet had either sex
learned to love without possessing and without being possessed. From
Vera's body came a pull. From her loins a force that the wary male
noticed at once and knew that to yield would mean his captivity.
Nowadays with women too a man soon got into a senseless tilt of
egos. He had lost his taste for swaggering and banging with his
own species.

So, with a sense of these considerations sweeping into his
consciousness, Hugh simply stood there looking in the general
direction for some minutes after the party was lost in the crowd.
Then, adjusting his body against the rail, he let his eyes gaze with
an unseeing look at passing harbor-craft, at the shores of New Jersey

54 39

as they slipped by.

Again on a ship, moving, striving on and on, with the deep-powered
push of a vessel moving through its element...and now, suddenly,
owing to his chance meeting with that strange party, he knew why he
was on a ship.

To one's self and pure aloneness; out of one's self and towards
pure connectedness. These two primary and apparently contrary
tendings. What else was there? When you stripped human behavior to
its essence did you not find just these, and only these two main
desires? How else find meaning in the countless things that drive
a man into himself, that make him pull in? Each one wants to be,
and is forced to be, his absolute self - more or less, according to
the case. On the other hand, how else find meaning in the never-ceas-
ing and often idiotic attempts of man to contact his fellow
men, of man to explore the wonders of the universe? To be alone (
not, lonely); to be connected (not bound, burdened, an/enslaved) -
just these two.

For more than a year he had been, to some extent, the former.
In some ways it was the easier of the two. One was dependent only
upon himself. In any case, aloneness had come to be for him, not
a feeling, but a state of being - a varying state to be sure, some-
times low and almost nothing, sometimes high, elated, and amazingly
full. But now...now it was time, and now, perhaps, in spite of his
reservations, was the opportunity to attempt the later. Again,
because of the impulse which moved him, he would have to risk
disappointment, to try to cut through hindrances and side-step
entanglements, to touch and connect.

So be it - and his emotions took a deep breath. It was as if they

BOOKSIDE

58 40

were thanking his mind, that tyrant. Something far down in him heaved over and began rushing up with joy, now that it had the tyrant's consent. His slender figure grew taunt and energized. And then, all at once, he realized that all of it was focusing on Vera Arnold as the woman who would respond to and understand him.

He pictured himself meeting her on deck. She took his arm and they strolled off to a table in the smoking-room; and there they came to know each other with the wonder and the beauty of contact, which sometimes happens of itself - the experience with man, woman, and God which he wanted to learn how to bring about by art and knowledge so that he would not be dependent upon infrequent magic.

Hugh caught himself and pulled up. A dream again! That was what he got for giving his emotions rein. Never would it happen. Something in Vera would not let it. Something in himself would stand in the way. True, she was possessive and in this sense dependent, but she was strongly independent also. She'd stand off. She'd try to meet him mentally, egoistically, as man to man. And he - he would find himself in his by now familiar predicament as regards the feminine-masculine woman. The one he loved, he wanted to slap down.

She attracted him. He admired only the woman who had achieved a degree of individuality. At the same time, owing to some unre-generate "male-primitivity", he was repelled. His male-power would not tolerate a woman who stood on her own feet, reared, and bucked him. Not until he had decided within himself whether the modern woman was an amazing advance or an awful mistake, whether his maleness was a thing of the past to be denied and uprooted or, affirmed and lifted to cultured level, would the issue be settled.

With this in him, with that in Vera, what real thing could happen

BROOZADE

exchange could come about? The answer was obvious - or so it seemed; and he dismissed her with the resolve that he'd permit no romancing about Miss Arnold.

However, he looked within himself and saw the two great forces at work: the force yes, the force no. The no was stronger at this time, but which would triumph - or, what reconciliation?

He'd never know by thinking. He didn't want to know by this method now. His tower had been invaded. His feelings had tasted license. His vacuum had been made aware of itself by means of the contrast of a promised fulness. His body wanted action.

It pushed from the rail, and Hugh, with his characteristic stoop, began moving forward up the deck, eyes on the crowd, alert to spy bowling Hod or flowing Vera.

With the smell of the sea in his nostrils he felt himself as the prow of the ship cutting through blue-green waters, on...

The deck was a stir of brilliance, a highly excited milling mass dressed in all varieties, and such colors!

A strange intoxication was in the air, an elation, as if the joy and stress of departure on a great ship for a distant port had cracked something loose and these hundreds of human beings were possessed by the belief that they were bound through space for an incredible star in the far universe.

On the other hand...and Hugh said to himself, "Ah, yes, that inevitable 'other hand'"...he passed by wretched folk with strained faces, high-pitched voices, sweating jerky bodies, each at odds with the others, all scattering and jabbering.

A pompous couple who stalked ahead with a bulbous protest against life because it had not made them a duke and a duchess. A hatchet-faced fellow wearing a cap who seemed to be sleuthing somebody. Two

第42

young women, one tall and carefully stylish, the other short and
carefully dowdy. A girl with over-emphatic gestures who wound herself
up and unwound. A tall rambling man who went about with his chin up,
his eyes down, as if resolved not to be caught napping when hit
by the first which his chin invited.

The gay ship's company, most of them showing off.

Often when he saw people in a mass like this, he had a feeling
that Nature, in making them, had become tired before reaching the
head. Nor had she been particularly painstaking with the feet. She
seemed interested in the middle region only, and even here she had
been queerly capricious in every respect except that she invariably
gave everyone some kind of a jopa.

And were these ego-bumping bipeds the materials with which the
ship would build a world? Ah, well, the Burgundy, was no worse off
than God.

As he was going down the starboard promenade he heard his name
called - and there, falling in stride with him, were Marsh and
Morgan Bradley whom he had met in New York only a week or so ago
and liked quite well.

Marsh, humorous and waspish, with dark bobbed hair, quick eyes,
and an air that was by turns pert, whimsical, impudent, and fresh
and lovely. Morgan, a New York lawyer who looked like a fortunately
endowed young fellow still in his twenties. They seemed to belong
together, and for this very reason, among others, Hugh found them
good company and was glad to be with them now.

From the first an amusing sort of competition had sprung up
between himself and Marsh. She liked him, he was sure; he also
knew she was suspicious, as if she felt he might bite her, as if

Europe really was not so strange.

Hugh, however, was beginning to feel that there was something quite
strange about the position she occupied in the group, about the
way the others treated her. They seemed to regard her as someone to
be elbowed, or as an exception of some kind. She had his admiration
for the manner in which she handled herself under the circumstances.
His sympathies moved out to her and he wanted to make Hod, Marsh,
all of them realize that she was an exception, not one to be half
ashamed of, but an exceptional woman to be deeply respected.

Though pretending interest in meeting Thelma Carrow, in playing
fool again with Hod, in hearing Marsh and Betty talk about Sid
who was the only absent one, all of his interior attention went
to Vera as he gathered those many impressions, both positive and
negative, which, in time, suddenly come together and give one
a more or less complete picture of another. The process was rapid
because, in a most strange way, there seemed to be between himself
and herself no body at all: it was as if their sheer psyches were
contacting.

For a while his affirming force was dominant, and all the
impressions were positive, mounting to increase his first feelings
that here in truth was a person of quality with a quickened life,
a connection with reality, the kind that comes from suffering.
Then, for no obvious cause, the thing was abruptly reversed and
his denying force began taking shots negative and rather devastat-
ing.

True, she had suffered, but it was queer - suffering seemed not
to have vivified her. She was bland, indolent, stagnant even.
And why? This puzzled and annoyed him and made him want to do

something to her, something violent. Perhaps the reason was this:
that she took things, even suffering, casually, with a sort of
langorous sleepy-eyed poise.

She flowed. She moved like a river. But it was not enough to
move, not enough for a human being. One must strive, must work to
overcome resistances. Moving merely duplicates or adds or
diminishes. From striving something new of value is born. Vera,
he felt, should be xxx stirred up and set going against her own
inertia towards some splendid creation.

Should she? It was rather presumptuous of him. Who was he to
say that she should? God knows, she was beautiful and unique in
her way. She seemed to sum up so many women he had known. All of
them were in her. Wasn't this, then, enough? His mind agreed that
it was. No, his emotions. They were disappointed.

This must have shown. Vera caught it at once, doubtless because
she was looking for it, and she magnified it, and she had one of
her awful black moments.

The old situation all over. Again a man was disappointed. That
horrible lack in her. Again she was being tied to someone; being
held off, separate. Again the unsatisfying giving of herself -
to be flung back into an unsatisfying independence. No hope.
Truly she could not leave Vera. She wanted to crawl away and die.
owing to all that happened within the past twenty-four hours,
But this time, she reacted quickly.

As never before she saw what she must do with those awful alter-
natives. She could have no one. Then stop trying. Be separate,
be intensely alone. Perhaps aloneness if it were intense enough
would yield some as yet unknown advantage. She could not give her-
self. Then stop trying. Be independent, intensely independent

without quakes of insecurity and fears of loneliness, and, most
of all, without compromise.

Now she realized how much, unconsciously, she had attached her-
self to Hugh in this brief time. So this was it. Apart from him,
apart from everyone, yet not closing against them, she would have
to learn to find her life not in the lives of others but in her
own human, and therefore sufficiently rich and rewarding, substance.

And perhaps just this effort would supply the thing she lacked,
and she would be transformed, and slow Vera would be slow no more,
but spirited.

To be denied and deprived - yes, she was beginning to see that
just these conditions might well be the very ones, the only ones,
in which she could develop a radiant individuality. In this
respect Hugh was far ahead of her. He seemed to have, to have
learned the secret of having, a satisfying independence; and she
felt sure that if he gave himself to someone, this would be
satisfying too. If she wished to be important to him she would
have to catch up and be as a woman what he was as a man.

Doubtless she was building up a picture far
beyond his actual stature. What of it? It was for herself, not
for him. She was fashioning him into a pole up which she might
climb.

7. Spinning

They were still in a group on the stern deck when Sid dashed up
and gleefully announced to Hod, "I've got a surprise and one piece
of news for you."

But he withheld both.

"Out with it!"

"Well, here's the first. Andra Feala is on board."

"What! You're joking. Say, look here."

"You'd better look."

"You're joking. Is she for a fact? For Christ's sake!"

"You should have thought of Christ sooner, my boy. Cats, Hod, cats!"

"Plenty of them," agreed Hod. "Damn her. What is this, a trans-atlantic crossing or -"

"Just a holiday," supplied Sid.

"Bring her on. What the hell. I've got my prize cat-gun along. I'm riding the world. Watch me take this hurdle."

"That's the old blunderbuss! That's how I like to see you. The piece of news is that a certain young lady is on her way to pay her respects. Now she's looking for a trunk, but soon... Nasty medicine, of course, but the plucky child wants to take it and have it over."

"You mean...Barbara?"

"No, Saint Catherine."

"Go to hell. Did she tell you that, I mean about taking her medicine?"

Sid shrugged. He noticed Hugh, head tilted, smiling broadly, puzzled however. "Just his wife," he let drop.

"Ah," said Hugh, more tickled but more puzzled, especially as he could not fail to note the states into which both Vera and Betty had been thrown. Nor could he help wondering what effect this Barbara would have on himself. Another of Hod's circle for him to meet, perhaps the last, and the last his wife. So! The 'old blunderbuss' was married and married, moreover, to someone who made him stutter, who turned 'brown-eyed baby Betty' into a perfect dear, less brown than green, less a baby than a savage female.

When, not long after, he saw a striking girl picking her way
towards them through the crowd, he was sure this was the sufficient-
ly provocative young lady - and with reason. He never had a problem

An electric shock raced his nerves. His sight blurred, then
cleared clairvoyantly upon her and it was all he could do to check
the urge to go straight to her under the illusion that only herself
and himself were on the ship.

Her face, delicately angular like a young angel's. Her body
in a smart ensemble, rather tall, girl-slender, utterly girl.
Her eyes, a brown depth, bright with hazel wistfulness, a curious
personal gaiety, a pain even more curious because it seemed
entirely apart. Self-hypnotism perhaps, but he felt they were the
feminine duplicates of his own and that he had looked into them
all his life.

That she appeared not to recognize or even notice him did not
disturb him in the least.

She held herself upright with a mixture of assurance and

timidity, grace, and a sort of adolescent gangliness. An air of
distinction, a fluttering; a coming forward airily, a confused
retreat; something innocent, something rather worldly as if a
superimposed training constrained her to calculate each contact
in terms of its social advantage or disadvantage.

Into his mind popped the phrase - "Innocence stylized" and he
laughed; but why, and whether at himself or for joy because of her
he was not clear.

With an unsure smile but a determined arm out-stretched to
shake hands, she went straight to Hod.

"Oh, hello," said Hod. His face broke and he grinned and looked
down. Flustered, he was bashful and sheepish and troubled
but ridiculously happy because she seemed so cordial. He stood
before her, a young lover, timid and enchanted; and when he stole
a look he felt ready to forget himself and do anything on earth
for this strange baffling child who still had such a hold on him,
who alone could make his heart beat with this tremulous fear like
a little boy's. "Hope you don't mind being on the same boat. One
of those things, coincidents or whatever -"

"I didn't expect to, but it is quite - I'm glad, I mean."

She was saved from having to say anything further because she
had to greet the others: Vera and Betty tensely, Marsh, Morgan and
Thelma with a sparkle as if she were saying hello to the playmates
of her block.

Hugh, taking in everything, was amazed but no longer puzzled
that a girl so slight could produce such a stir. Whatever it was
she had it, the power to fascinate and impress. And he all the
while was feeling the peculiar self-satisfaction of being

certain that when his time came he, in turn, would attract and impress her. Around his lips was a hint of mockery born of a sense of masculine superiority to these other men; a hint of irony too, for something in him suspected that the motions of aliveness which Vera had aroused but disappointed were behind all he felt for Barbara.

Said Morgan, "Mrs Lorimer - Mr Langley."

She faced him, opened her eyes with a startled look, almost curtesied, and extended her hand at once.

Hugh semi-bowed and took it, giving her a significant glance to say that she must realize how very important this meeting was to both of them - and the little imp who sometimes perched on his right shoulder poked fun at his gravity.

Her hand fitted into his perfectly with a physical warmth that set him atingle and made him hold it longer than was called for. Even though she became uneasy. Even though Hod glared - "Dammit, keep off. She's my wife, understand?" Even though Vera - "Now, really, Hugh. You, who are disappointed with me, aren't going to lose your head over this infant, are you?"

A sense of constriction cut across his feelings, sent a spurt of anger through his blood, and suddenly none of it was a laughing matter.

Let Hod glare. Barbara did not belong to him. She never had. She never would. His wife? Impossible. No man had ever touched her. No life, except what went on within her own immaculate person, except that universal experience which had placed the pain in her eyes as if she were suffering a mystical crucifixion of which she was not aware.

Let Vera rebuke. He was not bound or obligated to her in any way.

Let all of them exhibit their various shocks, approvals or disapprovals that such a thing should happen between one of their circle and a stranger on the deck of a ship, that such a thing should happen between two people in the world at all.

What a rare human being, what a polarization she set up in him, and the nostalgic elation of a man who has forgotten beauty but now remembers because he again sees it in the world.

Barbara was his, not by possession but by belonging; and he'd make her realize it; and he'd make all of them get out of his way as she led him a chase - which she doubtless would.

Barbara herself withdrew, graciously but with consternation. It was embarrassing to have those others looking on. She didn't know him. His feelings, so sudden, thrilled but frightened her because they threatened to pull her out of herself and some instinct warned that they were much more difficult to handle than Hod's. Besides, she ought not let herself feel anything for any man until she was divorced.

Fearing he had unreined too much, Hugh tried to contain himself and assume his grave aloof role; but again his imp poked fun - "You're gone! She's got you! You can't keep your eyes off!"

It was true. Motions were all awirl in him and he kept looking at her most of the time, now, among other things, puzzling to determine what if any tie still existed between her and Hod, to make out how these two, a fairy and a potter's devil, had come to marry in the first place.

Hod, riled by what he had seen, was further angered when he saw she was getting ready to pull away. Little did she know if she

thought she could take her medicine with such an easy, even a
happy swallow. She might be through. He wasn't. As long as she was
with him he'd let her be, perhaps stand for a little flirting with Hugh,
but if she tried to escape he'd heave a ton of bricks on her head,
or, at the least, throw a lasoo around the neck of his galloping
pony.

"Tell you what," he kkkukun brought out. "Langley..." he peered
at this fellow whom he wished at the other end of the earth, whom,
nevertheless, he could not leave alone.

"Yes?"

"Are you with anybody, a party?"

"No one. Why?"

"Oh, nothing. What do you say? Let's all join up. Have a table
together and drink together and everything. Make believe these
days on the ship are the only days of our life. After this - the
deluge. So let's drink and be merry, one for all and all for one!
What do you say?"

"Agreeable."

"Fine and dandy!" Hod swung on Barbara, "And you?"

"No!" she cried. She flinched with pain and fluttered for a
way of escape. She had known it might come to something like this
but Hugh Langley had made her forget and she hadn't left soon
enough and now it was too late.

"No? What do you mean? Don't you like us?"

"It's not that."

"Then what?"

Everyone was waiting her answer, Hod pulling her with awful
weight, Vera and Betty pushing her away. Only this stranger, Hugh,

seemed to be urging that she do what she really wished, but he wasn't helping any and it was because of him that she'd gotten into the fix.

"I'll be glad to," she said faintly.

To himself Hod cried, "There you are!" and he felt friendly towards Hugh, big and expansive towards everybody.

"That's settled," he grinned. "Come on, I'm wolfish."

True enough, all moved when he moved.

Hugh, backbone stiff, walked forward with the party but he had no intention of falling into a herd-like follow-the-leader and he meant to show them this, Hod especially, quite soon.

He rankled because he had let Hod out-step him. He pitied Barbara as she went along with her captor holding her arm. He felt the quivering sickishness and the curious animal thrill of having seen a living creature knocked down and captured. And there was nothing he could do - not yet.

At the main door he curtly excused himself, thus saying by action ~~which~~ he did not mean to trifle with them or be trifled with, thus hoping they would realize that, ~~though he was~~ interested to be of their company he could leave them at will for an hour or forever, all of them, Barbara included.

An intensity of things had happened; he wanted a free time in which to digest them, to catch up with himself; and he did want to have Barbara in his consciousness without self-checks or external hindrances; and he did want to pull into himself and, as a lone individual, orient himself on the ship and with the sea.

Mounting a steep he emerged on the observation bridge-deck, and

from there, his body come to rest
fixed against the rail,
immobility which he did not know before,
gazed out.

The deck was quite high above the body of the ship, cool, windy,
uncrowded, lofty and remote from the milling throng of the promen-
ade. Another world, a serene world of defined forces. Almost at once
he felt he had left the upheaval caused by Hod far down there amid
the general welter of conflicts and schemings, and had come up to
the highest point of his own brain.

Before him was the fore part of the vessel with its hatches,
deck-machines, hoists, mast, and crow's nest. Below him, the deck
space of tourist third class lined with red steamer chairs, their
occupants sunning.

The bow dipped and lifted. The motion of the entire ship was
long and graceful as she pushed the waves and rode the swells. In
her ocean stride now, on and on the <u>Burgundy</u> swathed, sailing as she
would sail with but slight variation for the next eight or more
days.

Wind hummed through the stays and ropes. Sharp with brine it lean-
ed against him, muffled him, whipped about him like a tonic blanket.

He steered his face into it as if pressing against a challenger.

Blow, wind, blow,
I'll stand to you
As if you were
All resistance
To my sincere way.

Far in front and to either side were the great wide waters of
the Atlantic, sea-waters, glittering green-blue beneath the open
sky, eager-restless, yet forever reposed, complete and inviolable.

Wisps of clouds over the northern horizon. Space everywhere. Time

and events had no place in this world.

Gazing out as seamen do, apparently at nothing, in reality at something far more satisfying than any sight on land, he quickened to the vast blue spread, this ocean.

This fascinating spectacle of life in abstract.

His element, his legitimate domain, for he felt he understood each wave, its density and motion, the meaning of the endless sea at which he could gaze endlessly.

The sea was feminine. The sky was masculine, projecting the design, the hues, which the waters reflected. From the sky came the pulls of sun and moon and the hand of the winds to shape the sea's behavior.

No, the sky was something beyond both masculine and feminine - being, absolute ego.

The air was the sky's breath. The sea was liquid air. The earth was solid water. And at the great ending of all existing things the solid elements would liquify, the watery elements vaporize, and all would disappear as being called in its breath and in the whole universe there would be just one absolute unutterably dazzling sky.

For a time he let it be, this ecstacy. Barbara inhabited it. The deep forces of his being responded to her image without self-checks and he was filled with a trembling light, a sense of wonder, a whirling iridescence.

Then his mind stepped in and began seeing that this child had passed through his automatic guards, that he had moved out to her with none of the reservations, none of the philosophy with which he had met Vera. Pure desire had established a miraculous contact and connectedness.

It was true, yet now he was skeptical. An illusion somewhere.
Perhaps it was this: that Barbara in some way was for him a symbol
rather than an actual human being, that his feelings were in response
to this symbol only, not at all to her as an actual living girl,
that all this ecstatic connectedness was something entirely within
himself, between the parts of himself, not with her.

Just then she seemed to dance away and inhabit the sky. He
gazed into the sparkling blue heavens and saw her there. He looked
down at the ocean and expected to see her there too. He was
surprised. In the ocean he saw Vera. Annoyed, he tried to displace
her because he wanted to see Barbara everywhere. It wouldn't happen.
Vera, inevitably, was in these waters which he felt he knew so well.
The thing did something strange to him and he had to explain it.

Was Vera, then, without his knowledge, already deeply settled
in his subconsciousness, flowing there?

And was Barbara, never to be of his ocean, remote and dazzling,
and did she draw him as men are drawn from the earth which is the
easiest to conquer and inhabit, to the waters which are more
difficult, to the air and the sky which are most difficult and
therefore most alluring to that in man which reaches for the
stars?

Perhaps it was a matter of knowledge. He knew Vera by experience
because he had known women like her. What is known, one does not
need explore. He knew the physical woman side of her - but he
might well be quite blind to what dwelt within.

But he knew Barbara too, in a different way. By direct contact,
by intuition, spirit to spirit. For the rest - she was the air
of unexplored potentialities; and he might find, among the not so

65 57

happy things, that the workings of her mind, of the physical woman
side of her, were quite baffling.

It wasn't all clear. He couldn't make it clear.

He ~~happened~~ to look down at the tourists. Several were looking up
at him, reminding him of the feeling of having a superior world
look down on one.

Here it was again, men imprisoning men in every division of which
they could conceive, men winding themselves around in labyrinthine
hindrances. It wasn't a new observation but for some reason, perhaps
because nowhere else are class-juxtapositions so striking as on ships,
it impressed him now with peculiar force.

~~He knew this feeling, the swelling dominant intoxication of having one's foot on the backs of prostrate human bodies and egos.~~

How diabolical that human beings, as if they were masochistic
spiders, indefatigably spin webs in which to capture and torture
themselves!

