Vision House

"I should think not, if the rest are like you," said Marise. "I've seen you perfectly horrid to quite inoffensive people you didn't happen to approve of."

"The person you force me to discuss, dear child, is the opposite of inoffensive," amended Severance. "Can't we drop him?"

"You seem to have done so successfully already," said she. "As he's on this ship, homeward bound, the regiment is rid of him, isn't it?"

"I'm not so sure. In fact, I'm not at all sure. He's in mufti, certainly – to insult the good old word! But I understand he still refuses to confess he's beaten, and is only on long leave."

"Oh, he's in mufti! But you'll point him out, if he comes on deck, won't you, boy? After all this talk, I pine to see what he's like. If he passes by – "

"Thank Heaven, he has passed by. He's gone inside, and we're rid of him for the moment."

"Tony, you don't mean – you can't!"

"What?"

"Samson?"

"Why, yes. Didn't you realise that? Now perhaps you'll understand why we don't want this particular Samson pulling down the pillars of our temples."

"He may have heard what we said! He was walking back and forth part of the time as we talked."

"Who cares if he did hear? It would do him good – be a douche to cool his conceit."

At that instant the back of Severance's head was coldly douched. Something popped: something spurted. A jet of water sprayed over him, fizzing with such force that it blew his gold-laced Guards' cap over his eyes.

Marise and her mother were petrified. They could only gasp.

CHAPTER III

A CABIN WINDOW

After the first dazed instant, the girl had a wild inclination to laugh. She suppressed it with the explosive struggle of suppressing a sneeze. Poor, dear Tony! It would be cruel to make fun of him, more cruel than if the top of his head had been blown off! For him – especially at this moment of his high boasting – it was tragic to be made ridiculous. But it was funny – frightfully funny – to see his expression of stunned rage at the accident, as he dried his face and hair with a faintly fragrant, monogramed handkerchief, and wiped something fizzing out of his eyes.

Of course it – whatever it was – must have been an accident. Yet it was odd, or perhaps merely fortunate, that all the liquid had spurted over Severance, not a drop spattering the girl's blue toque. That thought darted through the mind of Marise, and prompted a quick turn of the head. At the open stateroom window behind the deck chairs stood someone whose face she could not see. In fact, the presence of this person was indicated only by a ginger-beer bottle still pointing, pistol-like, at Lord Severance's back. The bottle was almost empty, its contents having been discharged in one rush, and a mere inoffensive froth now dribbled over the window-sill. This vision told at a glance what had occurred. The glass ball inside the mouth of the bottle had been pushed with too great violence. But why, why, had the experiment been made at the window? Was it the act of a stupid steward, or —

An answer to the question flashed into the girl's brain, and again it was all she could do to control a shriek of laughter. (She had an inconvenient sense of humour, inherited from Louis Sorel, and earnestly discouraged by her mother.) What if – but no! The creature wouldn't dare. Or would he?

"Sorry!" said a voice. "Accident, I assure you. Hope the lady wasn't touched."

With this, Marise knew that the creature had dared. Though she had never heard the "blighter" speak, she was as certain of his identity as of her own. That, then, was his stateroom window. He had disappeared from the deck intending to do the thing, and he had done it. From his own point of view he had done it with deadly skill, and she was sure he knew without asking that "the lady" had not been "touched." Of course, he had heard what Severance said, and this was his revenge for past and present insults. It was, no doubt, the deed of a cad, or a mischievous schoolboy, but arriving on top of Severance's last words, thus douching the doucher, it was so neat that it hit the girl's sense of drama as the beer had hit the "brass hat."

She wanted to say, "No, I wasn't touched, thank you." But Severance would never forgive her for bandying words with the bounder. She expected Tony to speak – to say something, if only a "Damn you!" which would have been almost excusable even in the presence of ladies. But to her surprise he left the disguised defiance unanswered.

"Disgusting!" he exclaimed impersonally. "Creatures like that ought to be caged. I'm afraid I must retire for repairs. But I'll be back in a few minutes. You won't go away, will you?"

"No, indeed," Mary Sorel assured him. "What a shocking shame. Poor Lord Severance! But how much worse if it had been ale or stout! Think of the horrid odour – and the stains on your beautiful coat!"

"It would have been ale or stout if the ship wasn't 'dry' on account of a few returning soldiers!" said Severance with extreme bitterness, as he got up. "I wonder it wasn't ink. Only ink doesn't spurt."

