“Lynwood,” he said suddenly, “I shouldn’t leave my manuscript sculling about the deck, if I were you.”
“It was all on the table,” John answered quickly. “I hadn’t time to put it away when you sent for me. I’m sorry it made a litter. If I may go down for a moment, I’ll get Fane-Herbert to put it into my locker for me—I should be back almost at once. Then everything will be tidy——” He stopped helplessly.
“I wasn’t objecting to the untidiness,” Hartington said.
The silence seemed unending. John had never felt so uncomfortable, so utterly at a loss. He knew the contemptuous thoughts that must be passing through Hartington’s mind. He tried haltingly to minimize his error.
“I do it only—only in my spare time,” he said, “just as other people do—do other things.” He wanted to explain that he meant no harm by his poetry, but he could find no words. The poetry itself was the harm, he knew. There was no explaining it away. “Do you mind very much?” he asked nervously.
Hartington smiled. “Mind?” he said. And then he added, “Why should I mind? Is it contrary to the King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions to write verse?”
“No, but——”
“The point is, that most Subs would have made you read it to the Mess after dinner, and very probably beaten you at the end of it—if not on that pretext, then on some other. So it wasn’t very discreet of you to leave it about, do you think?”
“No.”