To be a free man among free men, an individual among individuals,
purely alone and purely connected - this, obviously, was the great
and the desirable thing.

Then why did just the opposite obtain with such stubborn force?

Why this jungle of mean emotions and their entanglements? Why
them, when we could be noble and unhindered? Why these countless
divisions and factions on which the human species skewers itself?
Why this arrogance and servility, this weakness to be falsely
superior, this weakness to be falsely inferior? Why a false ego when
one has an absolute ego? These insane compulsions? These drives
which end in crashes? Why loneliness and separateness? Why, when

BROOKSIDE

we wish to meet core to core, essence to essence, we find ourselves
glancing shell to shell, clashing barrier to barrier - only in
death to have what we should have had in life? Why?

In a flash of vision he saw the entire ship...its
company disconnected yet enmeshed...uprooted...floating across a
water-medium, bodies in transit as most bodies of the men of today
are, not moving themselves but being moved by mechanical means...

Ideas, many of them, all seemingly significant, hovered and raced
about the periphery of his mind, just out of reach. He had the
tantalizing sense that something of great importance was about to
break through to consciousness, something that seemed to answer his
questions, that seemed to catch up and show the meaning of many
of the taxing experiences of the present-day world. All seemed
right here, present, represented by the ship and its company -
yet, try as he would, he could not bring it through.

What he did get was a glimpse of Hugh in a light that both
startled and amused him. He saw himself a tiny figure, sometimes
dim, sometimes incandescent, standing on the bridge of a ship,
broadcasting from himself out into the sky.

He recalled the many times he had stood in a similar position
doing a similar thing - in windows of skyscrapers, on hilltops,
standing there and broadcasting out into the sky. From the base
of his spine up his back, from the back of his head to the front
and out...thoughts, feelings, intuitions, desires...from him out
into the sky.

But there were no visible receivers out there. There never had
been. To whom, then, to what was he broadcasting?

Perhaps the truth was this: his sight was inverted and what he

took to be himself communicating to the sky was, on the contrary,
the sky communicating to him.

Or both.

But this, too, for the time, was something too great for him
to fathom. However it was, it was. Sometime he must know, because
a secret to something in the universe was there. Sometime. Not
now. Definitely not now.

Barbara was drawing him to forego the bright spinnings of self
with self for the sake of being near her own no less bright
person, and his empty stomach was making itself felt.

Chapteck

8.

Descent

Down below, down the main stairway, the world was closed in
by glossy woodwork that gave back to people distorted images of
themselves, that pressed them in as if the ship were a casket,
a mass-casket of which they were unaware, a casket that would
bury its company once their bellies ceased the clamoring which was
the sole sign that they still lived.

Pig's with elbows crowded about the doors of the dining-room
fretting to get in even though they could see all the tables were
occupied.

Legs ached from standing. Stomachs pinched.

Jibes were flipped at the stewards who stood guard, complaints,
blatant declarations that a first class liner should know how to
handle its business better than to keep people waiting, querulous
pompous offers to tell the maitre d'hotel the fine points of
ship-service.

Into this pig-mass Hugh pushed, his belly grunting the same as
theirs, but his nostrils flared with exaggerated disdain, neck
and arms tense, all of him constricted, a sudden victim of the
inverted alchemy which reduces human beings and dissolves their
best attributes the minute they crowd with others of their kind.

With a protest and a laugh Hugh told himself that nowhere else
in Nature was this phenomenon evident. Whether by itself or in
a flock a bird, for example, never lost its feathered integrity.
Only man, a vascillating fraction, falsely superior, falsely
inferior, never himself.

"Still here, I see," Hugh threw out with irritation and contempt,

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as if the group were weakly to blame for still being amongst the
belly-grunting mess. He was not unaware *as* his own sense of personal
dignity, suddenly heightened, suddenly cut across and violated,
was the cause of his pointtest; that if anyone was to be blamed *he* was
to be blamed for allowing such a trivial situation to get under his
skin; but he could not keep his irritation from flying at them,
especially at Hod.

"Yup," came from Hod good-naturedly. "Still here. The well-fed
breadline of the *Burgundy*." Then he seemed to hear again, for the
first time to really hear, Hugh's contemptuous tone. He fixed Hugh
with a look and his lips curled. "Now that your lordship is here
they'll let us in at once. Too bad you haven't been with us all along
to make sure that things happen as they should. Our women have been
searching over the world for a man like you."

"Intelligent women," came from Hugh. With the feeling that he was
pushing Hod clear off the boat, Hugh dismissed him, turned to
Barbara, then quickly wished he hadn't looked at her. She was nervous,
hemmed, vacuous, registering only, so it appeared, the clash between
the two men. For her sake he was sorry he had started the thing.
was
Evidently she distressed by displays of temper. But what was the
matter with her? Need such a little thing so completely paralyze
her *as* that she had not even the slightest positive response to
him? Now he was flicked by her unresponsiveness. The sight of her
unlit vacancy began working on him, making him feel vacant too;
and all at once he plunged down into a vast grey hollow from which
he looked up with utter unbelief at the ecstatic figure who had
stood on the bridge, at the impossible girl who had danced in the
sky. Soon a bitterness crept into his disillusion. He saw that figure

24 62

on the bridge, namely, his formerly spinning self, as a sentimental
spinning ass.

This picture of himself continued to burn his feelings when he,
with the others, was finally admitted into a spacious room decorated
with marine effects, French windows instead of portholes, the
windows open, giving a fine view of the sea. He saw the room in
vivid detail, he smelt the food, he took shots of the people who
still lingered at the tables, of the rush of new people who had
been let in along with him; and what he felt of himself he felt of
them; and though he saw everything he went out to nothing.

At the table he pulled still further into his shell, called him-
self all kinds of a fool for having let himself get roped into
the party in the first place, and watched Hod hold sway - which
Hod did.

Hod had Barbara next to him, and he was lordly. He ordered
special wine. With this wine he washed down quantities of hors-
d'oeuvres, skoup, fish, steak... He insisted that Barbara drink,
that Barbara eat, that Barbara talk. After several grand gestures
to the rest of the table he ignored them in his eagerness to
impress Barbara that he was royally desirable.

"I'm a king, you must know," his manner said. "Look at that poor
turtle, Hugh. You can't see anything in him."

As much as she could she kept her lovely head lowered, not
seeing Hod, not seeing Hugh or anyone. Now and again she took a
sip of wine only so as to lessen Hod's insistence. He was crushing
the very life out of her, and she couldn't escape, and she told
herself she'd rather die than have to endure eight awful days of
it, two awful meals a day. Never before had it occurred to her

75 63

that a meal-table could be such a horrible rack.

She looked up once and saw Betty looking at her, then heard
Betty ask, "Don't you feel well?"

"Quite well, thank you." She forced herself to gaze and smile
at Betty, to gaze and smile at the others who had turned towards
her on hearing Betty's question. By her smile she tried to convince
them that what she had said was true; she knew they were unconvinced.

"All of your color has gone," Betty insisted.

"I'm afraid I haven't much at any time."

"Leave her alone," said Sid to Betty. "Stop picking on her. She's
all right, aren't you Barbara?"

She flashed him a glance of gratitude.

Now Hugh again felt sorry for her, but he wouldn't make a move to
take her part because he was still angry with her for having let him
down. It was true, she hadn't much color. She did look vacant and
sickish. She ought to be told about it. This sudden unexpected cruelty
of his appalled him; nevertheless he indulged in it to the extent
of hoping that Betty would say more.

"I'm not picking on her," Betty snapped Sid up. "I simply noticed
how yellow she looks and wanted to do something to help."

Said Sid, "She doesn't look yellow. Her color is better than yours.
Maybe you want to make her sick."

Betty's eyes darted anger at him, but she felt guilty too. Sid
had caught her in meanness. He was right. She did hope Barbara was
sick. If she wasn't, she did want to make her that way. It would
serve her right, this Barbara, this darling of fate who never lifted
her finger and didn't deserve anything but who always had the
best things brought to her on silver platters by God, man, and even

76

64

the devil. Years ago she and Vera had decided that Barbara ought to be alternately loved and spanked. Now she felt that the love ought to be left out and the spanning increased until red welts were criss-crossed all over that slim gawky girl-body of hers. Think of her wanting to divorce Hod. And there he was, making up to her, giving her all attention. She wanted to scream, "Stop it, Hod!"

But she couldn't scream it. Neither could she continue to bait Barbara, because of the guilt Sid had made her feel. What she could do was to cut Barbara dead and to spite Sid by flirting with Hugh. Which she did. And Sid, as she had wanted him to, saw her and got mad, and wanted to shout, "Stop it!" to her.

And Vera, once more in her position on the sidelines, was taking everything in, feeling pretty badly about this group in particular and human life in general. What made it all seem so senseless and petty and futile was the very fact that this party was exceptional. If it was carrying on in this fashion - Hod making a fool of himself over Barbara, Betty being mean, Barbara being cowed, Hugh being sullen like a little boy because things hadn't happened as he wanted them to, herself being nothing, just nothing - what must be happening at the other tables in the room, at all the other tables in all the other rooms of the world? Where were the dignity, the understanding, the love, the great aims, the mere simple sense of decent human behavior that would make life worthwhile? How could these things ever manifest when people, the minute they were thrown together, did just stupid things to each other?

She realized, of course, that she was feeling all of this so poignantly only or in any case mainly because of herself, of her own position which made her suffer. On the sidelines, ignored by

2# 65

all yet exposed to all, with no life of her own, with no real deep satisfying relationship with anyone, she was hypersensitive to the presence of little mean things, to the absence of great beautiful life. Let her have a fruitful relationship, if, for example, she and Hugh were together, building life together, nothing else would matter, nothing else would enter her or seem important. Then Hod could be a fool, Barbara could be spoiled, Betty could be cutting; it wouldn't matter, not *I* so much.

But here was Hugh, not only withdrawn from her but definitely drawn towards Barbara, as Hod was. Here was Hugh, like Hod, in love with child-Barbara, sullen because Barbara was not in love with him, not responding to him, but captured and dominated by another man. This unfavorable picture of Hugh hurt her, she felt, more than anything else. Was this her "mature man", her person "who had learned the secret of having a satisfying independence, a splendid individuality"? She wanted to close her eyes so as not to see. Soon she wanted to close her mind so as not to think. Yet, come to think of it, it might do her good, be just the thing she needed, to face this disillusion and suffer it; and perhaps in time she would learn to demand *of* a man not perfection but simply that he loved her. Which, she suddenly saw, was precisely what she was already *going* now. Now she was simply asking that he love her. All the rest, all the criticism of life and its failings, was merely her protest because he did not.

She saw Hugh look her way, and was surprised and a bit confused. It was as if he had sensed that she was thinking about him. She wondered what was going on inside him, and had an impulse to ask. Fear restrained her. Then, with a feeling that *she* was *doing* something

28 66

audacious and unprecedented, she actually did ask.

His eyes opened. His lips remained shut. Finally he smiled and
said, "A lot of things, I guess. Two illusions and disillusions in
one morning are apt to stir up quite a bit."

"I agree. One in month is plenty."

"Plenty of what?" came from Hod.

Hugh turned to him. "Of the spectacle of human beings trying to
possess what they oughtn't possess - and they oughtn't because they
have no right, because the thing in question does not really belong
to them. Plenty of disappointment. Plenty of surfaces - all of us
living on surfaces, never deeply, everything cut up, life like a
spark jumping from one to another, never staying in any single
person long enough to really do anything. Nothing centralized. All
spread out. Plenty of promises. Few fulfillments. In a word - much
mess - and I suddenly find myself plunged deep in it - no real
living order. Plenty of hamperings and entanglements. Much clinging
to what had best be let go. Did you ever hear the command - 'Let go!'?
Ever think it might be well to obey it?"

Hugh to go screw himself. Instead, he let out a laugh and said,
"I've seen flies in tanglefoot that feel the same as you. Poor
flies. Poor Hugh." Now he was chuckling. As he saw Hugh's eyes
snap he knew he had the best of him and laughed all the more. All
at once he grew sober and asked, "What do you mean - possession?
Who oughtn't possess? Mean me? What do you mean by 'oughtn't? I
don't know that word. I only know can and can't."

"You have something to learn."

"Always willing to learn, my friend. Everyone will tell you that

29 67

old Hod Lorimer is one of life's best students. That is, when he's
not on a holiday."

Said Sid, "And when he hasn't left his past at the pier."

"That's another matter," said Hod. To Hugh he added, "Seems to
me you're heavy with something. Better let it out. Let it out, say
I, rather than let go. You say, let go. I say, let it out. Isn't
good for the system to hold things in. Just tell me if you will -
let's grant for the moment that all possession is bad -"

"I don't think I said it was."

"Then what did you say?"

"I said there were right possession and wrong possession. If some-
thing really belongs to me, if I use it rightly, if I can use it
this way, if it corresponds to me, if I function fruitfully in
relation to it and it does the same in relation to me - then as
long as this mutual right functioning obtains I inevitably and
naturally possess it and it possesses me. All the trouble occurs
when I try to make mine what by nature and by right use is not
mine. If I am writing a book I possess this book by the very act
of creating it. I don't want it to go away because in this case
it would never be finished. I don't want anyone to take it away -
or to x interference with my having and working on it - for the same
reason. But once it is finished, once the work of creation stops,
I at once cease to possess it. It is no longer mine. It belongs to
anyone and everyone who can function in relation to it."

"Oh..." said Hod. "Well, there may be something to what you
say. On second thought, though, a person, a woman say, is not quite
the same as a book, now is she?"

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"Don't be stupid."

"Wasn't aware that I was." He studied Hugh. "Maybe you're put out because this party is mine and not yours."

"Maybe. I wouldn't be surprised."

Hod chqukled; but there was a decision in Hugh's tone which he did not laugh at and did not forget.

All sorts of currents were in the air as lunch ended. After lunch the party slipt up. Vera and Thelma went to their cabin. Hod started to take Barbara off for a walk around the decks; Sid attached himself to them, and she was thankful and Hod could not shake him off. Hugh and Morgan stood in line to have a regular table assigned the group. Betty and Marsh went on deck to corner the deck-steward and secure deck chairs.

The steward was a wiry alert man with sandy hair, twinkling blue eyes, and an amazing memory for faces and names. Of course he recalled Mr Lorimer. These chairs were for him? In a jiffy he had called an assistant, marshalled the chairs together with cushions and blankets, and depoisted them in an open place indicated by Marsh, a spot to the rear of the deck-cafe near the railing on the port side.

Round about the deck was thick with people in bright colors. Two young women, evidently sisters, dressed in snug bodices, flowing skirts, no stockings, bare feet in sandals. They were vital-looking with dark sharp faces, rouged lips, and shocks of curly black hair. An elderly grey-haired man wearing a linen cap. His body was knotty like a sailor's, his head lionine, his tanned face deeply furrowed and very kindly. Next to him was a stunning young girl in her teens, with a companion, perhaps her mother. The elderly gentleman and the

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girl were already acquainted. In a bass voice he was amusing her with anecdotes.

Scores of others. An odd interesting assortment, this ship's company. Against a background of white ventilators, swaying sea, and clear blue sky, a brilliant picture, a floating island in the world.

City faces, city bodies, starved for the sun, were basking in it, hungrily absorbing it. They risked absorbing too much too quickly. Tomorrow there would be red faces, blisters, and, for women with thin or no stockings, red sun-baked limbs. In New York, in cities, too little; now on the ocean too much.

Perhaps so; but Marsh didn't care. With the remark that she didn't see how anyone could want to sit in the long covered and comparatively gloomy rows under the boat-deck, she settled herself for a sun-bath and advised Betty to do likewise. There, in time, the others found them.

Hod came up with Barbara, Sid still tagging along and enjoying it. Hod plumped down into a chair, fumed at Sid, and wished to God he hadn't shanghied him in the first place. Sid, now, was a part of his past that he most certainly did wish he had left at the pier. But to fume at one person was not enough.

Hod glanced at Betty and fumed at her. She, not *drowsy* at all, was sitting upright, head poised, gazing out across the glittering sea, completely enveloped in a strange contentment which had nothing to do with him; and he fumed at her because, in the first place, she hadn't called Sid off, and because, secondly, this was the first time she had ever seemed entirely independent of and unconcerned with him, disconnected from his life and affairs,

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existing serenely in a mysterious world of her own. He hadn't brought her on board to have her be this way.

When Hugh and Morgan came up he fumed at Hugh. Now this devil was back. "Let go!" did Hugh say? Of course. Hugh wanted him to let go so that he could take hold. A blind man could see through that.

Hod asked Morgan, "Get the table?"

"Yup. Signed and yoked for the entire trip."

"O, dear," escaped from Barbara.

Hod turned on her and fumed at her. She needn't feel so pained and put upon and panicky. She needn't close so tight and want to run away. You'd think he was going to hurt her, deliberately planning it. He wasn't at all. Just a talk. Just something to reach an understanding. A talk that would clear things and straighten them out and give his love a chance and keep them both from being orphans. What if he had trapped her into the group? For her good as well as his own. But now he did question if he were using the right tactics. Just a little he wondered. Just a little he squirmed.

This heaving a ton of bricks on her head. This throwing a lasoos around her neck. Might not be right. Might not be wise. Perhaps gentle, tender, coaxing treatment - yes, and he couldn't do it, didn't know how, had no practice. Besides, where would it get him?

If he tried one thing, it didn't work. If he tried another, neither did it work. Damn her, she had him blocked. He was in a weak position, this being on a boat with nothing to do but loaf around and be ordinary like everybody else. If he had her in New York, in the midst of his affairs where he cut a bold impressive figure...

"Morgan," he ventured, "did I ever tell you about that housing project of mine? You know I found a fellow, one of those clever

83 7/1

inventors -" but stopped short when he noticed that Barbara looked
as if she were asleep and Morgan seemed to渐渐 sleepily resent
being called upon to listen to anything. "Oh, go on to sleep. Night
is the time for that, but if people can't stand a little farewell
party without feeling all done in..."

He relapsed, and soon admitted to himself that even he was a bit
let-down. And he admitted the heat.

It was surprisingly hot, like mid-August on land, the steady
unremitting somnolent heat that prostrates earth and makes man pray
or dance for clouds and rain. The stiff breeze which had refreshed
them earlier in the day had died down, as if it too were in a sunken
reaction against the bustle of departure. What wind there was came
from the south and failed to reach the port side. An afternoon drowse
had seized everything and everyone.

But not for long was it to hold Hod. Not even temporarily was
he going to reign himself and let climate and fate have their way.
He moved restively. Soon he jerked to his feet, half-arousing the
others.

"Where're you going?" asked Sid. "Take it easy. Haven't you done
enough in the last twenty-four hours?

"See a man about a dog." Hod growled, peering at Barbara, noticing
that her sleep-laden eyes avoided his look.

"Why not a cat?" asked Hugh.

"A cat, then," said Hod with ill temper. "Want to come with me,
Barbara? Never mind, don't trouble yourself," and it was all he could
go to keep from adding, "You'll wish you had." Off he strode.

Barbara snook back.

"Never seen such a man," said Sid, keeping his eyes open with

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difficulty. "I'm all in. I'm no good when I need sleep. Get sick for it. I've seen Hod keep going for three days at a stretch. God or Nature or something put the real stuff in him. Wish He'd make better use of it. Come on, Betty, to the cabin for us. No use fighting it."

Barbara had been waiting for a chance to leave the party without seeming to be the only one who wanted to leave, the only one who was unfriendly, who was delicate and sickly and could not stand the glaring heat. Now that Sid had confessed his collapse, she felt free to do what she had been almost frantic to do, for ages it seemed - get out of the torture-chamber of Hod and the group; get into her own quiet cool cabin.

Without fully realizing how shaky she was, she forced herself to stand up and announce, "I think I'll go too." Even to her ear her voice sounded queer, faint, remote, and as if she were asking permission to leave, as if she were a child asking the consent of her elders, as if she were hoping that they would confirm the fact and reassure her that now she really could escape from the situation in which she had been so painfully locked. Not yet was she persuaded that the way out was actually open.

Through a sort of haze she saw Hugh look at her with sudden concern, and somehow knew that he feared she was going to faint and wanted to accompany her to her cabin. A fresh panic seized her. For some unknown cause she could not bear the thought of having Hugh with her. If she were going to be sick she'd be sick among total strangers. Not Hugh, not Hod, not anyone she knew.

With a strength of decision that would have amazed her had she

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been fully aware of it, she abruptly left the group and walked away
by herself.

Up the deck she went, keeping close to the railing to grip it
in case she needed support. One arm was across her body as if she
were holding a wrap tight about her. With lowered head she avoided
people, tried to forget she was on a ship, and rigidly kept her
eyes from looking at the sea lest, like a bird with a snake, she
be fascinated and fatally drawn to the thing she feared.

Somehow she reached her cabin, opened the white door, stepped
in - and then, stopped dead in fright while all spirit, all thought
and motion seemed to drain from her. It was as though she had
entered the inside of nothing. The cool air of the cabin was like
the cold clammy air of a tomb.

Gradually as she came to herself her fright subsided and she
felt wistful, wistful for something she could not name, as she had
felt most of the time ever since she could remember. A sadness,
a clear nostalgia for a most important thing she had lost or which
was not yet hers. And Betty and Vera thought she had everything,
and was spoiled because of too much. How little they understood her.
If they only knew.

Now she was thankful that they were not watching her, not
present to criticize and judge and condemn her. Suddenly she
realized she was really away from the group and in her own cabin.
She was in it. She looked around and smiled and a flush of color came into her cheeks. How charming and intimate
it was, cool, refreshing, shadowy white, with reflections of the
bright sea waters dancing on the ceiling...so much smaller and
inhabitable than the great open world of sun and sky and sea and

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ship. Out there on deck she would have felt oppressed and *ix* dwarfed even if she had been with the finest company. In here she felt she was fully herself, all Barbara. The cabin reminded her of her own little room in her family's country place. And, having made this association, she moved forward, *with assurance*, removed her hat, and turned towards the window.

Through the chintz curtains she could see a strip of the blue ocean. It was cool and bright and nice, like a picture of the sea, like a strip of sparkling summer lawn after it had been watered. Lawns were lovely. One could play tennis and croquet on them, with people one liked, and have tea with lots of chatting afterwards, and then dinner and dance at the club.

The sea...the great water was fearsome and made her deeply uneasy; but the room pushed it back, almost closed it out, made it into a picture on the wall. Oh, she was going to like her cabin very much.

The single bed was primly made, very white and very inviting. To the other side was a bathroom with shower. A shower! She'd take one at once. The idea struck her so happily she *xx* clapped her hands and went to ring for the stewardess.

Half an hour later she felt she was completely refreshed and restored; so she slipped on a soft robe and stretched on the bed to think things over. The bed made her drowsy. A few minutes more and she'd have been fast asleep. Which wouldn't have done. She felt she simply had to clarify herself and all that happened and reach some conclusion as to her actions before seeing everyone at dinner. How would she try to handle Hod, now that some strange twist of fate *xxx* had put her in his company again? How would she treat Hugh?

