Tales of two people

“Yes, he was very – very attractive,” she answered. And somehow I fancy her glance rested for a moment on her husband – indeed on a particular portion of him. Charlie was just lighting the after-lunch cigarette. Charlie’s hands – he is a very good fellow and well off – are decidedly red and particularly podgy.

II

I LIKED Mrs Pryce very much. She was pretty, dainty, bright, and – well, bachelors are so apt to think that pretty married women have a dull time at home that I will lay no stress on my own private opinion as to her domestic lot. Enough that I was always glad to talk with her, and that it was pleasant to walk with her in the Major’s quiet old garden on a fine night when the wind stirred the boughs and the moon shone. Inside they had taken to pool – and whisky-and-soda. I play the former badly, and take the latter when the evening is more advanced.

“Beautiful moon!” I observed, enjoying Nature, my company, and my cigar.

She was silent a moment. Then she said: “It shone just like that the third night out from New York.”

“Your last trip?” She crosses pretty often, as Charlie has business connections on the other side.

“No. The one when – the one we were talking about at lunch.”

“Ah! When our friend of the slim fingers – ?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s sit down,” I suggested. We were just passing a garden seat.

She smiled at me half sadly, half mockingly. She saw through me; she knew I wanted to hear more about it. By some sort of sympathy I knew that she wanted to talk about it. It was queer, too, to consider through what window that moon was shining on Slim-Fingered Jim. Did it – and his other surroundings – remind him of the broad Atlantic? “The risks of the profession, gentlemen!”

“Yes, he had beautiful hands,” she murmured.

“What’ll they look like when – ?”

She caught my hand sharply in hers. “Hush, hush!” she whispered. I felt ashamed of myself, but of course I couldn’t have known that – well, that she’d feel it like that.

“I was quite a girl,” she went on presently. “Yes, it’s six years ago – and the first two days of that voyage were like days in heaven. You know what it can be when it’s fine? You seem never to have known what space was before – and bigness – and blueness. Do you know what I mean?”

“It’s very exhilarating.”

“Oh, don’t be silly! Of course nobody was ill – anyhow only the people who meant to be before they started – and we had an awfully jolly table.”

“Mr Walsh one of your party?”

“Yes, he was at our table. I – sat next to him.”

I turned half round and looked at her. The moon was strong, I could see her eyes.

“Look here, do you want to go on with this story?” I asked.

“Yes, I think so – I’ve never told it before. But perhaps I’ll skip a little of it.”

“At the beginning?”

“Yes. Will you imagine the sun shining by day and the moon by night?”

“Yes. And a sparkling sea? And nothing to do?”

“Yes. And a young girl – quite a young girl.”

“Yes. And beautiful hands – and the rest to match?”

“Yes – including a voice.”

“Yes. Let’s skip to the second evening, shall we, Mrs Pryce?”

“Will you be a little more imaginative and skip to the third afternoon?”

“The third afternoon be it. What’s happening when we begin the story again?”

“I’m in my mother’s state-room, getting a tremendous lecture. I’m not sure you ought to hear it.”

“Oh, I know all about it. You meant no harm, probably, but really it was time you learnt to be more careful. Attractive girls couldn’t be too careful. Men were so ready to think this and that – and say this and that – and then go and boast about it in the smoking-room. And what did you or your mother know about him? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! No doubt he was a gentleman, and very pleasant and amusing – but really you knew nothing. He was probably an adventurer. And anyhow – well, really it wasn’t quite – not quite– ladylike to – to – ”

“Yes, that’s not a bad imagination,” interrupted Mrs Pryce. “Add mamma’s pince-nez, and it’s quite life-like.”

“And the result?”

“Great constraint in my manner towards Mr Walsh at dinner that evening.”

“And – further result – a melancholy walk by you on the deck after dinner – a walk at first solitary – subsequently shared by a puzzled and humble Mr Walsh?”

“I begin to think you have more experience than you always admit,” said Mrs Pryce. “But I think you’ll go wrong if you try to guess any more.”

“Then I won’t guess any more. Take up the thread. It’s now the third night out, and the moon is shining like that.” I pointed to the orb which was illuminating the Major’s garden – among other places where sundry of that liner’s former passengers might chance to be.

“I’ll go on,” she said, “and don’t interrupt me for a little while. There was a very light wind – you hardly felt it aft – and I was standing looking over the sea. He came up to me and began to talk about some trifle – I forget what it was, but it doesn’t matter. But I was afraid mamma would come up and look for me, so I said I was going down to read. But I waited for just a minute more – I suppose I expected him to ask me not to go. He said nothing, but took one big pull at his cigar, gave one big big puff of smoke out of his mouth and nose, and then threw the cigar overboard. ‘Good-night, Mr Walsh,’ I said. He looked at me – it was as light as it is now – and said: ‘Will you give me one minute, Miss Cochrane?’ ‘Well, only a minute,’ I said, smiling. I was really afraid about mamma. ‘I want to tell you something,’ he said. I wonder if I blushed – and whether he could see if I did. I expect I did, and that he saw, because he went on very quickly: ‘Something that doesn’t matter much to you, but matters a bit to me.’ ‘Go on,’ I said. I was quite calm again now, because – well, because I saw he was going to say something serious – I mean, not of the sort I – I had thought he might be going to say before.”

“You saw he wasn’t making love to you, you mean?”

“I told you not to interrupt – but I daresay that’s putting it as nearly right as you can understand.”

I murmured thanks for this rather contemptuous forgiveness.

“Then he told me,” Mrs Pryce went on, “just simply told me – and said he was going to make some excuse for asking the purser to put him at another table.”

“But you can’t leave it like that!” I expostulated. “You’re throwing away all your dramatic effect. What did he say? His words, his words, Mrs Pryce!”

“He didn’t use any – not in the sense you mean. He just told me. He didn’t even put me on my honour not to tell anybody else. He said he didn’t care a hang about anybody else on board, but that he wanted to spare me any possible shock, and that he’d been concerned in the bond robbery and would probably be arrested at Queenstown, but that he expected to get off this time. I think I repeated ‘This time!’ because I remember he said then that he was a thief by profession, and couldn’t expect good luck every time. That was like what he said yesterday, wasn’t it?”

“And what did you say? It must have been a bad quarter of an hour for you. Because you’d liked him a good deal, hadn’t you?”

“Yes, a lot. But” – she turned to me, smiling now – “it wasn’t bad at all, really.”

She gave a little laugh – a laugh with pleasant reminiscence in it.

“You were a cool hand for your age,” I ventured to observe.