Confronted for the first time by the problem of a woman’s mind, and having no woman to whom he could go for counsel, John was guilty of an error in judgment almost as often as he and Margaret met. To him, in his present mood, every sign seemed a sign of ill-omen. If she went out of the room when he was there he thought she wished to avoid him. If she was not at home when he called he imagined that she had foreseen his coming. To his ears she seemed never to speak of Ordith save with approval.
In the meantime, Ordith made regular, methodical, and carefully recorded progress. Margaret could not understand John. At a time when she had been most eager to help him he had become suddenly uncommunicative, and lately, without any kind of explanation, he had ceased to come to the house more often than mere politeness demanded. Her father regarded him “as one of those snotties,” no more and no less. And Ordith never missed an opportunity.
He would come continually to the house. He would talk to Margaret throughout the long summer afternoons, talk about himself, his future, his ambitions—just such talk as, modestly spoken, flatters any woman into interest. He would ask her advice, making her feel that her decision was indeed of importance to him. He had an air of letting her share his secrets, and a power, that amounted almost to genius, of making his secrets not only important but amusing.
At the dance which the Admiral gave in his flagship he took entire charge of her. She could not help noticing that in the flagship the personality of Ordith had made itself felt. And he was in excellent form that night, laughing, dancing with extraordinary swing and rhythm, awakening in her an excitement that brightened her eyes and brought a hot flush to her cheeks. Through many of the long hours in which she danced John was in charge of the Pathshire’s picket-boat, lying alongside the flagship, waiting until, the guests being ready to leave, the boats should be called to the gangway. He had undertaken this duty, which was not properly his own, in order that he might avoid a direct decision as to whether he should attend the dance or deliberately absent himself from it. He had lacked courage either to compete with Ordith, or, without some excuse of “duty,” to leave the field clear for him.
“Not going to the dance?” Hartington had said.
“No.”
“Why on earth not? You are a dancing man, aren’t you?”
“I am running the picket-boat,” John had answered.
But Hartington had seen deeper than this poor excuse.
“Couldn’t you have got someone to run it for you—if you want to go to the dance?”