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What would be her attitude towards Betty and Vera? She had been taken by surprise in the morning, that had happened now and it couldn't be helped; but it was up to her to have everything prepared in advance before evening. Why else did she have a mind? Why else had she recently discovered she could use it to help her in her relations with people? A wicker chair was inviting. It seemed to know the secret of being cool and happy and self-possessed. She raised herself from bed and got into the rocker, holding her slender body very upright.

She tried to think about Hod. Many things of the past, mostly painful, rushed into her consciousness and began swirling around until she felt overcome and sickish.

Hugh came into her mind. She tried to hold herself still. All she could see was confusion. All she could feel was upheaval.

Then, for the first time, she sensed the motion of the ship unpleasantly and feared she would really become sea-sick. She moved from the chair, opened one of her bags, and took some medicine her father had given her. Almost at once it did seem to settle her stomach; but that other feeling, as if her very soul were sick, kept growing, growing and growing until she knew what it was. She was homesick.

She hated the ship. It was horrid and awful, its hugeness, its hundreds of strange unsympathetic people. She hated the sea. It was hostile and terrifying, with its glittering wild vastness. She loved her home. She wanted its familiar security, the things she had loved and cherished. She wanted her mother and father. She ached for them and wanted them with a sick throbbing passion as she had never wanted anything - and the nearest dependable

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76

human beings were her aunt and uncle in Paris, and they were eight
days removed.

Struck, her slender frame aquiver, her eyes blinking rapidly
even while they held a bewildered pained stare, she was chocked with
a sob and rushed to the bed and flung herself upon it, face pressed
into the pillows, hands clenched and twitching.

77

9.

Sunset and Two Men

Bright umbrellas, striped a vivid orange and blue with a light green color underneath. Metal tables painted olive, two rows of them the width of the smoking-room. This was the deck-café, with its afternoon patrons sipping cool drinks as they made conversation, as they gazed at the ship's wake, the wide blue waters, the cloud-forms coming into the sky and, nearby, the lengthening shadows on the deck that foretold the sun's ending and sea-dusk.

The **Burgundy** was sailing away from the first sunset of this passage, gliding with its small world through a world so vast that the ship's company, unaccustomed to the universe, were unconsciously moved to occupy themselves with sights of things like glasses and each other's hands and faces, things not much larger than their own eyes.

Behind the backs of the deck-café patrons was a glass-enclosed room furnished with the same kind of tables. In bad weather it was used as a café. At night when the tables were pushed to the wall it became a dance-floor. During ordinary days people put it to odd uses - wrote letters, read, a few women brought in knitting.

Passing forward through this room one entered the smoking-room with two bars and high stools at the far end. A modernistic place, by day a cool club-like lounge, by night an hilarious night-club. The ceiling was of white, grey and green glass, patterned geometrically. Light filtered through, giving the impression of being under water. The wall-seats **MEX** and chairs were done in leather, some dark green, some royal red. The walls were decorated with

90

78

fish in luminous paint. The fish wiggled, waved, wriggled. Not a passage but what some fellow in his cups tried to catch them by their tails. The question was always the same and quite logical, "We're at sea; why can't we catch fish?"

Hod, having come in from the glare of the decks, was seated at a table commanding a view of the entire submarine lay-out. His hulking form bent over a glass of cognac. With cognac he was burning away the galling taste of Barbara. She'd trouble him no more, allure him no more, defeat him no more. He had cut her off, and that was done and finished, now and forever. Would he trouble her? That was another question, which he'd answer at his pleasure. He might, if she got too friendly with Hugh. But she could be assured he wouldn't bother her now. Nor trouble anyone.

Now he was enthroned, with the bar as his kingdom, its patrons his subjects. On a bet he'd out-drink any or all of them. But he wasn't betting now. Neither rivalry or competition appealed to him for the moment. Why should they? Didn't he already have everything and all? Indeed he did; and the feeling made him mellow and expansive. Each drink made him more expansive, more generous, grand, lordly.

What did it matter that he was alone? He had risen above the loneliness of little men whose life was a poverty. He was a big man and his life was full. Full of what? This too was another question which he did care to answer just then. Let Barbara be whereever she was, even with that cockroach Hugh. At his own desire he would command her presence and put Hugh to sleep with a little touch on the chin. Let the party - everyone, Sid and Betty, everyone -

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do what they wished. A gesture would assemble them. As for Andra Feala, the bitch - he'd have a night of joy upon her body and order her beheaded and feed her to his fish. Fish were scavengers. Her flesh might not poison them. He peered about the room, gazing at his subjects, mounting with fumes of regality.

Hod, Grand Sire, stallion,
Bull, tiger,
Supreme One,
Emperor Lorimer
We hail them
With banjos and saxophones,
Firmly believing
That a king can do no wrong.

Hod saw Hugh, Thelma, Marsh and Morgan looking for a place. Rumbling a command at them he grandly gestured that they should sit at his table. "What will it be?" and he seemed to say, "My subjects, I am in good humor. You may have a boon today." And his glance at Hugh seemed to add, "It's a damn good thing you didn't walk in here with her."

"Beer," said Hugh, taking a chair directly facing Hod.

"Same for me," said Morgan.

Asked Marsh, "Is it good beer? I don't like beer unless it is good."

"Beer?" asked Hod, scowling. "What do you mean? That stuff? I'm offering you champagne!"

"Offer it later," said Marsh. "What are you drinking?"

"Cognac."

"Too strong."

"Then wine."

"No," said Marsh, "I'll take beer."

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Hod scowled with disgust. "You, Thelma? Come, order a real drink."

"Beer," said Thelma.

"I'm damned! Such pigs to have at my table. You started it, Hugh Langley."

"Sorry. But you asked what we would have, not what you would have."

"Suppose I did. We'll let it pass."

In the presence of his majesty they guzzled beer.

"It's good," said Marsh, as though she hadn't believed it would be. As Of Hod she asked innocently, "Seen Andra yet?"

"NO!" he exploded. Then he curbed himself and glanced away. "Where's Betty and Sid?"

Marsh's black eyes flashed. "In their cabin, I guess, but you needn't blast my head off. Don't blame me for yourself and - do I dare mention her name again?"

Morgan touched her arm in caution.

"Beauty nap," said Hod. "Sid ought to learn to use his head. It doesn't work when his body says no, or, for that matter, when it says yes. Not strong enough. He thinks his body's weak. His head is weak. Can't use it to drive his body. He goes under when his meat sags. Hell of a note. How does he expect to get anywhere? Christ, I list, I keel, but my head sails straight, eh, Morgan? The loss of one night's sleep has put everybody under, like one bottle will do - hell, what am I saying? - half a bottle, half a glass. I'm bragging. Say," he cut off to peer at Hugh, "tell us, what do you think of this? You've been looking us over with your telescope. What do you think? See anything queer? Think we're a bunch of damn fools? Think the world would be better if we jumped

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overboard?

"Perhaps. Perhaps Nature would be glad if all bipeds jumped over."

"Let's make her happy," said Hod. "Let's make Nature happy. I've had no luck making people happy. Dogs, yes. People, no. Women, no and on. The more I try, the more I hurt them. They hate me. They scream and run. They send out warnings when they see me coming. Here comes the monster, they shout. They crawl into cellars as if a cyclone were coming. Here comes the destROYER. Here comes the KILLER, another Blue Beard. Let's end the mess. Who's game to jump overboard?"

"I'm game," said Marsh, imitating Hod's tone.

Hod jerked up. Marsh grabbed his arm and pulled him down. "You'd do it, I do believe. Don't frighten me again."

Hod smiled, then peered at Hugh and sobered instantly. "Think I'm a ham actor?"

Hugh shrugged.

Hod suddenly felt that Hugh was seeing clean inside him, himself stripped bare with all of his weaknesses exposed; and he hated Hugh and vowed to get the best of him, vowed to prove to him that he had no weaknesses at all, and that everything Hugh had believed he had seen was pure imagination.

"Well, what do you think?" Hod's tone came strong to hide his inner quivering; but as he continued to size Hugh up he began really to feel weak in comparison. Hugh was all together, all sure, no bluff or blustering, with the quality of blue steel, the contained aristocratic thing that Barbara would like.

Morgan interposed, "Give him time to get acquainted."

Hod flung out with an aggressive sneer, "How much time does

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he need?"

Hugh's reserve suddenly gave way. He burnt as if live coals
had been poured into his bowels. One thing more, and he would not
say what he wouldn't do.

Hod chuckled and surprised everyone by leaning back against
the wall-seat with an air that said he was signing a truce. "Sorry,
Hugh. All my fault. You're the kind of man I can say I'm sorry
to, aren't you?"

Hugh waited a minute to see if a smile would come up inside of
him to replace his rage. "Guess I am - only, you are not the kind
of man who ought to have to say I'm sorry, not so often."

"You're right, and I'll take it from you."

Morgan interposed, "Then take these from me, both of you,"
and he pushed two drinks across the table, and cigarettes.

"Bad boys," was Marsh's comment; but she didn't try to hide
that the prospect of a fight had thrilled her.

For a time they drank and smoked and talked of nothing in
particular until Hod, again addressing Hugh, came forth with -
"Don't misunderstand me, friend Hugh. I'm sincere this time. I'm
returning to the same thing, but in a different way. I really
want to know how I strike you. You know - to see ourselves as
others see us - that sort of thing. We all need criticisms. Know,
damned well I do. But who will give it to us to our faces? Behind
our backs - Oh, God! But to the man himself where it will do some
good? It's tough medicine, I know. Go ahead. God knows I've let
you see enough. I can stand it. And mind you, I don't know why but
I don't believe you'll say anything out of evil will. I may be a
fool but I know that sort of thing, the things that are said to

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slay you or only to make you behave as the other wants if you to,
not at all for your good."

"Don't we all?" said Marsh. "Let it drop for a while. Hugh doesn't
want to talk now. In any case, I don't want to hear him talk, and
to be frank I'm tired of you, Mr Hod, in that awfully awfully
serious mood. Let's have a little life, a little fun. We're on a
ship, you know. A toast to someone or something!"

"To Hod," said Hugh, lifting his glass.

They drank to Hod. Hod allowed himself a broad grin. "Just one
last thing and we'll let it drop. Hugh, I want to ask a favor.
If I ever get nasty, just knock my head off, will you? I need
somebody to take me down a peg. Let's shake on that."

Hugh let Hod crush his hand.

Asked Marsh, "Now are you through? Promise?"

They drank the next round to the absent Sid, Betty, Vera, and
Barbara.

The smoking-room was livening. People were drinking at most of
the tables. The stewards limbered, smiled, moved MXXX quickly as
if they liked to hear the familiar clink of glasses, the increasing
buzz of conversation. As the outside light failed, the luminous
fish around the walls wriggled XXXX prominently.

"Ah, yes!" said Morgan, glancing around. "The heart of the ship
comes to life again!"

The next round was to the <u>Burgundy</u>.

"Here's to her!" Hod offered. "May she sail well! Let her list
and keel and dive and roll! Let us ride her, world-riders that we
are!"

A sudden spark lept between them. They gazed at each with swift

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joy, five pairs of eyes from five faces, each different, each
similar, come from widely different courses through life to join,
at this hour, in the smoking-room of the <u>Burgundy</u>.

"Here's to her!" cried Morgan. And Marsh, with a lovely upward
toss of her head - "May she sail well!"

A singing spirit came over Hod. Swaying, he half-rumbled, half-sang -

A ship left port,
Of the rollicking sort,
And sailed away for France;
She left New York,
And popped a cork
Over the shining waters.
The hell she did,
Of course she did,
She did, she did,
<u>Burgundy</u> left New York
And sailed away for <u>XXANEX</u> Havre.

The others leaned forward and joined together in what developed
into rounds of singing, led by Hod's rumbling baritone.

People at other tables turned around to look. Some of them soon
followed suit.

Above the medley, there suddenly sounded the gongs for first-
service dinner. Other noises, scrapings and bustling were heard
as, in twos and groups of four, about half of the room's patrons
left the tables and strolled out. Soon the place was comparatively
quiet, a strange quiet which seemed to cancel even one's memory
of the former buzz and songs and shouts. As if made uneasy by some-
thing impending, Marsh, Morgan and Thelma excused themselves, saying
they wanted to dress for dinner; and in this curiously still room
Hod and Hugh were left at the table by themselves.

They looked at each other. With a rush and a thud they realized
that thus suddenly they were face to face for the first time,

with no third person to interpose or *abruptly* absorb the shocks. Both
would just as soon *as* have found a reason for getting away. It
wasn't at all pleasant to be thrown against each other like this.
Neither could. Something held them.

Hod lowered his head and became involved in himself. Hugh studied
Hod and felt challenged by this man who was, because of the one
situation, a potential friend and a potential enemy. His mind worked
rapidly, calculating how he had best handle that weight, Hod's
greater bulk, his superior muscular strength, Hod's surprises, his
nastiness, the queer power he had of arousing demons. Then he saw
that all he was *feeling* doing was based on the assumption that Hod *would*
attack him, that he *would* have to defend himself - on the assumption,
namely, that they were already actually entirely hostile - and
here, in brief, was the whole story and psychology of man's war
against man. The same identical situation making men potential
friends no less than potential enemies, but the men themselves
losing sight of the possible friendship because suddenly obsessed
by a *strong* belief in actual hostility - and acting on this latter
belief. He was *jared* from his reflections by seeing Hod lift his
head and look straight at him.

"Got to apologize," said Hod.

"Apologize?" Hugh wasn't at all prepared for this. It upset him
more than if Hod had cursed him. "What for? Nonsense."

"To you, maybe. Not to me. I was nasty. Nothing I hate more
in myself or in anybody. No excuse for it. Just an evasion - a
mean contemptible way of saying that something hurts you but not
saying out from the shoulder what that something is. I've made up
my mind to say it now. You hurt me. I hurt you. That's true, isn't

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it? You know why, I know why. There's a certain young lady at the
root of it. Well, why hold back her name? There it is again.
Barbara. I saw the way you looked at her. I wished to hell you were
on another ship, or at the bottom of the ocean. Mind you, not that
I wanted you yourself there, but that I didn't want you here to
interfere with me, to fall in love with her. If you had left her
alone we'd be great friends by now. Or, if I had left her alone -
which is just what I propose to do. Why I began talking was really
to tell you this - I'm out. I've had my time and try; I've failed.
Well, God bless you, it's your time to try - and for her sake I
hope you don't fail."

Hod paused, and they simply gazed at each other in silence for
a while.

"Thank you, Hod," said Hugh at length. "I mean thank you for
what has come to me from you. I didn't expect it. I'm not yet able
to respond with all you've made me feel. As for Barbara, it is true
that she was one of the roots of the trouble."

"One of them?"

"One of them, only. Perhaps the main one. You have been candid with me. I am being candid with you. She was but one of them. The other, to me, was just as important, maybe more so. You were dominant. It was your party, your group, your situation. There is something in me that will not be second to any man - unless I myself choose to be second, or unless the man is, as it were, a member of my family. And that was just where the rub came. I sort of drifted into your situation, and then suddenly awoke to realize that it really was yours, not mine at all. When this happened, I didn't want to stay in. I wanted to withdraw. It was yours. You had a

99 87

perfect right to it, I none at all. But I found I couldn't withdraw.
Something held me - Barbara yes, but you also and Vera and the others.
So there I was, sort of caught -"

"But hell, man, I asked you in. You were in. It's yours too. You
talk about possessing. I don't want it as much you think. For some
damn fool reason I feel that what's mine is yours too. I felt it
the minute I saw you. Of course I may have acted up - but that, as
I tell you, was because of Barbara. It will be different from now
on. She's yours, if you can win her."

Said Hugh, "But now you are slightly wrong. I don't want her as
much as you think. My real feeling is that she doesn't belong to
either of us. Not to you, because if she did then everything would
be
fine between you and there'd be no serious problem at all. Not to
me because - well, I can't give all the reasons, it is mainly
feeling. She'd make me into a romantic idiot. The right woman for
a man makes him into a man, as he makes her into a woman. It's all
wrong. Both of us should leave her alone. That's the big fault
with us. We try for what we shouldn't try for; we don't try for
what we should."

"Agreed," said Hod. "I agree with you in principle, but I find
myself objecting to your use of should and shouldn't. Smacks of
duty and morality and moral obligation. All that stuff is not for
me. Just so much dead weight."

Said Hugh, "I don't see it that way. False morals, yes. To be
gotten rid of. But it has been my experience - indeed I've been
amazed to see the correspondence between morals, that is, true
morals, and reason. They are essentially the same thing, only
reason is mental and morals are emotional. From this point of view

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modern young woman do that?"

"I see you remember our first conversation. Is it really a question, or do you want merely to make more conversation?"

"A real question, of course."

She smiled with humor and indulgence. "You would have to say so."

"I mean it."

"Why, why does it interest you?"

"I am a modern man. I want to understand modern woman for obvious reasons."

"One who wants to understand does not use the tone you used. However, it has changed, and I'll answer. Yes, of course, the typical modern young woman does just what I'm doing. On her is the responsibility for her mother, her father, her fairly, everything. If I had a brother, which I haven't, he'd have no money or else he'd be so wrapped up in himself and his affairs -"

"Do you like having the responsibility?"

"Like it? It's not a case of like or dislike. It is mine, and I accept it."

"Do you feel that it belongs to you, that you ought to have it, that it is right -"

She looked at him and shrugged. "It is right that I have my share, wrong that I have all of it - if you insist on right and wrong."

"If you feel that a thing is right, you do not protest against it; if you feel it is wrong, you do."

"I have no protests, if that is what you mean. None that I'm aware of."

"None against these men who are so wrapped up in themselves?"

"I wouldn't say that. It is true, I dislike them. Don't you?

Then you can't say that my prejudice is peculiar to me or to modern

203-193

women."

"I'm not trying to make out a case against you."

"No? It sounded as if you were. I don't believe in blaming people, so I don't blame men, but I can't help but observe that I am more capable than most of the men I meet. I'm not especially fond of women. I really like men better. Yes, I like them, but there are very few who have my admiration or even my respect. I have pity for weakness, but I despise weakness in a man. You can't marry a man you despise. Men cannot even fool women into believing they are great, any more. The first thing they do is show you how weak they are - and ask you to take care of them."

"Do you do it?"

"I have."

"And then what?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing for either of you."

"Nothing. So what to do? Have you a solution? You are a man, and I am a woman talking to you. Have you a solution?"

"An individual one, perhaps. I'm not sure of that. No general one, though of course I have my views."

"There you are," she said with sudden anger. "What good are they, your general views? What good is your 'perhaps'? Even if you had it, of what use to me is your individual solution? You speak of weak men. How strong are you? You want men to be dominant. Then be that way yourself in a real way."

"You would affirm me then?"

"I would."

"Entirely, with all of yourself, without any division, without

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protests or come-backs?"

"I would."

"You mean, you would like to. Wait a minute. I don't doubt your sincerity. I fully believe what you are saying. But I believe too - and have good reason for so believing - that another part of yourself, a decidedly antagonistic side, would manifest the instant I gave you what this side wants."

"What right have you -"

"My own experience. Once upon a time I let myself be myself with a woman, a woman something like you, intelligent and all the rest. From her I received the accumulated protests of a life-time. What I received then has lasted a long time."

"I see. A burnt child dreads the fire."

"Not quite that. I have no dread of trying to do what I can do, what I can make some headway with. I think I can still honestly say that I am willing to suffer for what I value."

"What do you value? Yourself?"

"Of course. Also, I value people who have some correspondence with me. I would greatly value the woman who made me feel she was my woman. It is possible that with and for her I could do - well, something. But as I said, I have no general solution for men and women at large, in which class you still happen to be. Tell me about your trip to Paris. Will you stay over long?"

She looked at him and looked at him until her anger subsided.

"It is a mistake. I know it. I should leave you."

"As if you've been insulted, something like that?"

"That's just it. I won't allow myself to feel it. I won't let you know you've hurt me."

205-195

"Have I, my dear? I really didn't mean to. You turned on me a while ago. I hate to be turned on, You probably cut across me more than I was aware of, and I unwittingly gave it back. I'm sorry."

She gazed at him until she softened. "So am I. I'm sorry too."

For a while in silence they looked down at the sea, off to the horizon, up to the blue sky.

"We will go to Paris," she said, "mother and I. After Paris, perhaps to Biarritz. I won't be over long this time."

"To your regret?"

"Very much. I love Paris. I want to live there."

"You don't like America?"

"I do, but I like Paris better. For five years I've gone over every summer. When I can, I'll live there permanently. Last summer a friend went over with me. She'd never been before. We had an apartment in the city, rented a car, took trips - quite free of anyone who would ask where we were going, when we would return."

"Your friend, you were close to her?"

"I was." She gave him a narrow glance. "Why do you ask in that queer tone?"

"Wasn't aware that my tone was queer. Like a cat, I was simply curious."

She let it pass. "I suppose you know many people over there?"

"A fair number. Two have done what you say you want to do. They've established themselves in Paris."

"Do they like it?"

"Yes they do. It is working out quite well for them, counter to my belief. I opposed their going."

"You did? Why?"

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"I could see nothing for them to do over there. I could definitely see something for them to do in Chicago where they were then living. They were my friends, and I did not want them to join the army of the uprooted - since they had an alternative."

"Do you really believe in being rooted?"

"Yes and no. I can see no value in being rooted to the earth like a tree, or in pushing one's snoot into the mud like a pig. On the other hand, I do believe we ought to be creatively related to something, each one to himself, each one to others, everyone related in a functioning way to the physical, emotional, and intellectual aspects of man's world. We ought to belong to things. Things ought to belong to us - the soil included. I do not think we should be as we are on this ship. It does not belong to us, and never will. Not one single part of it can we make our own. Not our cabins, not the chairs or decks - nothing. We simply can't inhabit it. This ship-world is typical of all our worlds. We don't belong to our houses; we can't make them our own. Nor to our cities, nor to our wives and husbands. The very food we eat does not belong in our stomachs. And, the greatest irony of all, not even our money belongs to us, as the main part of what I'm supposed to own is actually in the hands of someone else. And in this age in which we really possess nothing, our greatest frenzy, naturally, is to possess. Uprooted, we want to sink into the mud. Maladjusted, we aim to become like cows. Cow-psychology, potato-philosophy - in our consciousness the vegetable and animal kingdoms are well-represented, anything and everything but man. The very rarest thing is a philosophy of man for man."

"Well, said Mr Langley. On the whole I agree. But tell me, will one find

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one find this kind of philosophy more readily in America than in Europe?"

"Of course not."

"Then why object to people going where they will be happy?"

"Object? You misunderstood me. I don't object to that. Let them go, by all means, _if_ they will be happy. I felt that my friends would be very unhappy. To me they seemed to be going to Europe with the belief that over there they'd find the life they wanted, already made, without their having to build it. They seemed to feel that one fine morning they'd wake up, and, simply because they were in Paris rather than in Chicago or New York, find they'd miraculously become the human beings they want to be. This is the illusion of change of place. It is the hope that some other place, some other thing, will do for one the work that oneself has failed to do."

