“That was precisely what I thought, only a good deal harder, when I was sat down to dinner, the second day out, and glanced across the table. You remember my telling you about my first experiences in America, when I was a shrinking and pink-cheeked young English governess, and never knew a bold thought or a dishonest act? Do you remember my describing the woman—it’s always a woman who is hard on another woman!—who accused me of—of having designs on her husband? Her husband, a miserable, oily little Hebrew diamond-merchant who twice insulted me on the stairs of his own house, when I had to swallow it without a word! Well, it was that woman who sat across the table from me. They had put me at the Captain’s table—my London gown, you see, looks uncommonly well. But there was that woman, a little more faded and wizened and wrinkled, looking at me with those beady old hawk eyes of hers; and I knew there was trouble ahead.
“A war-correspondent, who had been nice to me, had brought up about everybody at our table worth while, and introduced them to me, that night before going down. So, when I saw that yellow face and those hawk eyes, I knew I had to think hard and fast.”
“‘Are you not the young woman,’ she said, in a sort of frappé of nasal indignation, ‘are you not the young woman whom I once employed as a governess and discharged for misconducting herself with—er—with the other servants?’
“I was so busy trying to be cool that I didn’t bother thinking out an answer. I did want to say, though, that it was not a servant, but her own devoted and anointed husband. I kept on talking to the Captain, deciding to ignore her icily. But that yellow hag deliberately repeated her question, and I heard the war-correspondent gasp out an indignant ‘My God, madam!’ and saw the Captain’s face growing redder and redder. So I went on and asked the Captain if intoxication was becoming commoner on the high seas. Then she began to splutter and tremble. I kept looking at her as languidly as ever, and a steward had to help her away.
“But she knew that she was right. And she knew that I knew she knew. Though I had all the men on my side, and the Captain cheerfully saw to it that she was moved down to the tail end of the Doctor’s table, among the commercial travellers and the school-ma’ms, I knew well enough that she was only waiting for her chance.
“It didn’t change the face of things, but it upset me, and made me more cautious in the way I handled young Singford. In some way, I felt a bit sorry for the poor chap, I thought a little sympathy might perhaps soften him, and make him tell me something worth while. But he had too much good old English backbone for that. And, although he told me I was the best woman he ever knew, and a little more solemn nonsense like that, I at last had to go for him very openly. It was a moonlight night—the sea-air was as soft as summer. We were standing by the rail, looking out over the water. Then I made the plunge, and very quietly told him I knew two things, that he had stolen his sister’s diamond pendant, and that for three days he had been thinking about committing suicide.
“I watched his hand go up to his breast-pocket—the moon was on his terrified young face—and I came a little nearer to him, for I was afraid of something—I tried to tell him there was no use jumping overboard, and none whatever in throwing the Blue Pear into the Atlantic. That would only make things past mending, forever. Besides, he was young, and his life was still before him. I talked to him—well, I believe I cried over him a little, and finally, without a word, he reached in under his coat, and there, in the moonlight, handed me the Blue Pear. I gave him my word of honor it would be taken back to his sister, and even lent him twenty pounds—and you can imagine how little I had left!”
Durkin looked up, as though to ask a question, but she silenced him with her uplifted hand.
“That was the night we came up the Bay. I slipped down to my cabin, and turned on the electric light. Then I opened the little case, and looked at my pendant. You know I never liked diamonds, they always seemed so cold and hard and cruel—well, as though the tears of a million women had frozen into one drop. But this Blue Pear—oh, Jim, it was beautiful!”
“It was?—Good heavens, you don’t mean—?”