So, when next day the Doric sailed, four new names appeared upon the passenger list, and the last men down the stage already “trembling on the rise,” were two young fellows in white uniform, who turned as they sprang to the dock and waved their jaunty caps. “Join you in ten days at ’Frisco!” shouted the shorter of the two, gazing upward and backward at the quartette on the promenade deck. “Oh! beg a thousand pardons,” he added hastily, as he bumped against some slender object, and, wheeling about to pick up a flimsy white fan, he found himself face to face with Witchie Garrison, kerchief waving, beaming, smiling, throwing kisses innumerable to the party he had so lately left. The hot blood rushed to his forehead, an angry light to his eyes, as she nodded blithely, forbearingly, forgivingly at him. “Dear boy,” she cried, in her clear, penetrating treble, “how could you be expected to see any one after leaving—her?” But Gov.’s arm was linked in his at the very instant and led him glowering away, leaving her close to the edge of the crowded dock, smiling sweetness, blessing and bliss upon a silent and unresponsive group, and waving kerchief and kisses to them until, far from shore, the Doric headed out to sea.
They were nearing home again. Day and night for nearly a week the good ship had borne them steadily onward over a sea of deepest blue, calm and unruffled as the light that shone in Amy’s eyes. Hours of each twenty-four Armstrong had been the constant companion, at first of the trio, then of the two—for Mr. Prime had found a kindred spirit in a veteran merchant homeward bound from China—then of one alone; for Miss Prime had found another interest, and favor in the eyes of a young tourist paying his first visit to our shores, and so it happened that before the voyage, all too brief, was half over, Amy Lawrence and Armstrong walked the spacious deck for hours alone or sat in sheltered nooks, gazing out upon the sea. The soft, summer breezes of the first few days had given place to keener, chillier air. The fog ahead told of the close proximity of the Farallones. Heavier wraps had replaced the soft fabrics of the Hawaiian saunterings. But warmth and gladness, coupled with a strange new shyness in his presence, were glowing in her fresh young heart. One day she had said to him: “You have not told me how you came to leave there—just now,” and it was a moment before he answered.
“That was the surgeons’ doing. They sent me back from the front because the wound did not properly heal, and then ordered a sea voyage until it did; but I turn back at once from San Francisco.”
She was silent a few seconds. This was unlooked for and unwelcome news. “I thought,” she said, “at least Gov. heard Dr. Frank say it would be four months before you could use that arm.” She plucked at the fringe of the heavy shawl he had wrapped about her as she reclined in the low steamer chair; but the white lids veiled her eyes.
“Possibly,” answered Armstrong; “but you see I do not have to use it much at any time. I’m all right otherwise, and there will soon be need of me.”
“More campaigning?” she anxiously inquired, her eyes one moment uplifting.
“Probably. Those fellows have no idea of quitting.”
Another interval of silence. The long, lazy, rolling swell of the Pacific had changed during the day to an abrupt and tumultuous upheaval that tossed the Doric like a cork and made locomotion a problem. The rising wind and sea sent the spray whirling from her bows, and Mildred’s young man, casting about for a dry corner, had deposited his fair charge on a bench along the forward deck house and was scouting up and down for steamer chairs. Armstrong had drawn his close to that in which Miss Lawrence reclined, her knitted steamer cap pulled well forward over her brow. His feet were braced against a stanchion. His eyes were intent upon her sweet face. He had no thought for other men, even those in similar plight. His gaze, though unhampered by the high peak of his forage cap, comprehended nothing beyond the rounded outline of that soft cheek. Her eyes, well-nigh hidden by her shrouding “Tam,” saw the searching son of Albion and told her his need. The best of women will find excuse for interruption at such moments when sure of the devotion of the man who sits with a fateful question quivering on his lips; and, even when she longs to hear those very words, will find means to defer them as a kitten dallies with a captured mouse or a child saves to the very last the sweetest morsel of her birthday cake. Not ten minutes before, when the Honorable Bertie Shafto had started impulsively toward the vacant chair by Armstrong’s side, a firm hand detained him, and Miss Prime had hastily interposed. “Not on any account!” said she, imperiously. “Can’t you see?” And Mr. Shafto, adjusting his monocle, had gazed long and fixedly, and then, transferring his gaze to her, had said:
“Eh—eh—yes. It’s not ours, I suppose you mean.”