Edith suddenly clapped her hands to her ears and laughed. With her blue eyes twinking she explained, "It's not you. Excuse me." She let her hands fall and went on, "These sounds, the ship, the waves, the wind, they get in my ears and pack down and tickle me and all at once I can't stand it any more. Has such a thing ever happened to you? You must think I'm queer."

"No, not queer," and for the time he was at a loss to know what he did think. It was suspiciously as if she'd stopped her hearing so she wouldn't have to listen to him any more.

She smiled. He smiled. Both laughed.

In an amiable mood they fell to talking of Paris, its cafes and theatres. They compared cities. Spoke of the various boats they had crossed on. She asked about Hod Lorimer and the others of his group.

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At length she said, "I'm sorry, but I think I had better find
mother. She gets lonesome and misses me. I want her to enjoy the
passage, if she can. She misses having things to do about the
house. She's over seventy." Her voice trailed off.

"I too am sorry - which reminds me. How would you like
cocktails tonight, and, after dinner, liqueurs and whatever the
evening may bring?"

"Thank you. I would like. It will depend upon mother. May I
let you know?"

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22.

Hod Visits

Hod dropped in to see Betty. He rapped on the door and, without waiting, entered the cabin which was to have been his. Sid arose. Betty smiled to him. He looked around before saying anything, as if he were just awakening from a daze and wanted to take soundings. In his gruff rumbling voice he greeted them; but his eyes glanced away.

Said Sid, "What's the matter with you, you big stiff? Come in. Don't act as though you were a stranger. Seen a ghost?" He pushed another chair near the bed. "There, sit down. You needn't be afraid of Betty. Her condition is normal with women."

Hod chuckled. "Thanks, rascal. You're good for what ails me. It's a real treat to see someone who's not on the verge of suicide. Oh, I'm all right, but I've been getting a dose of it from Andy. Was about to take my own prescription. Remember? My cure-all. Give 'em a little catnip and then sock 'em with a shillalagh. That's why - oh, well, let's forget it."

His large frame slumped into the chair; and now he was so near
Betty that his alcholic breath nauseated her.

"Sid," she asked, "would you mind opening a window or something?
Hod," and she turned on him with a severe look, "when you come to
see me you've got to be sober. Do you hear me?"

Hod arose, flushing. "I'm awfully sorry. Been drinking like a
fish. I'll go. Just wanted you to know I haven't forgotten you. I'll
take care of everything. Don't worry. I'll take care of it all.
I'm happier than I can tell you. Just be as you have to be and have
the child and be a fine mother and I'll look after everything else,

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and if you're not sick of me you might make me the godfather and -
bless you. Just one thing more and I'll go. I'm sorry I brought you
on the ship as I did. Want you to know this too. Not sorry you are
here. Hell no. I'm damned glad. Glad I brought you, but sorry for
the way I did it, the bulldozing - and I'm going to make amends for
that too. Now hold your nose because I'm going to give you a hug
and a kiss," and, much like a loving bear, he bent over and did give
her a rousing hug and kiss; and then he bowled out the room, his
chest heaving with an emotion that almost overwhelmed him.

Now knowing where he was bound, he went down the main stairway
steps at a time, reached the bottom, turned about and raced back
up, and soon was striding along the deck, his eyes seeing no one.

All at once he heard his name called and stopped short, facing the
long rows of red deck-chairs and their occupants. He saw a woman
smiling to him. Somehow he half-remembered her - a Mrs. Raymond who,
with her husband, had the next table in the dining-room. He smiled
and bowed with great courtesy, automatically.

"Won't you come here a minute?" Mrs. Raymond leaned forward with
sparkling eyes. Such a handsome man, this Mr Lorimer. So romantic
with his splendid military carriage, his wavy dark hair, his bold
blue eyes. Every time she saw him she thought of a dashing pirate
or the fearless chieftan of a band of desert tribesmen. To her he
did not seem at all preoccupied, but present and at her service.
"I would like to introduce you to someone who admires you."

He stepped nearer, and politely went through the ritual.

"Meet Mrs. Geraldy -"

He barely noticed Mrs. Geraldy. As through a mist he saw a lovely
dark face with nice brown eyes and curved smiling lips. "Happy to

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know you," and he promptly forgot her name. "Fine weather, isn't it?
A bit too warm, but that will pass once we are out of the Gulf
Stream - if we are not already out. Yes. Did you see the whale?
I hear that one was sighted far to the starboard this morning.
Interesting creatures, whales."

Mrs. Geraldy said something in a soft voice. Mrs. Raymond did her best. "Won't you sit down?" She began clearing the chair next to her, removing several novels and a steamer blanket.

"Please do," came from Mrs. Geraldy.

Why not? They'd bore him but at least they'd keep him out of
mischief. Then glancing at the static rows of women, the slumping
men, several noisy unmanaged and unmanageable kids, he changed his
mind. All these blue-heads. God, look at them.

"Thank you," he said. "I'd be happy to, only - some people are
expecting me. I was just on my way. Sorry. Surely another time.
Hope you will ask me. Very glad to have met you," and he smiled
and bowed and moved off without looking at Mrs. Geraldy.

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23.

Iridescence

The sun was leaving the sky. The waters were darkening in emptiness. Over the vast sea-world was spreading that strange effect, not day, not dusk, not twilight - a light-absorbing effluence. A folding, a hush, as if the great ocean were calling back all it had given unto life that day, the love and hope and growing, calling it back, absorbing it, storing it away in unfathomable memory.

Through this sea and air the **Burgundy** sailed, solitary and majestic, gliding with long dips and rises. From her decks no other ship, no finite form of any kind, was visible. Alone upon the desert-waters. She moved. A ship in an abstract world in which existed no fixed objects to be approached and passed. Dips and rolls. Humming vibration of motors. Swash of waves. Funnels trailing a long dark band of smoke. As a dream through a dream she sailed on.

Most of the ship's company had gone in. Responding to some call they had folded their blankets and gone in, withdrawing as if in fright from the darkening universe. A few remained out, but the long rows of deck-chairs were as vacant as the ocean. The deck-steward and his assistants busily gathered the robes, putting them in safe-keeping for the night. Several people, late for first service, hurried forward. Several others, eager to reach the smoking-room, hurried aft.

Shortly after dinner, of course, the decks would again be filled with human folk strolling through a summer night at sea. Not now. Now it seemed that the keeper of the **Burgundy** had led his cares to an interior place where they would be protected, spared the madness

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of sudden clairvoyance.

Inside they were, gay and milling. People passing to and fro
along the passageways, crowding each other, buzzing, laughing.
Stewards in trim white coats, ship's boys in blue uniforms with
bright buttons, skilfully dodged amongst the company. Under a blaze
of lights the grand staircase held streams of human beings coming up
and going down, women pausing to view themselves in the great mirror,
critical of their evening make-up.

An emerging, a coming forth of the night life of the ship, a full
and animated substance, color, flavor - something secure, enclosed,
bright, pleasure-bent and heerd-like, as if everyone were glad of
the compactness, with a passion to see, be with, and smell each
other.

On the way back to the smoking-room Hugh and Edith ran into
Marsh and Morgan; so the four took a table together.

They saw Hod at the bar by himself. Andra at a table with Andy
and Jim Phelps. Soon two officers and a third man made Andy and
Phelps share Andra. Vera and Thelma came in, apparently without
seeing Hugh's table. Hugh wondered about Barbara; then made himself
forget her.

"I like you in evening clothes." It was Marsh's gay voice.

"Thank you. I return the compliment."

Edith was striking, her reddish hair glowing. Both men kept glancing at her arms and shoulders.

"Garcon!" said Morgan to a passing steward, "Three Martinis and
one champagne!"

The drinks came.

Morgan lifted his glass. "I can't wish you any more than to feel

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as good as I do. I don't know when - Reminds me of the year I
spent in Paris. Marsh has heard all about it, but she won't mind -"

In the midst of a description of an artists' ball he broke off
to exclaim, "We must dance tonight!"

"Agreed!" said Hugh.

"If necessary, we'll treat the orchestra to drinks. If necessary be damned. We'll do it anyway."

Marsh was disgruntled. "I'm not hopeful, even with your drinks.
Did you hear it last night, Miss Gilroy?"

"Yes I did," said Edith, "but your husband is right. I've danced
to this band before, and I can assure you it is quite good, once
they get started."

"That's the spirit," said Morgan. "Darling, you need another
cocktail. Garcon!"

"Another band, you mean," Marsh retorted. "Oh, I'll accept the
cocktail." She told Edith, "Last night we went down to tourist.
The boys were good, but the heat..."

"Tell you what we'll do," said Morgan. "Right after dinner we'll
come up and start the ball rolling. There are four of us, and four's
enough. What if we do have the floor to ourselves - excellent! I've
always wanted to give an exhibition dance. So have you, dear. Let
it be now or never."

Said Marsh, "It's likely to be never."

"Garcon! Three Martinis and one champagne!"

Barbara was at dinner. To Hugh, a lovely, radiant, exquisite
Barbara. All during the meal he looked at her, she stole glances
at him, and he knew that this night she would like, more, she really
wanted to be with him. Ironically yes - for he had a date with

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Edith. That you are given what you want when your hands are full -
of something else.

At the end of dinner he watched her stroll off with Marsh, Morgan,
and others. Forcing himself, he went to get Edith. Her mother was
not well, she said. She had to stay with her.

"I really wanted to dance tonight. It would have been great fun.
I can't, and I'm sorry, but please don't forget me."

He said he wouldn't; but his voice didn't sound sorry at all.
He had a fear that it sounded too gay. As he dashed off he had a
further fear that his abrupt departure may have wounded her.

That you are the victim of tricks, the puppet of sudden unexpected
shifts. That you are tased, made to despair - then life appears with
its gifts and asks, as if surprised at your state, "What's the matter
with you? Why, here you are! Just the thing you want. You should have
known you were going to get it."

Up the white-panneled passageway he saw his party moving towards
the smoking-room. Hod was far ahead. Sid was between Vera and
Thelma. Barbara, to the left of Morgan.

With hardly a sound he sped up and touched her arm, and spoke
rapidly to gain her consent and announce the new partnership before
Marsh could complicate matters by asking where Edith was. Barbara
nodded and took his arm.

"What's this?" came from Marsh. She glanced behind as if expect-
ing to see Edith somewhere near.

"My partner for the dance," said Hugh. "Now don't confuse me by
asking questions. Barbara is with us. That's all you need to know."

Marsh gave a queer little laugh, shook her, but held her tongue.

To Hugh's left sat Thelma. Next to her was Vera. Something about

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Vera had disturbed him as they placed themselves about the table. He was sure she had manoeuvered to put Thelma between them. Now she leaned back against the wall-cushion, apparently indifferent to him, her presence curiously potent and inscrutable.

Barbara, close to his right, soon engaged him to the exclusion of all else. Barriers were down, and she was sparkling and flirtatious, experiencing with him the quickened circulation of a man and a woman spinning their own private world in the midst of the world's people.

Her chestnut hair was soft and glowing. He noted a place on her forehead, a lucky spot. Her eyes danced. He noticed her lips more than anything. Parting in delighted smiles they were the lips of a girl to whom life is wonderful. Now she made him feel like renouncing all personal desires.

If she had said, "I love you. Take me, Hugh, take me," he felt he would have replied, "No, my dear, you are not for me. I am to care for you, to shield you, to keep you inviolate. Should the time come when you are to be with a man, it will not be with me. I will not be there - but I will bless you."

Members of the orchestra passed along the aisle. He heard Morgan ordering drinks for them. He caught sight of Hod, Andra, Andy, and Jim Pkhelps, ak that queer combine, at their usual table. Andra seemed bored with her three men. Hod glowered. Andy, very unattractive, had a wild haunted look.

The band struck up. Barbara jumped slightly. Morgan twisted. Marsh darted a frown at Hugh. All turned to gaze back at the dance-floor. No one was venturing out. Not one couple. Hugh questioned Morgan, "Well, shall we?"

"That's what we're here for." He stood up. "Come, dear."

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Hugh glanced at Barbara.

"I'm ready," she said.

They arose. Marsh had to get up to let them pass. Morgan took her by the arm and led her down the aisle.

Soon they stepped upon the floor, closing their eyes to the
surrounding gallery of on-lookers.

Hugh and Barbara somehow knew they could and would dance well; I don't know how, but, for the time, there were disconcerting lost steps.

He whispered, "I feel like a colt at his first ball."

"So do I, like when I first came out."

They improved rapidly.

Now he knew the thrill of holding her.

"Nervous?" he asked.

"Not any more."

"A true aristocrat is one who can do anything and never be inferior to himself."

The two couples kept near each other most of the time. Marsh seemed more interested in Hugh and Barbara than in her own dance, or in the people around. Morgan, however, had made observations.

"Look," he laughed to Hugh, "look at Mark Twain beating the drums."

Sure enough the drummer was a caricature of Twain, an elderly man with pinkish face, sprawling mustache, and flowing white hair - an old romantic, reduced by circumstance, still jovial but with a flare for cynical buffoonery.

"Goodness this is a long dance," Marsh protested.

"Of course," said Hugh. "They are taking advantage of us, as we are of them. Morgan's drinks are working."

Said Barbara, "Isn't it queer no one else is dancing."

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"I don't think so," said Marsh, "though I can see why you do."

Barbara blushed. It was time for Hugh to steer her away.

The dance ended. The men clapped. The orchestra smiled hugely and bowed appreciation. The girls wanted to quit the middle of the floor, but they were held there.

"Great fun!" said Morgan. "Come on, band, give us another quickly before we cool off. We trying to win the day for you."

"Great effort," said Marsh.

"Great fun," Morgan insisted. "Wait until the floor fills. Wait until the boat starts rocking and everybody is rolled from one side to the other."

"Yes, wait. Sounds like a tug of war. If they don't hurry I'm going to leave you. It's not so bad when you're moving. I own up, it was sort of fun. But I've had my spree for the evening. Look at those gargoyles gaping at us. If God saw them he'd be scared to death."

"Just the next one," Morgan pleaded. "We've had ours, but I'm determined to bring others into it."

"Well, hurry."

Unluckily, the band picked the worst piece it had. At the first bar Marsh stamped her foot. "I won't!" To Hugh and Barbara she said, "It's horrid of me to leave, but I can't stand it. I simply can't," and off she went, making Morgan step lively to keep up with her.

Hugh turned to Barbara. "Shall we?"

"I - all right. We might as well. We'll be the talk of the ship, but why stxop what we have started?"

So dance they did. At the end of this, the first solo, the band

210 209

leader made his way to Hugh and, bowing and beaming, asked what pieces he'd like played, fox trots, walses, what? Hugh returned the beam and suggested several.

Then he took Barbara to a nearby table, plump into the midst of the staring gallery, and ordered drinks. With these and amusing talk they fortified themselves. Two minutes later, had anyone asked what it was all about, they couldn't have told. It bubbled forth, a buffer of words; it bubbled forth, in and out, and it sailed away forever.

They danced one more. Still no other couples were tempted, though the number of on-lookers had increased.

Handclaps - they were startled suddenly to hear claps coming from the smoking-room. Looking through the broad windows they saw several men arise and salute them. Then more claps. Hugh bowed, but he felt jarred and invaded. As he lifted his head he caught sight of Hod glowering at him. He'd completely forgotten Hod. Next to Hod was Andy. Andy, he felt, was staring at Barbara in a most unpleasant way. And down to earth Hugh came.

After all, he was on a ship, he and Barbara. They were surrounded by these people, critical, gossipy, blind to wonder, but alert to ferret out and exaggerate and misinterpret whatever their fellow men might do. He must have been clear out of his head. To what had he exposed her?

He led her from the floor at once. Both carried themselves with dignity - yes, but he had a feeling he was closing the door after the horse was out.

Would she like a last drink? She shook her head. To join Marsh, Morgan, and the others at their table? She shook her head. She

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too had been jolted. Now, suddenly, she was very tired. She had best go to bed, she said.

Hugh guided her through the smoking-room, nodded to more handclaps, declined Morgan's invite, avoided Vera's eyes. At the exit he stopped and turned around. The orchestra had struck up again.

"Look," he laughed. "We win anyway. The wax is melting."

It was true. Four couples were on the floor. More were going back.

"And so. Now it is a public fact that dancing is an approved entertainment of evenings on the good ship *Burgundy*. Congratulations," and he held out his hand.

She took it and smiled up to him; and somehow she kept holding it.

"Sorry you danced?"

She shook her head, still gazing so strangely.

"You are glad?"

She nodded.

For a while they said nothing but simply stood there, looking. He could feel her hand pulsing, communicating with him.

"I wonder what you see, what you see impressed in here. But I won't ask you now because I know you are just a little tired and just a little sleepy. Come, my dear," and he placed her arm in his and they went down the shining white passageway.

At her door he raised her hand to his lips.

Just then he heard someone call his name. Whip-like, he pivoted around. It was Andy Sherman.

"Yes?" he said sharply, eyes narrowed, spine stiffened. Andy looked drunk, wild, yet sneaking. With more strength he would have seemed sinister.

"Hod Lorimer wants to see you." And with this, as though he had

221-211

delivered himself of a hated misson, Andy wheeled about and lurched
off.

Hugh turned to Barbara.

"It is nothing," he said, patting her hand. "Have your good sleep
and I'll tell you about it in the morning."

Flames At Sea

24.

Hugh strode up to Andra's table. Andy had not returned. The others, seeing him approach, showed surprise. Hod grunted and tossed off a drink. Phelps stared. Andra looked up questioningly.

"You wish to see me?" Hugh said to Hod.

"Me?" Hod's mouth opened. "To see you? You've got it wrong. You're the very last man I want to see."

Hugh forced a tight laugh. "Thanks. I was told by Andy Sherman -"

Andra cut him off. "You must excuse him. Andy is all mixed up to night. I sent him. Won't you sit down?"

Hod and Phelps turned to look at her. They said nothing, however.
Hugh felt something was very queer.

"Thanks." As he took the chair which Andy had vacated, it was like sitting on a porcupine, with Hod and Phelps bristling.

"A drink?" suggested Andra. She moved a bottle of cognac near him and called the steward for another glass.

"Thanks," said Hugh; but he was thinking of Andy. Now he was thinking of Barbara too; and he was becoming curiously restive. Something needed to be explained. He wanted to get at it.

"To happy days," said Andra, raising her glass.

Hugh raised his. He made a face as the stuff scalded his throat.

"Not bad, eh?" came from Hod.

"Quite good."

"A good dance tonight?"

"Quite good."

Hod grunted. The two men gazed at each other. Neither wavered and

223 2/3

it became awkward. Hugh turned away. What could be more stupid than
two bulls in an eye-wrestle? Two bulls without horns locking eyes.

Andra said something. Hugh replied. Suddenly he looked back over
his shoulder as if expecting to see something.

"Nervous?" asked Hod.

"Yes, a bit."

"Do y' know, Langley, I'd like to tell you something."

"Go ahead."

"You're one of those clever mysterious fellows, aren't you?" He
peered. "A psyche-buzzard. A fellow famous for his effects on
women."

"I'm sure it is just as you say."

Another eye-wrestle.

All at once Hod guffawed. "Oh, to hell with you." He laughed
again and thumped the table. "I'm just a wee bit tipsy, but I
remember one thing and I won't forget it. Once I felt we were
brothers, and then we went on deck and saw that sunset. Remember?
Of course you do. That was a big moment for me, Hugh. You're all
right. You're a good old timer. I never get nasty when I'm drunk.
Nope, that's one thing I won't have. That little squirt who was
sitting where you are, he's the nasty boy - and I'm saying it so's
Andra and Phelps can hear it. If they don't like it they know what
they can do. Well, Hugh, after seeing that squirt, I'm through with
nastiness forever. Good speech, eh? But I mean it. Shake hands,
Hugh."

Hugh let him crush his hand. Hod peered at Andra and Phelps to
see what effect his words had had. He grinned at Phelps and stroked

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Andra's arm. "Don't get in a huff, my beauty. One has to speak the truth sometimes."

With a snap Hugh stood up, his body like a trigger about to spring.

"Anything wrong?" asked Hod.

"Don't know. If you will pardon me, I'll return."

Off he went. He went to Barbara's cabin and listened. All was quiet but through the shutters he could see light. Should he excite her about nothing? This tumult in him, this feeling she was in danger - a boy brimful of detective stories. Once already he had lost his head. Twice the same night was too much. But his heart was beating.

He tapped lightly and waited. He tapped again. He called. A faint rustling. Barbara was stirring.

"It's Hugh. Don't think me crazy but I felt I had to make sure you are all right. Are you?"

Silence - and then her voice said yes. Now he was sure it wasn't so. "I must see you."

"I'm all right."

"Barbara, come to the door. Open it."

The bolt slipped. The door opened ever so slightly. He could see one eye and a narrow strip of her face. Somehow it struck him comically.

"You mustn't come in," she said. Then, in a flash, she had stepped back and opened the door.

Now she retreated from him as if he were a ghost, her face drawn and pale, lips trembling, eyes staring, pain creased on her forehead, one hand gripping her dressing-gown, the other quivering under her chin.

"What on earth has happened?"

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She backed away, keeping her hurt eyes on him. When she backed against the dressing-table she gave a jump.

"You must tell me."

Her throat, tight, sort of gurgled. She waved an arm in a way that would have been funny under other circumstances. Then color came into her cheeks, her eyes misted, and her body relaxed as if she had realized she need no longer grip herself. She smiled brokenly. "I suppose it was nothing."

She moved towards the bed and sat down. He remained standing, his face lean, his brow knitted. Then he too smiled, gave a queer shrug, and lit a cigarette.

"It was Andy Sherman."

"Andy! What did he do? But why am I surprised? I seem to have known it."

She told him. A few minutes after he had gone she heard her door open - and there was Andy sneaking in. She wanted to scream, but her mouth was locked. Without a word he came for her, like a stalking animal. She moved back. She got behind the bed. He kept coming. Suddenly he collapsed, sank to the floor, buried his head, and began sobbing in the most awful way. She stood there as if petrified. Soon he struggled to his feet. He seemed broken into bits. He looked at her in the most horrible way; and then, as though it were the end of everything, he said goodby and dragged himself from the room.

"Goodby - that was the only word he spoke the whole time. His voice - I can't describe it. He said goodby to me, to me -" and she passed a hand over her face.

"Incredible," said Hugh.

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"I can't believe it. What did he want? Why did he come here? What was the matter with him? Such things don't happen, do they? Well, it's over," and she sighed deeply. "Nothing really happened to me. I suppose there'll be a reaction. There always is, and they are the worst of all. I don't mind it now, only I'd like to know why. Why does he hate me? That was the worst, the hate. It's awful to have people hate you - and I don't even know him."

Hugh shook his head, and couldn't think of what to say - which was just as well. She, released, talked on.

"Now I feel much better," she said. She looked at him with sudden surprise. "Why did you come back? Did you know?"

"Sometimes one does. I wasn't sure, else I'd have come sooner. You are quite all right now?"