He crushed his wet cap over his wet hair, and went off, mumbling like distant thunder. Behind the chairs, the beer-bottle window slid shut, but Marise fancied she heard through the thick stained glass a wild chortle of joy.

Mrs. Sorel closed her book, with the lorgnettes to mark her page, and leaned across Tony's empty chair.

"Marise, you laughed!" she reproved her daughter. "How could you?"

"I didn't, I only boo-higgled in my throat."

"I wish you'd be more careful," cautioned the elder woman. "If you're not, take it from me, you may be sorry yet. Tony is worried about something. I noticed it the moment we came on board. You know what an instinct I have! I feel as if – but I mustn't tell you now. He may get to his stateroom and hear us."

"What makes you think he could hear us from his stateroom?" asked Marise. "Do you know where it is?"

"Why, yes," replied the other. "I was with him when he chose the place for our chairs. You were in our cabin showing Céline what to unpack. He pointed out his window, and – but my goodness!"

A gasp stopped her words. Marise followed the direction of the puzzled or startled brown eyes. They stared at the window just closed, from whose sill ginger-beer continued to drip.

"Is that his room?" breathed the girl.

"I thought that was the window, but I must be mistaken, of course. Probably it's the next one – on my side or yours."

Marise let the question drop. She wasn't pining to confide the contents of her mind. Besides, her conjectures were too vague for words. In striving to frame them she would surely laugh, and Mums would think her a callous wretch.

Mrs. Sorel, anxious to be overheard saying the right thing, if she were overheard at all, began to chat about friends who had sent flowers or telegrams on board. Each name she mentioned had a "handle." She liked Lord Severance to be reminded casually now and then that her girl had titled admirers outside the circle he had brought round them. But Marise was not listening. She was putting two and two together.

When she suggested that the V.C. had been billeted in Tony's cabin, Tony had said neither "yes" nor "no," now she came to think of it. He had caught at another branch of the subject which she elected to pursue. He hadn't wanted her to know that the loathed Major Garth was his room-mate. Why? Oh, he would feel it humiliating to his amour propre. He had wished to buy a cabin for himself alone, and had been told that it was too late: "the company would do their best, but could not promise." Then, fate and the company's good intentions had picked out the one companion he would least have chosen.

It was almost too queer, and too bad, to be true; yet the more she thought of it the truer it seemed. Her mother's impression about the window – and the lack of surprise Severance had shown after the "accident." Once recovered from the shock, he wore an air of having got what might have been expected. He hadn't even looked over his wet shoulder to glare at the sniper. Oh, Marise saw it all now! Tony had made his last remarks for the benefit of the bête noire, believing he had gone to the mutual cabin, but not dreaming how far a bounder, in bounding, might bound for revenge. She would have given a good deal to know whether Severance had now joined his room-mate in their quarters, and if so, what was going on.

In a hand-to-hand fight Severance would be apt to get second best with Samson, unless skill should master strength. Was that why he had flung back no challenge? But, of course, it couldn't be; Tony was not a coward. He had merely kept his temper to save a scene. Nevertheless, she wished that Garth hadn't shut the window!

CHAPTER IV

REPRISALS – ET CETERA

Jorn Garth considered himself completely justified in shooting Severance with a pint of iced ginger-beer, and even had his conscience squirmed he would have committed the act. Knowing that Severance thought of, and denounced, him as "a bounder," he didn't see why, when worst came to worst, he shouldn't live up to the reputation.

Worst had come to worst on board the Britannia. Things had been bad enough before, but the climax was reached when the two men found themselves caged in the same room, neither one willing to play lamb to the other's lion. Garth hated the proximity as hotly as Severance hated it; but there was no cabin of any class with a free berth, save one occupied by a coloured colonel in charge of negro troops going home. Garth had a deep respect for the dark soldiers, who had distinguished themselves in the war; but men of white and men of black skin were not quartered together; and he had never boiled to throttle Severance as he boiled at the cool proposal that he should join Colonel Dookey.

"Join him yourself," he said.

"I'm not an American," shrugged Severance.

"That's why you and he would get along better than you and me, or he and me," retorted Garth, careless of grammar.

"I shall remain where I am," Severance gave his ultimatum.

"Same here. You ought to be thankful your earlship has got the lower berth."

This statement required no answer; and the conversation lapsed.