"Yes." She stood up and went towards him. "Thank you."

"But I haven't done a thing. As for him - I don't think you'll be troubled with Andy again, so I wouldn't -"

"I won't. You have done something. I'm very grateful. If it hadn't been for you I'd have held the whole thing in me, and that would have been awful. Thank you."

She put her out her hand. He took it. It was warm but her arm was stiff. He felt he was shaking hands with a wooden angel. He felt, too, that now at all once she had become aware that he, a man, was in her bedroom, that she was in a dressing-gown, that it was late at night, and she wanted him to leave. He inclined his head and smiled wryly.

He was hardly out of the door when he heard the bolt shoot into place.

He walked on. Now that he knew no serious damage had been done

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her, his personal feelings rushed to the surface, and again, above
the others, he felt that burning resentment - of what? What had he
expected? What more could have happened? Had he expected her to
rush into his arms, cling to him, cry for protection, say she was
madly in love with him? Of course not. Nor was he - in short, what
was it all about? It wasn't like him to be confused, uncertain as
to desires and meanings, in the dark as to what was going on within
himself.

The next thing he knew he had returned to Andra's table, with
no clear motive. Now why had he done this?

"Well," asked Hod, "is the good ship straight on her course? Sight
any icebergs? Is it eight bells and all are well?"

"Quite well."

"Say, fellow, what's on your mind? You can tell a friend. You're
not yourself. What's up? That's right, tell me it's none of my
business."

Hugh gazed at him.

Jim Phelps sprang up, shouted goodnight as if he intended the
words to blast them, and strode off.

"Good riddance!" Hod exploded. "Thank all cats! Even the meyowy
hissing scratching clawing biting cats! Scat! Goodnight to the
bloody bloot! I thought he'd never clear out. Don't know how in
hell I sit here night after night with this menagerie. Andra's all
right - a great kid. But Phelps and Andy - bah! And as for myself -
oh, God!"

When the riot subsided Hugh asked, "Where is Andy? What's the
trouble with him?"

"How should I know," said Hod. "Better ask my girl friend here.

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She knows all there is to know about one Andy."

Hugh turned to her. "Was it _you_ who sent for me?" For the first time that evening he really looked at her, seeing not what was in his mind but Andra herself. A twinkle came into his eyes, a direct beam that touched her and made her eyes twinkle too. "It doesn't matter," he said. "Think I'd like a drink. Will you two have one?"

"Here," said Hod, "there's still some stuff in this bottle. Help yourself. Let's kill it."

The smoking-room had thinned out. Only a few tables were still occupied. Night quiet was overtaking it. The stewards looked as if they felt business was over. Through the windows Hugh could see several stray late-birds taking last turns about the deck.

The idea occured to all of them at once.

Said Hod, "What d' y' say? Let's go out and see the sea and stars and the moon that smiles on lovers - bad moon."

Andra, wrapped in her evening cloak, walked between them. Her arms were in theirs. It was chilly. The men thrust hands in pockets and wished they had topcoats. They walked briskly. Into their mouths came a salty taste - brine and the sea. Up and down with long strides the _Burgundy_ sailed on, on and on over curved black waters.

Andra began humming. Hugh had whiffs of her perfume. He felt the supple movements of her body. So did Hod. She sang and laughed. She began skipping along. The men moved faster, dark silent men listening to the thuds of their heels on the deck-planks, feeling the woman with her body between them.

She began running. They ran with her. They raced. At the turn of the deck they came near tripping over each other. They shouted and kept going. Finally they pulled up and with one accord let

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out hilarious cries.

"Hi, hi!" shouted Hod. "The night's just beginning!"

"Shhhh," said Andra, putting a finger over his mouth, "people are sleeping."

"To hell with them! Hi, hi! The night's just beginning."

"Come with me," said Andra.

She led them to her cabin. Hod at once ordered champagne.

"On top of all the rest?" asked Andra.

"Sure. Champagne is for special occasions and this is one of them. No matter what or how much you've had. Even old Hugh is waking up. Bless him bless the old man," and he gave Hugh a hug and a poke. "Y8 know, Andra, I like this fellow - but this, so help me, is the first time - barring one, mind you, always barring that once - the first time I've ever seen him human. None of that remote stuff. The priest is dead; long live Hugh!"

Andra arranged chairs, she herself took the lounge and crossing her legs.

The champagne came, and the glasses.

"Anything else, sir?"

"Sure," said Hod. "Sandwiches, sandwiches, piles of 'em."

The steward bowed and went out.

Hod uncorked the first bottle with a pop. He poured. Andra got up and gave a glass to Hugh. Hod help his up. "A toast," he cried, "a toast to all world-riders. I'm going to make a world-rider of Hugh. Here's to us - and a strong hand, a throbbing heart, and a clear head! Drink!"

The steward arrived. Hod gave him a large tip.

Then they sat down really to make a night of it. As they drank

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and laughed and talked, Hugh watched Andra, fascinating Andra at her best. Watched? He moved; she moved him until every physical atom was fiery. To the roots of his body she stirred him, made him feel powerful with dark power, the sheer male, stripped of the veneer which civilization had tried in vain to sink into primitive substance. He could have lept up, kocked Hod out, put his fingers on her throat...

Could he? He imagined he could - stupid imagining. Dark power...sheer male...veneer...primitive substance - all rot! All champane. So he too was a dog, a promiscuous dog at that. Throw him a bone and he'd leap for it, barking and slobbering.

With all his force he pulled himself up. The talk had turned ribald.Sex and drink were thick in the air, and a haze of smoke. But give her her due. Andra was amazing in her way. And she, though playing both of them, was openly bewitching Hod. And Hod, what could the great Hod do? But Hugh had to credit him too. The man was knit and vibrant, like a titan preparing for a feast. Or was this champagne also? In any case, no doubt of it, it was Hod's night. And he - he was out.

He stood up.

"Hold 'em there!" cried Hod. "Steady man!"

He got up and bowled over to help support Hugh. Hugh sort of like the feeling of pretending he was goggly drunk. Hod's swaying weight bore on him; and of the two, it was he who held Hod.

To Andra Hod said, "'Sa good thing th' sea don't drink, if y' know what I mean. Th' ship, I mean. Ha, ha, ho, ho, and cat's bells! 'magin what would happen if th' good ole Burgundy got tight! Oh,

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wouldn't we rock an' wouldn't we roll until th' cows come home!

You know, th' sea-cows! Hi, hi, and ho, ho - and cat's bells!"

And he rocked until he almost tipped Hugh over.

"Must you go?" asked Andra.

"I must," said Hugh. "Au revoir - and it has been a great night. My sincere compliments to you. Adam would have fallen long before he did if Andra instead of Eve had been his wife."

"You are amazing."

Hugh made a little crooked smile. He turned to Hod.

Said Hod, "Say, old timer, I'll go with you. Blast me if I don't. Sure, I'll go with me, and you'll go with uzzzz - and - s' long, Andra," and he winked at her as significantly as he could.

They walked the deck, and walked and walked.

"Let's dive in an' "ave a swim," said Hod. "Nothing like a swim
as t' sober up."

"Good idea," said Hugh.

They walked. Then came from Hod - "Damn cold out here. Where to
blazes is th' sun? Damn cold, know it? Guess I'll go in. Coming?"
and he peered at his old timer in a way that let Hugh know he
wasn't as tight as he let on.

"No. You go ahead. I'll keep walking."

"All right," said Hod. "So long."

Hugh caught him by the arm. Now it was his time to wink and
laugh. "Sorry I kept you away this long. Don't do anything I wouldn't
do."

"What's that?" He caught Hugh's smile and chuckled, "Oh, you go
plumb to hell. Nope, to heaven. You belong in heaven, don't you, old
angel, you great old timer! Not like that bloody bloot. Scat on him!"

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Mewyowy scats - and may all cat's bells bust him! Know who I mean?
Phelps, the bloody bloot." He laughed again and slapped Hugh on
the shoulder. "S' long, angel. You'd have been one hell of a log
to lift if you hadn't taken it into that wise head of yours to
clear out. Do th' same for you some day. Night, night, and sweet
dreams, old boy!"

Ch06.qxp 4/14

25.

Shock

When Hod awoke his first thought was of Andy Sherman. He had a
troubled feeling about Andy. The feeling was so sharp he believed
he must have had a bad dream.

He rubbed his eyes and looked about the room. With the curtains
drawn there was no telling what time it was. Andra never kept a clock.
He had an idea it was early.

She, beside him, had not stirred. He peered at her. Andra was
sleeping deeply, peacefully. Even in her sleep she seemed to be
enjoying something. Hod smiled. Resting on an elbow he contemplated
her a while, wagging his head and murmuring, "Beautiful bitch,
beautiful bitch."

Then again the image of Andy tugged him. It was as if Andy, in
distress, were calling. Now all at once he felt he had to find him.

He got from bed and ran under the shower. He emerged and made for
his clothes. Cats bells! His evening suit! Hod grunted, swore, and
looked about as though expecting a day-suit to walk forward, present
itself, and rescue him. He grinned, shrugged, and began dressing.
Let the ship's company see him and be damned.

He left off the shirt, the white vest and tie, turning up the
collar of his coat, comically hoping in this way to disguise himself
somewhat. With all extra paraphernalia tucked under an arm he smiled
hugely at the figure he would cut dashing and ducking through
passageways. Then, tossing a kiss to sleeping Andra, he made a bolt
for it.

Luckily it was not yet eight o'clock and the passages, except for

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stewards, were fairly empty; but the people he did encounter opened their eyes. He brazened by, chuckling. Now they did have something to talk about! He was just as glad, however, when the dash was over.

One of his cabin-mates was still curled in berth. The other was at the stand, washing. Hod was in the habit of joshing him. Now it was the man's turn to razz him.

After a hurried change he bowled into the dining-room and had a quick breakfast of onion soup, soda crackers, coffee, and cigarette. Now he felt better physically, but Andy worked on him with renewed force.

He strode the deck. No Andy. Too early, of course. The kid was still sleeping. Let him sleep. What was all the worry and rush about? From the way he was behaving you'd think *huckaroo* it was an actual fact that the kid was in serious trouble.

Let him sleep? Sure - but there was no reason why he shouldn't look in and put himself at rest. At the purser's office he got Andy's cabin number.

He poked his head in. Two of the berths were occupied, the third not. A steward came up.

"Is this where Mr Sherman is?"

The steward said yes.

"Was he in last night? I'm a friend of his and I've got to find him right away."

The steward looked in. No, that berth, the one untouched, was Mr Sherman's.

"Queer," said Hod. He gazed at the steward. The man, puzzled more by Hod than by anything else, gazed at him.

"When did you see Mr Sherman last?"

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Now a funny expression came on the man's face, as if he had re-
called something which seemed queer to him too. He said that around
midnight the night before Mr Sherman had rung and asked for a bottle
of cognac and sandwiches, insisting on plenty of sandwiches.

"What'd he do with them? Where'd he go?"

The steward shrugged.

"You haven't seen him since? Something funny about this."

"Perhaps..."

"Yup, perhaps, but I've got to find out for sure. Thanks," and off he went.

He wanted to press buttons, call boys, ring alarms, mobilize a
city police-force - or else do it all by himself in exactly one
minute. What he actually did was to pace the ship, feeling more
XXX worried with every step, feeling more futile and foolish too.
He looked in all public rooms, on all decks, down in tourist-third.
Finally he was driven to call on someone else.

Andra was dressing. "Andy's disappeared," he blurted out.

As she hurried, he told her all he knew. Then the two of them
set out. Running into Jim Phelps they asked him. He knew nothing.

Eleven o'clock came and passed. Twelve...and the ship's great
whistle acknowledged high XXX noon. It was another brilliant day,
clear, blue, sparkling, somewhat cooler. The **Burgundy** swept along,
her deck-chairs with full quota of laughing buzzing people.

Had had not wanted to bring ship officials into a thing which
might prove to be nothing at all; but now he felt they should be
notified so's they could help. If anyone could help.

He and Andra had a talk with the purser. The purser sent a boy to
fetch the cabin steward. The steward repeated his story of the cognac

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and the sandwiches.

"Mm," said the purser, tapping his desk. To Hod - "You think it may be suicide?"

"That's what I'm afraid."

"But the sandwiches? The cognac, yes. But sandwiches..."

"Can't make head or tail of it."

"What motive?" asked the officer. "Was he in such a wretched state, then?"

Hod and Andra said he was.

"Well, let us hope not. We will have a thorough search made. I sympathize with your feelings."

"Thank you," said Hod.

Before it was officially decided that Andy was missing the news had leaked out, passed around, and the entire ship's company was buzzing about the suicide. Indeed even before the official search commenced they had Andy dead - and they came to life. Under the spell of this morbid animation, they buzzed and buzzed, described Andy to each other, picked him over, pointed to Hod and Andra as his companions, criticised, judged, wept, and were exalted.

A human flame put out gave rise to something to gossip about.

And poor defeated Andy, though lost, was thus suddenly lifted into prominence and fame in this eight-day world.

Hod was more shcoled than if one of his own family had died. He would not have felt responsible for that; he did feel responsible for this. It was he who had driven Andy to it - that awful scene in Andra's room, that awful bungling afterwards. "I've killed a man," was how he felt.

He wanted to write a letter to Andy's relatives, offering to do

239-227

anything, to place himself, his money, everything he had, at their
service.

He was the rotten one.

He blamed himself to Andra. Then he vowed he didn't want to see
her any more, ever. He'd lay off her, lay off women, lay off drink,
lay off himself, lay off everything and everybody and crawl away
and die.

For a time he tried it out. He avoided Andra. He kept out of the
smoking-room. He didn't touch a drink. He kept by himself; but he
couldn't endure being alone with himself for very long, with all of it
bottled up and tearing him.

So he sought Sid and Betty, stayed in their cabin long stretches,
even had meals there.

"Sex and booze," he gave judgement. "Sensuality - that's the devil
at the bottom of it. If it hadn't been for - hell, what's the use
of talking. I've killed a man, that's all. Plain killed
him. As if I couldn't do anything else. The great Hod, a murderer.
Because he didn't know what else to do with himself. All the energy
in the world. All the chance to do right - and I always do wrong.
Sex and booze - and now this last. Oh, God - I've killed a man."

The ship at large saw very little of Hod Lorimer for the next
few days.

26. Ripples

That same morning, Barbara awoke and thought of Andy. The stalking
scene unrolled, Andy's face, his hate, his crouching demented approach.
His sudden collapse, the terrible sobbing, the Goodby. Now she was
upset afresh, more than ever, because it was so vivid; but she found
she was less concerned with herself than with him. She'd soon get
over it - but Andy, never before had she realized that human beings
could degenerate and become so pitiable. That poor boy, what would
become of him, what was the fate of such people? The world was
civilized, with science and knowledge. Surely something could be done
to help them.

Then she thought of Hugh and felt troubled about him too and
couldn't understand why, until she reviewed what happened in the
cabin after he had returned to help her. Now she saw herself as
he must have seen her - terrified, rigid, treating him as if he
were another Andy bent on attacking her - and then, at the end,
after all he had done, saying a polite "thank you" and practically
asking him to leave. What must he think of her? What should she
think of herself?

That something was wrong with her. That no one else, no girl
she knew, Not Betty, not Vera, not Marsh, not anyone would have
behaved so awfully. That she'd never grown up. That she never would.
That she didn't deserve to be liked by a man like Hugh. That the
finest love of which she was capable would not make her worthy.

She held herself very still. Something had suddenly happened to
her. She did not know what it was, but it frightened her and made her

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quiver. She stilled the quivering too. Into her stillness a new
feeling came, came of itself inspite of herself, arising with soft
wonder like the first bud issuing into Spring.

Without waiting for breakfast she slipped from bed, put on her
most becoming dress, and went out on deck.

A spinning current swept her along; but she did not see Hugh.

But the day was like her mood - and the blue sea too - and the
briny wind. It was perfectly marvelous simply to be alive and to
be - in love.

She went to the deck-chairs, remembering their first meeting
there. Here he would find her. Her eyes gazed out over the vast
bright waters.

She pictured him in every detail. She recalled what he had said,
the tones and all. And their dance...and the walk through the white
passageway...and how he had listened to her tell of Andy, sending
his strength and tenderness to her, as her father would have done.

Any minute now he would come around the deck-cafe and come straight
to her with a look in his eyes she would know. This morning he would
see her too, and know. She would not hide from him. She could not
hide. She would rise and let him see and take and have; and she would
go with him into his world, meet his friends, learn what he was
doing, learn to help him, learn to think and talk, be broadminded
with many thrilling interests beyond the life she had known, herself
grown up, in all ways worthy to be with him.

With a catch and laugh she heard her mother, her dear unknowing
mother exclaim, "Barbara, what has come over you? Legally you are
still Hod's wife. Do you know what you are saying? You don't know
who this man Hugh is, yet you say he is a very dear friend of

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yours - and seem delighted! I cautioned you against chance acquaintances on the boat. I knew I should have gone along. Barbara!"

She smiled at the vast bright sea, and told herself that some things in life were above the rules. After all, there was such a thing as knowing a person in an extraordinary way. That was just it! An *extraordinary* way - that was exactly how she knew Hugh.

She saw herself telling this to her mother. Her mother's eyes opened wide with that severe, incredulous, wounded expression she always assumed. And to her mother's reply she already had the answer, a cool, firm, final, slightly devastating answer - "With Hod and myself it happened according to all the best rules, didn't it? Rules can be as mistaken as people." She laughed to herself. Her mother was floored!

Now she had a sense of largeness - not yet of fullness - but a wonderful sense of the world as a vast free place, herself growing into the person she had always wanted to be.

When she became this person in reality, she'd give everything to Hugh, because she owed it to him, because through him she had won it, simply because she would want to.

Time passed.

She watched the lengthwise mass and lines of the *Burgundy* dip and rise. She dipped and lifted too. She saw the ship's great funnels trailing a long dark arm of smoke. She saw the sun approach meridian. With a thrill she heard the deep reverberating whistle salute noon.

Now she peered among the milling people. Twisting around she glimpsed, on the stern deck, Marsh, Morgan, and two others playing shuffleboard. But Hugh? Surely he had come out. She grew impatient,

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wistful too, feeling that the right time was passing, that something rare was slipping from her.

Then it was that the news of Andy's disappearance, sweeping over the ship's company like a wind over the sea, reached people near her. She heard the quickened buzz; but at first paid no attention. Inadvertently, however, she overheard a phrase or two and pricked up her ears. A couple turned around to stare. "Oh, dear," she thought, "what's the matter now?"

Her first guess was that Hod was in trouble. She'd heard his name mentioned. She tried to hear more. The talkers lowered their voices. It made her feel queer.

A strange couple came up. Seeming to know nothing of her or that these chairs belonged to her friends, they plumped themselves down, began buzzing - and she got an ear-full.

"So it's Andy," she groaned. All at once she felt sick all over. Now she did want Hugh. "Andy - jumped overboard - last night."

She tried to hold herself. She heard Andy's voice. Everybody knew it. That was why those people had turned to stare. They were connecting her with the suicide. It was a public thing. Something snapped, and she lost her head.

She fancied the ship sending a radio to New York. She saw her mother and father picking up a newspaper to be shocked by the flaring headlines -

SOCIETY GIRL IMPLICATED IN SUICIDE!
HEIRESS LINKED WITH DEATH AT SEA!

She lept from her chair, her face scarlet, her eyes stinging, and dashed for her cabin. Once there, she planted her body in the wicker chair and sat rigidly, as if she had received a blow too cruel for her to comprehend.

232

CHAPTER 20K

27. He Was Pacing

Hugh was pacing the starboard deck restlessly, not knowing what to do with himself. He felt gritty, gritty against himself, against Barbara, against Hod and Andra, against the ship in general. He was caught in between himself and others. It was like being on a rail, with his legs strapped under. He was not alone in himself; he was not really with anyone else. He'd gone out too far to withdraw; yet he had not gone out far enough. The situation held him. He could do nothing about it.

He had heard the rumor. "Poor kid," he said.

Had Barbara heard? Perhaps he ought to go to her; but he felt her wooden arm shoved against him. He felt like giving her a double dose of his own much longer wooden arm.

Someone came up beside him.

"Hello," he said, looking into Edith Gilroy's laughing eyes.

"Good morning! Mind if I walk with you?"

"No."

"Aren't you cordial! Never mind, I heard of your triumph last night. Didn't miss me, did you? You promised, you know."

"So you heard about it."

"Of course. The whole ship's talking. Well, not quite, but you are, shall we say, better known than you were yesterday at this hour? See how the deck-fleet looks at you? Aren't you proud? Don't you feel important? I'm putting it mild, when I say that you at least have a chance of becoming a ship-celebrity."

"Enviable," he said to her. "Hugh Langley and Andy Sherman rise

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to fame at the same time if not in the same way." To himself he
said, "At Barbara's expense." For now he was sure that if Andy had
not seen her dance he would not have fastened on her.

"You've heard about that poor boy?"

He nodded.

"You knew him?"

"Slightly."

"What was the trouble?"

"Haven't the faintest idea."

"Cross this morning, aren't you? I've done nothing to be scolded
for. Did you get up on the wrong side of bed?"

"Ah," he exclaimed, "that's isn't! I've been wondering what the
trouble was. Looking for profound causes, as usual. Nothing of the
sort. You've hit the nail. Just a minute." He stopped her and, before
the eyes of the deck-chair fleet, walked three circles around her.
Then, smiling now, he took her arm and moved on.

"What was that for?"

"The one and only sure way to counteract the influences of having
gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. Try it sometime, in public
or otherwise. However, I may say this. It works better when people
are gaping at you."

"So it would seem. I do believe you are cured. Like magic, isn't
it?"

"Quite."

They were nearing the stern deck where Morgan, Marsh, and the
Tildens were at shuffleboard.

"Greetings!" Morgan waved.

As they came up the game was delayed long enough for Morgan to

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make introductions. So these were the Tildens. Hugh saw a smiling
couple who responded to him in a way he liked. She wore a black
straw hat with a wide wavy brim which seemed out of place on ship-
board. His head was bare. He wore knickers and blue stockings. Both
seemed well-conditioned, eager, spontaneous, sure of themselves, he
especially.

"How goes it?" asked Hugh.

"Neck and neck," said Tilden. Then, however, he shot and knocked
one of Morgan's discs out of the plus ten box.

"Oh!" cried Marsh. "Now hit him and knock him out!"

Morgan's shot went wide. Marsh stamped her foot and flashed her
tongue at Tilden when he kidded her.

"Don't you play?" Alice Tilden asked Hugh. "And you, Miss Gilroy?"
Wouldn't you two like to have the next game?"

"No thanks. We'd rather watch."

It was the women's turn to push. Marsh was first. Hugh, with
Edith and Alice Tilden, was standing near the curved stern railing.
As he glanced back and down he could see the under-deck, the sea-
men's deck quarters, and also smell them, an oddly unpleasant oily
odor. Several men in worn blue outfits and sabots were clanking
about.

A young boy in blue jumper was perched on the aft rail. Below and
far behind him, like a road across the ocean, was the wake of the
Burgundy, the churning waters, a wide bubbly foamy lane like a
trail over the seas. Hugh thought, "Into those waters, far far
back there, Andy jumped, and the sea swallowed him, and the ship,
relentless as life, sails on, and life and the ship go on just the
same, and we laugh and joke and play shuffleboard, and that young
sea-boy..."

247 2 35

It was as though the boy were balancing on a trapezoid, with nothing between him and the vast spread, nothing to catch him should he slip. A slight jolt would have pitched him overboard.

"That boy!" said Alice Tilden. "He gives me the shivers."

"Your turn," Tilden told her impatiently.

The Tildens won.

"That's that," said Morgan. "Now you're one up. Now what? Had enough for this morning?"

Hugh suggested, "Come with me and have beer."

"All right," said Marsh, "we will." To Alice she added, "I had one yesterday before noon under protest. Today I'm all for it."

Said Tilden, putting his stick aside, "Then let's go in." One thing finished, he was ready for the next.

236

28. Six At A Table

In the smoking-room Hugh was pleased to sit back and let Arthur Tilden dominate the conversation. He was still rather gritty against himself, felt that nothing was to be gained by more talk; and, besides, he was interested to see what kind of person this sandy-haired automobile man was. His withdrawn role was make easier by the fact that Tilden, so he felt, wanted to impress him.

"Have you noticed?" Tilden was saying. "Of course you have. The way we get to know about people on these ships. But how do we do it? Talk about the radio, here's communication for you. Information seems to pass through the air. Take my wife and myself. We haven't mixed much. This is only the third day out. But we can tell you the life-histories of at least a dozen people. Doesn't happen this way on land. On land you can live next door to folks for years and hardly know their names. Take some of the families where we live. It's a small town. We have to be near the factory -"

"Quite true," said his wife. "I wonder why. What makes the difference?"

Said Edith, "On a ship we have nothing else to do."

"That's right," Morgan agreed. "Here we have nothing to do but to know each other. Day after day - only ourselves. No newspapers, no talkies - not 'features' - no murders, no politics, no law-courts, no money-making. A great life! It's not a fair example but I'll present it as an example of how the human world would deport itself if everyone had leisure. What would we do with leisure if we had it? Here's one answer. Personally, I'm all for it. Let machines do the

249 237

dirty work. Let us live on Burgundies!'

"Not altogether," Tilden objected. "My work is my life. A passage like this is a vacation. It's the only holiday I get. I enjoy it. But prolong it beyond a week or eight-days, and I'd get restless."

"Wouldn't you, though!" came from his wife. "Arthur would rather have the meanest kind of work than none at all. But we do like to talk about ourselves, don't we?"

Said Edith, "More than anything else in the world."

Hugh put in, "About our odd selves. Please note that gossip owes its existence to the oddity of our behavior. It reports our various and many deviations from normal. The more freakish the behavior the more spicy the gossip. If we were angels we would be mute."

"Now that's a thought," said Alice Tilden. "Interesting and, I'm afraid, all too true."

"Why be afraid?" asked Marsh. "I love gossip and I don't at all mind being a freak - though Hugh had better not call me one."

Said Edith, "I know what it is. A ship is like a summer hotel with its rocking-chair fleet."

"Ah," said Hugh, "so you know them, the dear ladies -"

"Do I know them? Eight summers of my life were ruined by them."

"Poor dear - but it's better now."

"Better? How do you mean?"

"Now they read books. Some years ago I overheard a battalion discussing 'All Quiet on the Western Front'. They dominated the entire veranda of a huge summer shack. And there, almost before their eyes, two young people were finding they loved each other, unmolested. Nature should be grateful for novelists."

"Where were you?" Marsh demanded.

250-238

"Some distance removed from both ladies and lovers."

Her look called him a liar.

"Let's have another beer," said Tilden. "I'd like to get to the bottom of this. I'm naturally interested in people, odd behavior and all. Part of my business. Have to know men and judge them quickly. Suppose you are in a Chinese city. You want to set up an agency for your car. You need a good man - but, you are dealing with Chinamen. What? You've got to know something about human nature. That's the business end. But I find myself studying people all the time, as a sort of hobby."

Marsh broke in. "There's your partner. Hugh is an amateur psychologist. You should hear him talk. Ever heard of buffers? You ought to. I'd think they'd come in handy with Chinamen."

"Better engage me to travel with you," said Hugh.

"Sure I will," said Tilden. "But to get back to the point. What's your idea as to the psychology of these ships? What happens to people when they come on board? Take the present passage. But before you do, let me note one thing. Here we have America. She's all here. All the types, all the classes, all the nationalities. Look at the names on the passenger-list. Names from every country on earth. Here we are in a nut-shell - and if you and I weren't so hide-bound we'd go around and have a look and get into things and we'd experience the whole globe in these eight-days."

"So it is," said Morgan. "America - minus the dirty work, and minus, too, the cooperative effort needed to maintain and run a nation. Here, only the officers and crew work. The rest of us float."

"Granted, granted," said Tilden impatiently. "We are floaters. If we were this way all the time, the communists would be right; but

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I don't want to go into that now. To come back. I've been on I don't know how many ships how many times. A man gathers material. I've got a lot. Some day I'd like to put it down - write a book I mean. I did some writing in college. Where are you men from? Edited the magazine. Even thought I'd go in for writing as a career. But I had to make money and had to get experience. Didn't want to repeat the books I'd read. Well, an opening came along and I stepped into business. Glad I did. It took care of the money end and brought me in touch with people and places of all possible descriptions. I've been around the world six times. Ever had an honest-to-goodness Japanese meal with all their raw fish and everything? You wouldn't forget it. Ask Alice. And the motor-car industry, that's an epic in itself. Now I feel I have something to say that's worth reading, my own stuff. Ever see that book by Keyserling? He's too up in the air for me, but I've got to hand it to him. There's a man who knows how to get on the inside of things."

He paused. Marsh and Alice had put their heads together.

"Pardon us," said Marsh. "We were listening. I just wanted to tell her something before I forgot. We have a date for bridge this afternoon, remember."

Tilden smiled as if thinking, "Women will be women." He asked aloud, "Another beer?"

Morgan passed cigarettes.

Tilden turned to Hugh. "Now once more to go back. I'm a great one for talking on once I get started, but I'm really interested in what you have to say. What do you think, how do you explain what happens to people on these ships?"

"In black and white - this. The same set of conditions produces

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two quite different kinds of response, depending upon the kind of person, whether he or she be large or small. Let's say there are two kinds of people - large and small."

"Physically, you mean?" asked Marsh.

"No," said Alice, "spiritually. Isn't that right?"

Hugh smiled and nodded.

"Give examples," said Marsh. "I can understand if I see. Otherwise, I can't. Don't be afraid. What am I, large or small? What's Morgan - all of us?"

"All large, of course. But let me go on, and you may be able to define yourself. Instead of saying large and small, we might use future and past - people of the future; people of the past. People of the future have a force of flowing and are drawn towards the Beyond. People of the past - their flow may not be weak but it is small, short-circuited - they want only what they already have and know - they are drawn to what is behind them. The former respond positively to new and comparatively free conditions. The latter fear and shrink from these same conditions. Were they in paradise they'd commit themselves to the Invisible Warden and surround themselves with bars."

Said Tilden, "I know the types. Go on."

"Don't we all," said Edith.

From Marsh - "The Invisible Warden. That's a new one. You're getting good, Mr Langley."

Hugh went on, "With the first kind, a ship and a passage abroad tend to liberate them. They want something to happen. Marsh, for example. Something does happen. Just the fact that they had left their accustomed kind of living, that they have cut ties and broken

241

from routine, puts them in an adventuresome mood, or, better, arouses and vivifies their sense of the possibilities of human experience. They board the ship with a favorable attitude, and, if they are fortunate - as Marsh is - and encounter kindred souls, they group together as human beings should group, that is, on the basis of natural correspondence - what is usually called similarity of taste, of quality, of desires and goals. If enough people do this, the entire ship's company may come together, each person with life increased because he has come out of himself and is vividly participating in the total life of a human world."

"To such a passage!" Morgan called.

Said Marsh, "What bright pictures you paint! I'll buy one. To just such a passage on this *Burgundy* - with all of your asides thrown in. Wait, my turn will come, and what I won't do to you!"

From Tilden - "Now about the second kind."

"Yes," said Edith, "we *must* hear about them."

"As for them," said Hugh, "thumbs down and no asides. Just the opposite occurs. They want *kn* nothing to happen. Nothing does happen."

"Off with their heads," said Marsh.

"Not quite yet. Wait until I'm finished with them. They fear the new. They don't want the future. They contract until they almost strangle themselves. Police-whistles are in their handbags, burglar-alarms on their standards. All the while they are playing a game called, 'From Bodies to Wax', *buck* by insistently reminding themselves, 'Be careful of whom you meet or even nod to on this ship. Take care. Beware...'"

"Beware..." the party laughed and chorused.

"Let's play the game," said Marsh. "Sounds more interesting

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than 'Murder'. Teach me, cousin Hugh."

"Ask your cousins up front. They are a shade more expert." To Tilden he said, "And thus to conclude. In all cases, the ship tends to intensify the already given natures and attitudes. New conditions usually do this, haven't you found?"

"Interesting," said Tilden emphatically. "You mean that new conditions bring out a man's underlying characteristics. I'd never expressed it to myself, just so. Of course. I've seen it happen time and again."

"Oh," said Marsh pertly, "I told you Hugh was good. And may I add, by the way, that by day and by night we are getting more than a peep at his underlying characteristics. No wonder he thinks so!" She laughed. "Now we're even!"

Hugh and Tilden

Barbara was not at lunch.

"Sick again," said Hugh. "Knocked out by Andy." Part of himself felt sorry for her; but another and stronger part resented her absence, feeling that it was being done against him. "Another shove by the wooden arm." In a spurt of anger he then and there decided to give her as wide a berth as she was giving him, rather wider.

It struck him that his behavior was quite irrational and, it seemed, unmotivated. No, not unmotivated. Something was behind it all, something that he had not let come up into consciousness, that she represented. Doubtless some *simply* silly thing which had to do with something in life he wanted to conquer and bring to his feet. A thing he had to get out of his system, that he ought to have left behind *outgrown*, along ago. Some weakness, some foolishness, some immaturity that was bobbing up at this late date to plague him. Perhaps a division in himself which laid him open to the delusion that the world of mature wonder lay behind a pretty young face.

After lunch he again joined Marsh, Morgan, and the Tildens, not bothering to include Edith because he didn't feel like having her weight on his hands.

Towards middle afternoon Morgan suggested the cinema. Several people had told him about it. "So bad you have to laugh," was their account. An impossible romance set in one of those small European principalities which are forever lending themselves to impossible romances. Half the film had been run the day before. Half would be run this day. "Let's go. It's a Feature, an Extra Super Attraction -

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and I haven't seen anything Super since we left Broadway."

So they went.

It was crazy: a murdered king, a loyal queen, an infatuated poet, a villian; love, intrigue, duels, war, sacrifice, honor up-held, justice, retribution - not one dash of sex or jazz - all of these and some more flying pell-mell over the screen pursued by lengthy captions in three languages.

The room was crowded. Marsh was the first to fall asleep. She awoke with a start and got up hastily. Alice Tilden was the next to leave. Morgan yawned and shifted. Finally he decided that bed was a better sleeping place. Hugh and Tilden stuck it out, then went to the smoking-room to recuperate.

"Whew!" puffed Tilden. "Golly!" He mopped his forehead. "Beer at once, else we perish. I've always said that the movies take it out of you. Now I know it. Those damn things use up enough energy to keep all the factories of the world running twenty-four hours a day."

Hugh too felt spent; but with him it was not the picture.

Tilden's pick-up was rapid. It wasn't long before he was talking of himself, his business and travels.

He had the confidence of an executive, the assurance that because he said it was so, it was. His speech was fluent, backed by a vigorous deep-chested body something like Hod's. But Hod was prodgial. This man, so Hugh felt, had hold of himself and was gearing ahead with a drive that would carry him to the top of the industrial pyramid. Shrewd about affairs, with inside knowledge of happenings in New York and Washington, he let it be known that he was so sure of his power to attain his goal by straightforward means that he was contemptuous of those who had to resort to trickery.

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This was his world. Now that no women were present, he spoke it
as man to man, with knowledge, enthusiasm, imagination. Modern
industry and business - with Tilden, Hugh felt the force of it and
saw it's sweep.

For a time Hugh let himself be carried along, glad to have this
first-hand insight. Then he felt he ought to throw in a check.

His first attempt was rather lame. "What of the much publicised
depression, and the actual or alleged collapse of the capitalistic
system?"

Tilden looked at him as if asking, "How can a man of your
intelligence ask such a question? You aren't serious, are you?" But
he had his answer ready, as though he had replied to just this
query a thousand times. "It's a phase, one of the points of the
business cycle. We'll pass through it as we did the depressions of
'93 and 1907. Collapse? Read the history of the country and you'll
see how many times in the past the agitators have believed our system
was on its last legs. Fiction, Langley, pure fiction. Let me tell you
one thing. America is writing the greatest page in the history of
mankind and no crash or depression or anything is going to stop
us. The shrinkage of foreign markets?" and he began telling of
what would be the effect on American industry and business of the
modernization of Asia.

This modernization was happening, he asserted, more rapidly than
most Americans realized. Not only the railroads, the mines, the
factories, but the introduction of motor-cars and the laying of
roads.

"Think," he exclaimed, "men have already travelled that world
from the Mediterranean to the Yellow Sea - by motor. You heard of the

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Citroën-Haardt Expedition. Think of what that means! Consider what will come of it!"

"I will," said Hugh. "Meanwhile, let me propose this question to you. It has been asked many times before. I've never happened to hear an Arthur Tilden answer it."

"Go ahead."

"Was man made for business, or was business made for man? Just a minute. All sane people know that we must have business, that is, the practical activities that take care of production, distribution, and the means to purchase and consume. Business as you experience it has, I agree, an epic character. But it seems to me that no one field, whether it be business or science or religion, should be allowed to overrun the world and dictate its methods and aims to all others. Aren't we in danger -"

"Not a bit of it. Not a bit of it. The purpose of industry is to make things of use. The purpose of business is to provide the means and the leisure with which and in which to use them. This covers about everything, doesn't it? A motor-car manufacturer makes a car - a thing of use. Your artist makes a picture - another thing of use. True, a different use, but a use just the same. If it isn't of use it ought never be made. Let me finish. By this I don't mean utilitarian use, only. I recognize the value of the emotions and the mind. Music, plays, books - all good. What I'm driving at is this, put in plain words. Your manufacturer and your artist are simply two branches of the same thing. If the one is a business man, so is the other. What works for the one will work for the other."

"Can't agree. Only the ideal manufacturer makes things of use for use. The rest of them make any damn thing for profit."

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"Only the ideal artist makes things of use for use. The rest of them make the most godawful things for God knows what."

And both men, quite tense, gave vent by laughing.

But when Morgan, finally having overcome the opiate of the movie, walked up, he saw sparks flying. "Save us, such energy these men have! Do I dare sit down?"

They gestured him into place and continued battling.

Marsh and Alice breezed up.

"Stop it!" cried Marsh, clapping hands over her ears.

They did; and then laughed at themselves.

"What can you be arguing about? Look at those faces. Take a shower at once, both of you."

"Business," said Alice Tilden with a sly smile.

Tilden chuckled.

Morgan told Marsh, "My dear, they need you in Congress. I was quite helpless. Don't know how long it's been going on."

"Well, it's over now," she declared. "You, Mr Tilden, have an engagement for bridge. And you, Mr Langley?"

"I'll stretch myself. May take that shower."

30. Twenty Minutes Forward

Nothing from a distance that Barbara was not at dinner either,
Hugh suddenly desired to ask Edith a question. He bent over and
whispered. She nodded.

"Now what have you been doing?" asked Marsh as he took his chair
at the table.

"Sharpening my appetite."

"Let's drink to that! Hod's not here, so I for once will propose
the toast. To all world-riders! May they have good appetites - and
who cares what kind of hands and hearts and heads they have! Good
appetites on the ship, good appetites in France -"

"France?" he asked. "Is there such a place?"

"Is there? What do you mean now? I hope so. Our tickets say to
Havre, you know. I think Havre exists. I don't think we'll land on
a cannibal island."

"Don't you? What's a ticket? A mere slip of paper. Can we put
confidence in that? We, who do not believe in God, or Fate, or
Destiny? Obviously not. For all we know, we may be heading straight
for that cannibal island. How can you check it? Such things have
happened. Erstwhile sane transatlantic liners have been known to
lose their heads and go wandering over the seas finally to run
aground on a barbaric coast."

"Trying to frighten me?"

"Imagine the experience. Nothing we know, possess or value would
be of any use. Civilization would prove a handicap - unless we
blossomed like Douglas Fairbanks in 'Mr Robinson Crusoe'. There is

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this to be said for the experience, however. Here we are useless
without knowing it. There - - if you see what I mean. So let's drink
and be merry. Another bottle and another toast to that barbaric but
instructive coast!"

"Shut up," said Marsh. "Stop him, somebody."

Hugh and Edith had liqueurs and coffee off to themselves. From his
stationary point he glanced around the smoking-room. Everyone else
seemed to be having a good time. Andra and Jim Phelps, Marsh's
French woman and a table of gay people, an old rakish duck with a
middle-aged flapper, a woman flamboyant, vampish, sly, and luny.
A heavy-eyed blonde with the ship's doctor and several others, the
Raymonds and a party of six. One of their number was a dark-skinned
resourceful man with keen grey eyes. Hugh pointed him out and asked
Edith if she knew who he was. She shook her head.

In time the orchestra struck up. Amid much bustle and chair
scraping a stream of couples went to the floor, Hugh and Edith among
them.

They danced well together. Each had a certain dignity of stature.
Each made the other feel well-placed, physically and socially. That
was as far as it went.

So they danced, and went back to the table...and danced again
and returned again...and this thing kept up until Edith finally
turned on him and asked, "Where are you?"

"Here, of course."

"Are you? With whom?"

"You."

"Is this your idea of how a woman should be treated?"

"It is not an idea."

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"Do you mean to deny that you have them?"

"Of course not. I have too many ideas."

"That's what I'm saying. This is one of them. You have an idea that a woman should adjust to you, fit in with your moods, be seen but not heard, follow you, trail along -"

"You are wrong. I have an idea that a woman should be treated as a woman. Do you object to that? Do you want me to treat you as if you were a man, or a 'mind', or a career, or some fraction of a human being?"

"What exactly does that mean - to be treated 'as a woman'? That you must always be dominant?"

"You should know what it means. You are a woman. I never think of being dominant unless I'm provoked. I expect to be provoked by men, I don't like to be by women."

"Unless you are provoked? I feel your will all the time."

He smiled. "That's more than I do."

"More than you do? Why, you do nothing but try to show everyone that you come and get me when you want me, that you leave me alone when you want to do that, that I smile and say, 'All right, thy will be done, my lord and master'."

"You may believe you are, but truly you are not describing me, you are describing some one in your life - and now that I remind you, you may realize who he is."

"I've never known a lord and master."

"It's the trouble."

"There you are. I told you. I knew you wanted to boss the show."

"You'll find what you are looking for."

"I'll see what's plain as a nose on your face."

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"Edith, I've told you sincerely, I do _not_ want to dominate anyone, of myself. All beings, as beings, are equal. This is not an idea, it is a realization. I know it, I feel it, I live it - if given the chance. On the other hand, different people have different degrees of development, different functions. A man's function is to build a world. A woman's function is to help him build it, to inhabit it with him."

"To build a world," she echoed. "Point out to me such a man."

"You would like to see him?"

"Show him to me first."

"Perhaps I can't - if so, this means that men aren't doing what they should do, aren't being themselves - and therefore women cannot do what they should do, or be themselves."

"Then you blame men?"

"Of course."

"Then why do you fight me?"

"Do I? Who started it tonight?"

"I suppose I did, but you - as you would say - you provoke me."

"That's not accurate. All the men you have known provoke you. I happen to be the latest, and so I happen to catch all of it."

"Haven't women provoked you?"

"Naturally - and much as you are doing now - and for the same reasons - and what does it get us? Increased understanding? Greater ability to work things out? Not at all. You buck me. I buck you - and I say again, you are not a bull - and what is more, you really don't want to be, do you?"

"No, I guess not." She suddenly smiled and added, "It must seem to you that I do a lot of complaining."

264 252

He shrugged.

"I suppose I do. Shall I tell you why? It isn't what you think it is. Not altogether, not at base, and, from all I've observed, it is not peculiar to me - or to women. It is the complaint of people - human beings, as you call them - against life. We feel we have some fine thing that nobody wants. We don't protest because our evil comes to evil, we protest because our good comes to no good. I know a woman with simply splendid maternal qualities who can't hold a husband and can't keep a home. She lives by herself in a kitchenette apartment and tries to keep her feeble roots living while she hopes and waits. I know another woman whose husband says her efficiency damns him. She runs her business well and makes seven thousand a year. He can earn only four. Suppose she gives up business and tries to devote herself to him. She can't find enough in him to occupy her, to give scope to her imagination, to make her day worthwhile. This is where your idea about men building a world comes in. I know it, it's true enough. On the other hand, the business doesn't really satisfy her. She's a perfectly splendid person - with no one and no thing to give it to. Some are bitter, some aren't, some have grown and deepened because of it all, but everyone of them, if they tell you what's in their hearts, will say that their one and main criticism is that life has a crushing indifference to what is best in them."

Though moved, Hugh could do no more than say it was true, true of himself too; for though she had opened, he felt she had opened to express herself, not to let him in.

Not long afterwards the orchestra finished for the night.

Soon they heard men's voices in excited conference. A group, led

265 253

by a fellow referred to as Bert Diggs, passed by to a nearby table. A second pow-wow was held. Then Diggs, bearing a commission, left the room. Word went around that he had gone down to tourist-third to get the college band.

The college boys came up. People clapped. The first dance, the floor was so full they could hardly move. Hugh and Edith were not tempted. Then Diggs, introduced by loud beating on the drums, gave a little speech, and a hat was passed around.

A second dance had begun when a steward came in. Politely but firmly he expressed the purser's regrets and prohibited the music. The purser, he said, did not object to the college boys playing in first class but he did mind that the affair had been arranged without his permission. The piano would have to be closed and locked. It was closed and locked.

Diggs was not to be put down. Hardly had the steward gone when he had the bright idea of having a dance on deck. They'd do without a piano. Drums, violin, and saxophone and banjo were quite enough. Out the party he trooped. Hugh and Edith followed, just to see what it would be like.

The first spot chosen was just the place where Hugh had stood that very first night and gazed at the sky and sea with the feeling he was the only soul alive in a black-bright metallic universe. Since then, how much water had flown under the ship! And now, many souls were about, coupled off, swaying and shuffling, sending up laughs, making moon-shadows on the deck. Hugh and Edith thought they might as well.

The same steward came up a second time and said the music could not play there because it carried over the sides of the ship and

266 254

enter ed cabin portholes, annoying people who were trying to sleep.

Diggs was equal to this occasion too. He moved orchestra and
dancers to the very stern deck where nobody but the seamen and
the fish could be disturbed. Neither of these, it seemed, had any
weight with the purser.

Hugh and Edith remained where they had stopped - she, her tall
figure somewhat militantly erect, a solid person af with superb
outlines, but...

Now they were talking again, not arguing or fighting as before,
but going through similar mazes.

When she asked the time, he looked. It was 2:30.

The dance continued on the stern deck - jazz and couples swaying,
supported by steel and planks above the sea, sending vibrations
through the air to the night sky, convincing us heaven with its
stars that here was something irresistible arisen from the New World.

The rest of the ship seemed quiet and deserted.

"I suppose I'd better go in." She took his arm and they started
walking. "Mother will be awake, worrying."

"She still does that?"

Swabbers were at work, husky clumpy fellows with bold insolent
eyes. Pushing mops they turned to stare, probably thinking Edith
was a woman easy to make love to.

Chairs were piled high in the smoking-room. Only dim lights
were on.

At the main stairway they paused.

She suddenly said, "You are right. There is a man at the bottom
of it, and that man is not you." She skipped off.

Hugh, after watching her until she disappeared, glanced at the

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ship's clock, took out his watch and moved the hands twenty minutes
forward.

Five hours they would, as it is said, gain, between New York and
Paris - five hours jumped forward in twenty-minute slices distribut-
ed at regular intervals throughout the eight days.

Was the time gained? Or wasn't it, rather, lost? In any case,
what became of it?

And he, his life, twenty minutes nearer - what?

256

31.

From the Bridge

The next day - what day was it? Wednesday? Friday? What day out?
How long since they had left New York? How many more days to Havre
and Paris? Hugh was not sure. The ship was nearing the mid-ocean.
This was all he knew.

The trip was half over. Complications, sparks, and promises.
Life, life, and not a drop... Himself a prey to the uncertain and
unmanageable fluctuations of consciousness.

To be caught in a circumstance which promised but gave him no
other person and at the same time made it impossible for him to
have himself and his accustomed ways of solitude.

To have neither the world nor oneself.

Much had happened; yet nothing had happened. Conversations about
problems; no real moving human contacts. The conversations often
failing to grasp and stick to the real issue, failing to pursue a
line of thought with the aim of understanding, slipping into a
battle of personalities. Chances to understand blocked by egotisms.

Now he suddenly questioned if, for all of his philosophy as to
the value of them, he himself really wanted human contacts. Perhaps,
if the truth be known, he too, he more than others, was willing
merely to talk, seldom or never to be. Why else did it invariably
happen this way? Heretofore he had assumed that the condition which
made it so was in life; now he suspected it was chiefly in himself.
Something in him restricted his experience to ideas and formulat-
tions, useful but limited, good but lopsided. Something bias in him
made him meet everyone in the same way. Arthur Tilden, Edith Gilroy,
man or woman, it made no difference. Always in the same way. Yet -

269-257

what more could he do - on a ship - anywhere? What more than understand? Perhaps he was chiefly an understander. Perhaps his main function in life was to move himself and move others to understand. Very good, if it really happened. But did it? Between himself and Tilden a fine chance had been lost. Between himself and Edith it was a question.

What day was it? If he wanted to know bad\Xenough, he could work back. Or, he could glance at *Transatlantic*, the ship's daily newspaper. Then what? To know a day's name was not to experience the life thereof.

Besides, this sea-world had its own time, a thing different from land-clocks and land-calendars, a thing *corresponding* in itself. *None were concerned by the intensity of the happening*. The past extended back to the last vivid episode. The future extended forward to the next prospective vivid episode. All encompassed within the cycle of the X voyage.

Backward, New York was not only remote but unreal. Forward, Paris was similarly fictional. Here on this ship was life; and it was as if life and time were all here.

America was the sphere before birth. Europe was the sphere after death. Now one existed. Only these, the experiences of this eight-day world. Or lack of experiences.

It was as though he had known Hod and these others all his life; as if they had been born together, stepped out into the world together, gone through the gamut together, and would die together.

Whom else did he know? Whom else would he ever know? Then let him live with them, as if his life-span were no longer than what remained of these eight days.

Here was life, issuing into cycles and completing them. Here
was time, all of it, the great Time, the Time of Life. The mysterious
precious Time flowing its duration through the days and nights of
the ocean.

Yes, here were the small ticks too. The Burgundy, like any world,
had its pigmy sentinals and reminders of little time. The little
times which fill one's days. Time to get up, time for bath, time for
breakfast, time for lunch, time to meet someone, to dress for dinner,
to have cocktails, time for the concert or dance. One heeded these
little ticking times. If you went to the movies you watched movie
time. If you liked bouillon in the morning or tea of afternoons you
knew these times. And, you knew midday, for the ship's great whistle
always saluted the sun at noon.

The small ticks were parts, like waves, of the great flow.

And of the days - one noticed the kind of day it was, not the day's
name. It was sunny, clear, hot, or overcast and chilly, or foggy
or raining. It was

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less important that the day was Wednesday, more important that it was
bright. So why not, on these ships, discard the usual nomenclature
and invent special names - or, turn biblical and simply but grandly
say, "And the evening and the morning were the first day...and the
second day..."

Hugh lifted to this idea. There was, decidedly there was something
biblical about the sea and a ship. Genesis... And with a curve of
intensity he began gouting and comparing -

> In the beginning God created the heaven and the
> earth. And the earth was without form; and darkness
> was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
> moved upon the face of the waters.

The face of the deep, the waters...yes, here, all about him, they
were - these waters, the same great heap.

> And God said, Let there be light; and there was
> light.

Light...here it was, the same light.

> And God saw the light, that it was good: and God
> divided the light from the darkness.

> And God called the dry land Earth; and the gather-
> ing together of the waters he called Seas: and God saw
> that it was good.

Here the seas, the same good seas.

And Hugh, musing upon all this, became strangely exalted.

Then, remembering how seldom these feelings came to him, he felt
deeply. "O, man, how thou hast fallen." And he began falling forthwith.

Soon he was but his ordinary self on board an ordinary ship sailing
across matter-of-fact waters. No, not quite. Something of his deep

330-260

mood remained trailing him.

Yes, here was the sea. But one merely noted it, as if it were
some ordinary thing. One noted if it were calm or rough, swelling,
agitated, angry, or as quiet as a small inland lake. Well, just to
note these things was something.

All of their days thus far had been bright and warm, dry or muggy
according to the winds, with fine or swelling seas. As the French
would phrase it - *Jolie Brise, Mer Belle*. Hugh was very fond of that
phrase. He liked the taste and sound and swing of it.

This day, like the others, was warm, clear, and brilliant.

For him, however, it was a broken day. He wandered about, looking lost.

For a while he paced the deck behind two men in uniforms, navigat-
ing officers off duty, animated fellows who carried on a rapid-fire
conversation as though they had not seen each other for years.

Then he went into the writing-room and proceeded to jot down
several thoughts while they were still fresh in mind.

There were two rows of double desks, each with its individual
green-shaded light. Most of the tables were occupied. Opposite him
was the pretty girl, describing for friends at home what it was like and what happened
when one crossed the ocean on the *Burgundy*.

Believing he had finished, he was about to quit his place when
into his mind popped a cluster of ideas which had first come to him
after the party with Hod in Andra's room. Since then they had come
and gone, come and gone. Now he'd put them down.

Again the problem of sex. Not even partially solved by
chance affairs. "Pick-ups" - a dog's life. Not the way

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of a man. Besides, ironically enough, chance affairs often
do not offer themselves when needed or wanted. Relying upon
them commits one to alternating periods of fasting and
over-feeding. One cannot retain and carry the sex he
picks up as a camel retains and carries water.

Hod is bleeding himself through sex. Perhaps Andra is
too; but, for some mysterious reason, women of her type
seem able to withstand the drain better than men.

Even if one does not bleed himself, there is something
unbecoming in promiscuity. Disorganizing, too. Chance
affairs occur with no fitting relationship, no harmoniza-
tion, with the other functions of an intensely working
organism. (One has to be an intensely working organism,
delicately balanced, to realize the full force and meaning
of this. Hod does not. He has no delicacy. He is out of
balance. He is a power-plant in chaos.) Chance affairs -
not always but frequently - slash into one's general
psychic state, causing disharmonization.

Affairs have no past; they are without future. No build-
ing. No large form of which sex is an aspect. Hence, they
are malforms. This is why they are so popular nowadays.
Few wish to build. Few wish responsibility. Most of us,
torn to pieces in other respects, behave chaotically as
regards sex also. The matter goes deeper than the con-
ventions and the proprieties, far deeper. It involves a
disorganization of the _forming-base_ of one's life.

A man and a woman grab each other. It is ridiculous, of
course - as lacking in art and sensitivity as in morals.
The attitude and the desire of each person is _to take_.
Take, grab, snatch, use, misuse. Neither is in a position
to wish _to give_ anything. This, obviously, is the preda-
tory impulse operating in sex: and here it causes sex
wars just as, operating in economics, it causes wars
between classes and nations.

(I say nothing here about that servicable bit of
ancient wisdom to the effect that any port is good in a
storm.)

To cooperate fruitfully - the condition most needed
in human life. Marriage is a fruitful cooperation of man
and woman. But marriage presupposes the presence in us
of the very things we lack, - _respect for another's being_.

This is a world for dogs. The person who wishes to be
human, with the dignity of a man, with the beauty of a
woman - what is he to do? One cannot starve himself. Yet
neither can he live on corrupt food.

Are we, these loose, panting creatures, are we the
descendants of those referred to -

So God created man in his own image, in
the image of God created he him; male and fe-
male created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them,
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the
earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing that moveth upon
the earth.

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Yea, the Lords of Creation are still falling. Evidently the force of the original Fall has not yet spent itself.

Hugh smiled queerly, gathered up his notes, and set off.

Wandered about seldom frequented parts of the boat: the stodgy main salon, the "sheep pen" ruled over by the Invisible Warden; the quite attractive lounge; until at length, in the lobby, he was tempted to enter a gift shop. He fingered several rings, a bracelet, a string of rather marvelous amber beads. The amulet was found in the shop. But He left the shop with empty hands.

The next thing he knew he found himself looking in the children's play-room. It was very nice and very noisy. The walls were covered with gay decorations of fairy tales. Two large windows opened on the deck. The balmy sea wind came streaming in. Tots, boys and girls of various ages up to seven or eight. A ship's nurse supervised them. A sand-box. All kinds of toys. The kids, laughing, screaming, gambling about, were having the time of their lives.

One youngster, a vigorous full-cheeked boy, was astride a hobby-horse. He was gazing at Hugh. As Hugh gazed at him he fell to wondering how it would be to have a child. Suppose he were married. Suppose one of his children was in this room. Suppose his wife were on deck. What a different life! Desirably, valuably different?

The question and the answers ran through his mind as he walked off, mounted a flight of steps, and - he was in the gym. Bars, bells, horses, rowing-machines, mats, a hard glossy floor. Two men, red in the face, were at it, keeping themselves fit across the ocean.

"How goes it?" he asked.

Between puffs and pants they replied, "Swell. A little work-out. Join us? Come on."

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He said he didn't think he would just then.

His next move brought him to the observation bridge deck.

The wind whizzed and muffled. Again before him was the
fore part of the ship, the bow deck with its hatches, deck-
machines. The open spaces were thick with people, many in
deck-chairs. And the bow dipped and lifted, the sea glittered
and swelled, the great *Burgundy* pushed onward towards the blue
boundary of far away.

A girl was mounting the steps. He'd seen her before, not
long ago in fact, reading in the library. Now she came up
and crossed to the railing, smiling goodmorning to him. She
was slim, a bit anaemic, with soft dark eyes. He went over
and they began talking, making themselves heard against the wind.

Ships, cities, travel, art. She seemed to feel called upon to
assume a wider acquaintance with these matters than she actually
possessed. Tried to impress Hugh that she knew a lot of things,
about ships for example. She did indeed know the names and how
they rated.

She talked about herself; and in this reminded him of Mary
Quinn. She lived in Amenia, New York, she said. For the past
two years she'd 'trained' back and forth between Amenia and New
York City twice a week to study painting. Her family had planned
to have her spend the coming year in Paris. Now there wasn't the
money; instead, she, with her mother, was going over only for a
short visit. The passage, too, thus far, had disappointed her.

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"Isn't anything going to happen?" She gazed at Hugh with wistful complaint. "It's so dull. I wish the sea would get inky black with huge mountainous waves breaking over the ship. That would be exciting."

He shook his head. "More thrilling in description than in fact, you might find. Don't you like the sea as it is?"

"No. I hate it. It bores me so."

Rather gently he said, "I've heard tell that according to one's own state the ocean is monotonous or fascinating."

"I suppose so. I suppose it is all in oneself. But...oh, my..."

"You like to read?"

"The most exciting thing one can do."

"And that young fellow I saw you talking with in the library, the professor as I call him, isn't he interesting?"

"No. He's too tame. He's not a professor. A divinity student. Nice and awfully well-read... but..."

He called her attention to something. "Look over there at the horizon. Notice how level it is? It always is so, no matter what the condition of the sea. Even when the ocean is raging the horizon is always that calm eternal level line. Only, of course, as you will note, it is not straight. The horizon appears circular. A ship is always in the center of the circle, equi-distant from all points on the circumference," and he trailed off as if he had forgotten her.

Soon, however, his mind came back and they chatted along; she, saddened by things in general but inclined to smile it off.

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"You find that life isn't what you expect. The first discovery is the awful shock. Then you get used to it and expect less and less. I wonder if I'll always be disappointed. Even the beautiful things aren't so beautiful now. I suppose I'll end by being just another woman in any town. Does it have to be like that? Isn't there anything one can do?"

Hugh felt he should have tried to answer her. For some reason he couldn't.

Her name, she said, was Miss Williams.

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32.

Plus Ten

Hugh went for his before-lunch beer. He was having the first demi when the Bradleys and the Tildens, fresh from shuffleboard, trooped in. At once they asked him where he'd been all morning, guessing he'd slept late after keeping the ship awake until 4:00 A.M.

"We heard you," said Marsh, her black eyes laughing, her manner as pert as ever.

"Weren't you tempted? It was just what you've been demanding - jazz on deck."

"Nope. I was too lazy to get up. Besides, you must remember we are respectable folk, an old married couple. Who got the boys to come up, you?"

"The ship's ringleader, Mr Forward Face, otherwise known as Bert Diggs. Know him?"

She made a face.

"By the by," he said. "You are looking very lovely this morning. That wine-color becomes you. Morgan, you are rather lucky after all."

"You bet he is," Tilden spoke up.

"I like flattery."

"Not flattery, fact. I've been thinking of you two, deepening my appreciation, as one might say. These were my words, 'Behold, world of the moderns, the Bradleys, a happy married pair!'"

"I don't believe we can live up to that. I'll tell you something nice. You, sir, look ten years younger. I mean it. When you came aboard you were as dry as a bone. Alice, you should have seen him. Green around the gills, too. I never expected to see a walking

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mummy, but he was it. You weren't really sick, were you? If I hadn't
known you I'd have said, 'There's a poor man going to Europe with
a nurse and a doctor.' Now you look healthy, I wouldn't be afraid to
touch you. Who's responsible, Miss Gilroy or Barbara?'

"The Burgundy - though I think you are as mistaken now as you
were then."

Said Tilden, "You're missing lots of fun. When are you coming
out for that game of shuffleboard?"

Hugh gazed at the man he had battled with the previous afternoon.
"This afternoon, if you'd like."

"Splendid. One more thing. We'll ask you in time today. Have
cocktails with us this evening and bring Miss Gilroy, or should
I say, Miss Barbara?"

After lunch Hugh ran into Edith. They strolled about amiably
enough but rather listlessly until they came to the fore end of
the promenade deck. There, by looking down, they could see the
horse races that were taking place on the tourist deck space some
thirty feet below.

"What fun!" she exclaimed, "I love to gamble. I've missed all
the races so far. Let's go this afternoon when they are run in
our cabin. We'll watch the time, shall we?"

"All right, fine. Which reminds me. Cocktails tonight, and then
liqueurs? The Tildens have asked us to the first. I ask you to
the second," though why he did, he did not know.

"Sorry. I can have the first but not the second."

"What! Has my rival out-jumped me?"

"It is not serious."

"A jump's a jump. However, we'll have cocktails. Now I've a date

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with the Bradleys and the Tildens to decide the shuffleboard champion-
ship of the mid-Atlantic. I restrict it to mid-Atlantic, so if I
or we get whipped, our defeat will cease to exist once we've passed
this region. Are you game?"

They came upon Tilden only. In a grey-blue golf suit he was
practicing shots, sandy hair blowing in the wind, one hand in a
pocket, humming all the while.

"How'll we work it?" he asked. "Sorry about the others. Can we
find a fourth, or would you and Miss Gilroy like a game together?"

Edith would not have it so.

"So it's you and me," said Tilden with a smile. "Suppose you be
the artist. I'll be the business man. We'll see how it comes out.
How's that?"

The men began. Hugh's first shots were amateurish; he laughed it
off. Tilden's were expert; he suavely rubbed it in.

"Not so good for the artist. Let's count. You have a minus ten
and a plus four - score, minus six. I, a plus ten, a six and a
one - score, plus seventeen."

Said Hugh, "Quite good for the business man."

Tilden won that game, 100 to 27.

"You didn't do so bad! There's more to this game than you'd
think. To handle the pusher, that's one thing, it comes from
practice, you'll get onto it soon. But you've got to use your
head too, calculate, think ahead. Play another?"

"Certainly," said Hugh.

He lost. "All right. I've been warming up. Now we'll really begin.
Three out of five for the championship of the mid-Atlantic," and
he winked at Edith.

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"You're on," said Tilden. Tilden won, three straight.

"Not so good for the artist."

Said Hugh, "Quite good for the business man." He told Edith, "I have foresight, you see. I'll enter no more tournaments until the ship is way over there. Meanwhile, for the sake of all artists who need to come up, of all business men who need to go down, I'll get from bed each morning at 6:00 A.M. -"

"You'd better." It was Marsh's voice as she came up behind him. "You can't expect to be an athlete if you stay up dancing all night. Ever heard of training? Arthur and Morgan keep themselves fit. Miss Gilroy, you'd better take him in hand. Every man needs a woman if he is to amount to anything."

"You!" said Hugh. "What are you doing up here? Who gave you permission to come on deck? You should have come up sooner and seen me defeated, for once in your life. Wouldn't that have been better than having your hair shampoed."

"Did Arthur really beat you? Ah, never mind, you poor boy. He's simply getting even for what you did to him yesterday. But I wish I had seen it!"

Edith reminded him, "It's time for the races. Wouldn't you all like to watch them? I feel lucky today."

A crowd was gathered in the lounge. A race was on. By elbowing in and tiptoeing they could see. Stewards moved the horses according to the dice. People bumped and shoved, leaned forward, shouted, "Come on six!" "Oh, won't my horse ever move?" "Come on, one!"

Hugh watched Edith place a bet. He saw Tilden studying the game out of a determination to win. It wasn't the place for him. He became quite decided about it when, at a fair remove, he suddenly

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spotted - yes, Barbara. For the first time in ages. And she, like
the others, was all silly and excited about the foolish thing. He
got out of the crowd as quickly as he could.

On deck he almost bumped into Hod. So Hod, too, was appearing
again!

rd

Hod's head was lowered. He looked neither to the right nor to
the left but strode on like a man who wants to keep the world at a
distance. His face was curiously pale, as if he'd been indoors a
month convalescing from a serious illness. Hugh wondered what could
have been happening to him. Not actually sick. There was nothing
sickly about him. On the contrary. And what force the man had! Even
as he passed, Hugh could feel it sort of plowing the atmosphere.

He recalled the saying of a friend of his, a man with something
of Hod's thrashing power - "I wasn't born under a star; I was
born under a comet." It was true, it was apt in any case, and it
always made him laugh.

Smiling now, he turned to look at the comet-man streaking along
the deck; then went to the bar where he smoked but drank nothing.

In due course his party blew in. They were too excited and too
thirsty to think much about him. They had beers and rehashed
happenings. He saw Edith count her winnings. Tilden was put out
because he'd only broken even. Hugh pictured him as boy shooting
marbles. Marbles, cards, shuffleboard, business, love - all in the
same way, played squarely but seriously to win.

Cocktails went well that night. So well that even Tilden and
Marsh declared that they must carry on after dinner and dance.

What was Hugh to do? Edith would be with another man. Barbara,
worlds away. Ah well, he thought of Miss Williams, and did in fact

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bring her, as if she had weighed on his conscience, as if in this
way he was easing it, doing at least this to give her a good time.

Marsh opened her eyes. "Now what?" she seemed to ask.

For, not only was Miss Williams with them, but Edith, a rather
grave self-conscious Edith, was obviously away from them at a nearby
table in broad sight with Mr Squinter, as Hugh now called the
fellow.

Hugh wondered, "Is that <u>the</u> man? It can't be."

No, he had a feeling that Edith's real concern had been left
behind in America; that she had probably started on this trip to
punish him.

Of course he'd never know for certain. This bit of understanding
also would be denied him - and why not? After all, it was none of
his business. But, dammit, having said as much as she had to him,
why not say it all? Why be so concealed and involved? The direct
way was the best way - and it would never happen. Edith, a puzzle
now, would always keep him guessing. It was her picture of

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herself - a puzzling woman. Her way of experiencing - to keep people guessing, especially if the person in question was a man.

And Barbara? About her he would really like to know. Perhaps for this very reason he could not see clearly. Besides, as far as he was concerned, she was still over there in the mysterious dimension of the Beyond.

These somewhat psychological matters ran through his mind as he danced with Miss Williams, with Marsh, and Alice Tilden.

At the end, the net result of the evening, to his sense of values, was a private formulation -

The desire for the woman or the man who "stands off there" is the desire for the unattainable. This is essentially a religious desire. We pick some person who evokes us in this special way, whom we can idealize; and this person becomes a symbol. We do indeed love him or her, but the love is religious, not organic. We do indeed wish to attain him or her, but the wish is religious, not organic. Its function is to keep us moving. Our fault is that, unconscious of what is happening, unaware of the meaning, we allow other factors to mix in, "human, all too human" factors - and what could and should be a pure intense thing becomes a source of conflict and trouble.

It just strikes me now, however, that all of this is a misplacement. Human beings, men and women, are and should be for each other definitely attainable. We can trust each other, have faith in each other, love, strive together, feel veneration, all of the great emotions. But to reduce a solid person to a symbol, and then aspire towards this dehumanized figure - no. Our wish for the unattainable should be directed towards that which in its nature is unattainable to man in his present state of consciousness - pure reason, pure love, pure being, namely, to be as God.

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33.

Sea Weather

A sudden sea-change...

The skies were overcast with a uniform grey clouding. The ocean, slate-grey, was rising. The wind, damp and chill. It was as though this shipx-world, revolving through the seasons, had abruptly passed from bright summer to bleak rainy autumn.

Now the Burgundy seemed changed too. Its black sides, white cabins and white ventilators no longer gleamed. Enclosed in a grey universe it also was grey, a greyhound swathing its way through slaty waters.

The decks, cleared of the usual bustle of passengers, were bare; and the entire ship seemed stripped, ready for action, grim, with just a hint of the man o' war, a stark leviathan charging over with the high seas with smoke trailing and the prow cutting wings of heavy water.

Those who had been on deck late the night before had noticed the change coming. Stars had disappeared behind clouds. A chill and dampness had sprung up. Gazing queerly at the dark heavens, at the quickening black ocean, they had said or felt, "We're in for something."

Those who had retired early with visions of endless bright warm days were taken completely by surprise. "What's this?" they ex-claimed. They opened their eyes. They sniffed. They recoiled - as if the sea had slapped them in the face. Perhaps it was something to be frightened about. "How could it have happened so suddenly?"

And they seemed to feel that God, under contract to give them sunshine for the entire passage, had defaulted. Therefore God was

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offending them. He'd gone back on His promise. He was making them
shiver and quake. In short, He was spoiling their happiness.

Most of them found themselves on deck with bare heads, no coats,
dressed for summer. The wind whipped them. Salt spray sprinkled
them. The chill struck sharp and deep into their bones. The long
***KWA*** rows of shiny red deck chairs were deserted. A few strode
hurriedly along the damp deck or tarried, a very short while, by
the railing.

"My! What a change! It's actually cold! I wonder if we're going
to have a storm?"

All of them, the surprised and the outraged as well as the scared,
soon ducked indoors, only to venture out again, if at all, wrapped
in coats.

Trunks were opened for warm clothes.

Even so, the majority of the company stayed inside, and the
ship's public rooms and salons were crowded.

Little by little they seemed to realize - as if it were an un-
heard-of thing - that the ship and they themselves were in a
changing world, subject to its moods.

Hod was abroad. This world-rider was out. In a heavy topcoat,
with a soft hat slanted down over his face, he strode against the
winds, filling his lungs with deep breaths, driving his limbs
round and around the deck.

Ah, he liked this weather. Liked it for itself. It was definite-
ly of the sea, distinct from all else. No excursion steamer, not
the Hudson or the Fall River boats, not the Great Lakes vessels,
not the coasters, could enter water and sky, winds and temper
such as these. Of the wild free ocean, only. Man's weather.

He liked it for himself. It fit in with his mood. It was

287-275

inclement and raw. He was inclement and raw. It sort of blanketed the world, as he was cloaking himself, withdrawing. It chased all the mere pleasure-lovers off the decks, leaving the planks to him. It was stern and challenging, gave him opportunity to stand up and take lashings, struggle with grim jaws. Man must be a conqueror.

Sure, he was dramatizing. He knew it. He deserved to cut loose. After all that time cooped up, he deserved to come out and stride about and put on a bit.

Hadn't he conquered drink? Not a drop had he touched. And didn't this victory entitle him to some self-respect even if he had killed a man?

Walking forward, he saw a woman, all rigged for sea-weather, come from the main door and sort of poise on the deck as though she were a gull alighting upon water. It was a pretty sight. He felt he'd like the person who could do a thing like that. Nevertheless he veered off, ducked his head, and would have avoided her.

"Good morning, Mr Lorimer. You seem to have the deck to yourself."

He drew to a halt and peered. Her smile, her friendly cheery voice reassured him. She did not think he was a criminal. But who was she? And why should she, a decent member of society, want to go out of her way to hail him, a man-killer?

"Don't remember me, do you?"

He saw, up-turned to him, a lovely soft face with dark eyes, a cute nose, and full lips. A pretty child, whoever she was. "No, to be frank -"

"You do remember Mrs Raymond."

"Yes, yes, of course -" He liked her soft voice, the way she rolled her words. He made his face say that now all at once full

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memory was delightfully coming back.

"I am the same identical person whom Mrs Raymond, not so long ago, took special pains to introduce. I shan't plague you any more. My name is Miriam Geraldy and I'd delighted to walk the deck with you if you would invite me."

He laughed and slapped his leg. "Of course!" He took her by the arm and they began walking. "Miriam Geraldy, at Mrs Raymond's table! Now I know!"

Whether he did or not they paced briskly for a while, with her under his protecting wing, chatting gaily of nothing special.

"Like it out? Like this kind of a blow?"

"Very much. I'm an outdoor person. Let's go far back on the stern deck."

"It's blustery back there. You may blow off."

"It can't get too rough for me."

So back they went, and had spray sting their faces, and had to hold on.

The ship twisted, lept and dipped. They could see the full length of it, and felt they were being drawn along behind in a trailer. The stern arose high and **XXXX** sank down. It was like being on the far end of a huge see-saw. There was a continuous humming whizzing sound. The smell of the sea was sharp. Far forward and up, the great black funnels seemed like living creatures, leaning back, panting, charging on and on.

"Thrilling!" exclaimed Miriam. She threw back her shoulders and drew in deep breaths. "Wouldn't have missed this for anything. It's wild! I love excitement."

He looked at her as if to say, "Oh, you do?"

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"I hate being indoors, or sitting in chairs all the time. One can
do that at home. That isn't what you cross the ocean for."

"You're right."

He had a strong hold on her arm. Now he tightened it. She flashed
him a smile but pulled away, and did something with her leather
jacket.

"Hurt you?"

"No."

"Were you coming back here by yourself?"

"Of course. I asked Mrs Raymond. Her husband didn't want to.
This isn't much. I wish a wave would break over the ship. I've done
more dangerous things than this by myself."

"Oh, you have?"

"Of course. What is the world for?"

"You're right. Getting cold?" He heard his tone of XEE voice and
was surprised. A new tender note from calliope Hod!

"No, are you? I'll go in if you want to."

"No, but we might go to the bar, the smoking-room I mean."

"Just as you say."

It was his first time in the place since Andy disappeared. He
glanced about as if he were a stranger, pretended not to see a
number of people including Andra, Jim Phelps, and a navigating
officer, and led Miriam to an out-of-the-way table which a couple
was just vacating.

"Drink?"

She nodded and he ordered it for her.

"None for you?" Hod's reputation as a booze-fighter had reached
her via Mrs Raymond.

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"Not today, thanks. Smoke?"

He struck a match and watched her inhale and let the smoke come
from her nose, as if she tasted and enjoyed it.

"Hadn't you better unbundle?"

She opened the jacket, removed her scarf, leaned back and stretched
herself; and he could have sworn she began purring.

She asked, "Now the masquerade ball and the ship's show are in
the air. Do they interest you?"

"Nope. The purser's a friend of mine. Asked me to stage the show."

"You are not going to?"

"Nope."

"Why?"

"In mourning. Oh, it's nothing. Don't look so concerned. Just a
little private matter with myself. You've mentioned Boston and the
riding club. From Boston? Like horses?"

"Crazy about them. Riding is the one thing I miss on shipboard.
Do you?"

"Used to. Played polo."

She leaned forward. "You did? How thrilling! What team? Where?"

"That was long ago, when you were a little girl. Ever hear of
Cap Hod?"

Whether she had or not she knew her cue. "Are you -"

"What's left of him. Oh, it's nothing either. You musn't mind.
I'm likely to run myself down. You sometimes do, if you get a
bump, if you've felt you were God and suddenly wake up to find
you're the worst mortal bungler."

She couldn't help laughing. "Is it as bad as all that?"

"What's so funny?" he snapped.

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"The way you said it. Besides -"

"I see what you're thinking. You're telling yourself you've got to rein me, keep me from going so fast. I'm that way. If you are going to know people - well, hell, know them. What's the sense of wondering and wondering and never finding out? We're what we are. We ought to be ashamed of it, but way go around all covered over? See what I mean? Here we are. We haven't got many years. Why go around all closed up as if we belong to a secret society and had given our vow never to let anyone see us? I'm ashamed of myself, but I'm myself all the same. I haven't got any other. If I have, I can't find it. Here we are. If you meet, then meet. If you love, then love. Human experience - that's the least and the most any of us can have. Hell then, let's be human and let's experience. I hate half-way people."

She said nothing. He could see he had driven her back.

"I know what you're thinking now. The same thing, only stronger. Where's the person who told me she liked excitement and danger?"

"Right here."

"Then let me see her, now. You want a wave to break over the ship. I'm your wave."

She had to laugh. He got mad, and then laughed with her. Now he sounded funny to himself.

"I'm crazy. That's right, laugh all you want at me."

"It will be a great help, if you will let me."

"Sure. All you want. I'm as funny as a crutch."

"Oh, much funnier!"

"Thanks."

"You are quite welcome, Mr Lorimer."

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He flared at her again, then thought better of it. Why be calliope Hod again? Something new and different was possible between himself and this Miriam, if she didn't laugh all the time, if he didn't drive her back into herself. Treat her tenderly. That was it, that's what he had to learn, how to be tender, how to draw people out rather than knock them for a loop, as he'd always done with everybody he knew right down to Andy.

"Speaking of crutches reminds me of something."

"Were we speaking of them?"

"I said I was as funny as crutch."

"I remember now. Go on."

He couldn't for a minute.

"Go on, I'm listening. I won't laugh. Not for five minutes, I promise."

"I said you could laugh all you want. I'd like to tell you something interesting. Have another drink? No? All right. A smoke, then. Now here's the thing. I've had the notion that these trans-atlantic liners are floating hospitals. Yup, it's a queer idea but wait a minute and you'll see what I mean."

When he had explained, she said, "My! What a slant!"

"That's not the point. The point is this. My view, part of it, has been - what's the word? - confirmed. It's this way. I came aboard this ship a sick man, psychological sick, as my friend Sid Case would put it. A hospital's a place to go to get well, isn't it? Here before you sits a convalescing man. I mean it. I'm turning over. Been down and struck bottom, and I'm coming back. May sound as though I'm mg bragging. I'm not. It's my manner. Can't help it. I'm pretty sober, and that's the truth. Nobody's seen me for a day

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or two. Been down to hell, and I'm coming back. You can help me.
You can. I know it. You have a strange effect. Can't describe it.
Now what are you thinking?"

"Listening."

"Yes, and thinking too. Thinking, 'Does he say this to every
woman he meets?' I can tell you. No, I don't. Truly I don't. I
can't prove it. You'll have - I mean I hope you'll believe me. I
like you. You are lovely, with that clear soft skin and laughing
eyes and beautiful neck and love of warm things and bright colors.
A bit fastidious, aren't you? I like that too. A bit imperious. I
like you, all right. It's more than that. Can't describe it. Not
yet. But I know you can help me. Will you?"

"Just how?"

"Don't know. It will work out if you don't feel you've got to
run away. I'm sorry. I carry on and drive people back. Can't seem
to help it. Maybe you can, if you'll have - what's the word? -
patience. There's a side to Hod that the world's MYEKK never seen.
Not it's fault. Mine. I'm not blaming anybody but myself. But you
see, it's this way. If you've been using your left hand, somebody's
got to help you use your right. You can't do it all alone. See what
I mean? Perhaps you'd rather answer me later on. Say! Have cocktails
with me tonight? Forgot. I'm not drinking. But I can sit and watch
you. Will you?"

She didn't answer. Now that he really looked at her he thought
she was pale.

"The old boat's rocking. Don't feel sick, do you?"

"Not a bit," she laughed. "I don't think I will."

"Then will you? Be with me tonight, I mean?"

Odd Ends

Hugh too liked this weather. He felt present and alltogether,
with a desire to do practical tasks and, in general, to put his
ship in order - as if he were getting ready for something.

He attended to several matters in his cabin.

He wrote letters. At the other end of the writing room he
saw Barbara, and told himself he did not see her.

He made a date with the Bradleys and the Tildens for cocktails,
his party, with Edith too.

At lunch he ate less. Today he felt overfed on the excellent
but rich french cooking.

He got his evening suit to be pressed. Had a hair-cut.

Across the passage from his cabin were two men. He had seen
them going in and coming out, and had casually nodded. Now he
made their acquaintance. One was an American, a jovial fellow
full of jokes. His face and neck were red. Under his clothes
his skin was as white and sunless as cold cream. The other was
an Italian, a swarthy romantic-looking man. Hugh had heard him
singing. Now he asked if he were a professional. The man
laughingly replied, "All of my countrymen are not, but it happens
that I am".

Putting on a waterproof he went outdoors with Tilden and
played shuffleboard, improving. From Marsh came the belated
news that there was a baron on board.

He did business with the bank and with the purser.

He sent a radio to friends in the South of France, telling

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them to expect him the coming Saturday. From official sources
he had learned that the _Burgundy_ would reach Havre Friday. He
was going straight through Paris. Or was he? It depended.

When he entered the smoking-room for cocktails, he felt lean
and ordered.

He paused in the doorway, looking around the already crowded
place to sight his party. Evidently they had not arrived yet.
Someone waved to him. It was Hod! Hod - again in the bar! Things
were happening. Hod, and a new lovely-looking girl, Sid, Thelma,
and - Barbara. He tensed. Hod was beckoning. With much dignity
and too much tension he walked up... a/k/a/mocking smile

"Sit down," said Hod. "Join the merrymakers." He introduced
Miriam Geraldy.

Hugh smiled and bowed to her, smiled and bowed to the others,
casually including Barbara.

He drank, was silent.

He watched the play between Hod and Miriam, listened to the
conversation.

Betty, they said, was feeling so much better she'd soon be up
and about. Not for anything was she going to miss the masquerade.

For some unknown reason he asked for Vera. Vera was in the
cabin with Betty.

Sid bantered Hod, wanting to know when the world-rider would
fall the water wagon.

Said Hod, "When the champagne flows for the bal masque."

Talk of costumes. Miriam was vivacious. Barbara hardly spoke
a word.

Hugh saw his party come in. He had to go. Saying something

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about a previous date, he thanked Hod, nodded to the others, arose and went off.

He danced with Edith that night. What happened to the group he did not know, except that he saw Alice Tilden having a very good time, and Hod on the floor with Miriam.

In his mind was the idea of living, of trying to live, as if the next four days were the last days of his life.

What happened between himself and Edith made no impression upon him until, after leaving the dance and putting on coats, they gazed out at the black spread through a β lowered window of the chill promenade deck.

He could see the waves on-rushing. Near the ship they were strangely illumined by the ship's lights, the glow which the *Burgundy* projected into the night, the buffer of light which stood between it and blackness.

On and on the great boat pushed, dipping, rising, rolling with thuds and pounds and thrashing.

Suddenly he heard Edith speak. It came out with sharp intense conviction. "All life is futile."

He started, came to himself, and turned towards her. She did not change position. Her chin rested on her hands, her eyes gazed out as though she had addressed the night rather than him.

"Do you really believe that?"

"Of course I do. What else am I to believe?"

"On what do you base - "

"On what I see of life around me."

"And your own life?"

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"Yes," she said distinctly, "my own life. I've known it for
years. Like other fools I have tried to hide the truth from myself,
but I always come back to it. Sanity, you know, had a
disquieting way of bobbing up despite all we do to smother it."

"No, you do not _know_ it. You _believe_ life is futile."

She turned towards him. "Well? The same thing. No one knows
anything. All is a matter of belief."

"Suppose we grant that. There are, you will admit, different
kinds of belief."

"Yes," she said, "but what then? Where does that get you?
Different superficially. Religious beliefs are different from
scientific beliefs. It may interest you to know that Catholicism
means nothing to me. I merely submit to it, that's all. Nor
does science. Once I read this saying, 'I am a finger passing through water.' That fits me exactly. Religion and science
touch me because I can't help myself, but I pass through them
unchanged. Both are beliefs. All beliefs are similar. They
either help you escape from, or lead you to realize...futility."

"Which is your belief".

"Yes, which is my belief."

"Do you want to keep it?"

She glanced up. For the first time her expression was unsure.
"I suppose I do. I argue for it. I collect facts to support it."

"You need not, if you do not want to."

"What do you mean?"

"That there are other and, to me, more fruitful beliefs."

"Not for me - because I wouldn't believe them."

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"You would if you wanted to."

"But I don't want to. What would be the good of changing?
That itself would be futile."

It was a difficult, a baffling, an almost impossible under-
taking, a pit of consciousness from which it was almost hopeless
to climb - and he knew it, knew it only too well. Once the real-
ization of futility had broken upon one, life rained him or her
with instances and sank him further and further down; and if he
tried to climb up and out, life usually had a heavy club ready.
A few years back, his position had been just what hers was this
night. He wasn't at all certain that he'd outgrown it.

Suddenly he saw another approach. "Edith," he asked, "is your
intelligence really satisfied with a conclusion which has arisen
from what you must recognize to be your own personal and therefore
quite limited experience?"

"It is not based on mine alone. I've told you it came from
seeing the life around me."

"Even so," he pressed, "is not that life limited? In comparison
with the total life of mankind, have you seen, do you think, a
large or a small fraction?"

She smiled. "You are clever. Once before I remarked you
should have been a lawyer. If I answer your question I will
necessarily admit, won't I, that it's only a fraction, large or
small, that I've seen." Then, seriously - "All right, I'll
answer. A small fraction. Does that satisfy you? Please re-
member, though, I've read at least a few books, and it would
seem that the wisest of them bear me out."

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"I don't doubt it. The wisest of the ones you've read. But there are others, equally wise, which make just the opposite affirmation. Perhaps, don't you think, you were biased in your selections and sort of bent and determined to rule out whatever did not agree with your already fixed views and feelings? I'm pretty sure that if one were to read and experience and understand _all_ the wise books, just this experience would make it impossible for him to become fixed on any one exclusive conclusion."

She did not reply at once; and he could sense that instead of merely thinking of what to say to him with an eye to winning an argument, she was seriously reflecting.

At length she spoke. Her voice had changed, her feeling - as if, though she still somewhat begrudged and doubted the value of it, she was receptive, reaching out. Facing him with one of her level gazes she asked simply, "What would you have me do?"

After pondering a minute he said, "First know that you and I, made of the same basic life-stuff, with the same basic construction and consciousness, placed in the same basic conditions, have the same basic problems and queries. It is an old saying, and absolutely true - we, all of us, we human beings, are the same, in the same boat. We are on this planet called Earth. Given what we are, given the boat, it is inevitable that we all arrive, by whatever devious routes, at the same ultimates. What I am going to tell you is exactly what I have told myself in an attempt to answer fruitfully and satisfactorily the identical question you just put to me - for I can assure you I know what it

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is to feel that life is futile, and not yet have I lifted
myself from that pit. The answer is this:

"Begin thinking, if you will, of yourself as composed of actualities and potentialities. For the present take it that all of yourself that you now experience, tangibly experience, is your actuality, So defined, it becomes clear that when you speak of futility you are saying that this present actual person, this Edith, is futile, that her actual life is futile. Is that not so?"

She nodded. Tiny quivers passed across her face because of
intentness.

"But what you say of futility has no reference at all to your potential person. Your potential being is the aspect of your totality which as yet you do not tangibly experience. You may sense it, byt you do not know it. So you cannot possibly say, can you, that your potential experience is or will be futile?"

"No." And all the while a little voice in her was saying over
and over what an excellent lawyer he would be. She couldn't hush
it.

"Try always to remember these simple distinctions and you will have, I believe, the key not only to your own dilemma but to mine and to everyone's. Disillusion has to do with what? It is the stripping off of illusions which have surrounded the actual person. This stripping off is necessary and valuable because then and then only can we see and realize what we actually are; because, further, only then have we the possibility of sensing, vividly and purely sensing, what we potentially are. Illusions blind

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us not only to actualities but to potentialities as well.
If we would come in contact with both kinds of reality -
for the potential is as real as the actual - we must tear down,
wear off, our blinders. Good.

"But with you, Edith, as with so many of us, you haven't gone far enough and but one of your eyes is but half open. You have one half-open eye. What it sees is a grey bleak flatness with everything reduced to the same futile level. Open it completely - and what it will see will be devastating. And from the shock of this, your other eye may open. And what this other eye will see will be amazing beyond description. You are still at least two-thirds blind. And you are indulging yourself in the conceit of what you mistook to be complete disillusionment. And what? Does one labor and suffer and go through all the hells of life only in the end to lie down and give way to a sort of superior spinelessness?"

"So that's what you think of me?"

He was jolted. He hadn't been thinking of her at all, not in a personal way. "Why - no - "

She smiled wryly.

"Don't you see," he said. Then he felt it was hopeless. If she didn't understand ...

"Yes, I see. But my dear friend, Hugh, you have given me some interesting attitudes. I was joking before. I understand. Attitudes, philosophy ... well and good. If you really want to help me tell me what to do."

"I've already tried to. Change an attitude - that is doing.

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Think - that is doing. Change your feelings. Go clean through
what you've started and stopped half way in. Believe me, if
you do these things you will crash through and out of futility -"

"Am I to <u>believe</u> you?"

Her tone irritated him. After all, it was her affair, not
his. "As you like." Then he added, "Take all I've said as
belief. Certainly. Right belief is enough to start with. For
the rest, it is a matter of personal meaning to and for oneself.
What I've told you - who knows whether it's truth or false. What
I know is this. It squares with <u>my</u> experience, having arisen out
of this experience. And, for me, it is fruitful."

So he ended, feeling that he, a man, had given her, a woman,
a pattern for living. And she? His mind worked on. Now he
wondered what, if anything, he had accomplished. With no result
he tried to sense what was happenigg in her, what she was think-
ing. Edith was sphinx-like. It was evident, however, that, like
himself, she had had her say.

They turned from each other, leaned against the sill, and
again looked out the window.

Beyond, beneath, was the angry sea, as black as loam and
fertile. Life, multiformed, came to birth and therein existed.
Beyond the sea were the continents, eastern, western - millions
of human beings, earth ... yea, the universe. And here, a tiny
ship, beneath the clouds, shut off from the firmament, fathoms
above the ocean-bed and sunken continents, miles and miles from
land, bow and stern - a ship, all alight, decks deserted, life
indrawn, sloughing waves through a black ocean.

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At his side, a human being struggling to find a satisfactory answer as to whether of not her existence was worthwhile. Or was she? One thing was certain. Like everyone else she had an inevitable wish for life. He wondered if this wish, despite her views, despite her queer behaviour towards him, had managed to take from him something of use; if it would find in his affirmation any substance for hope.

Suddenly he visualized the matter of futility. He saw it as a cloud overcasting the entire conscious world. Doubt ⏯ was linked with it. Strange human perversities. All together they blinded sight and dulled sense and contracted human life within a space no larger than his eyes could penetrate this night.

Edith shifted position. He sansed something happening.

It came to the surface all at once. She straightened up, faced him, smiled queerly, and extended her hand. "You have given me much to think about." Her voice sounded strange to herself. "Thank you." And, as if it were an after-thought - "Perhaps I even trust you." She withdrew her hand and walked off.

He felt as though he had been slapped. He stood staring after her. Not even when she entered the door did she as much as turn around.