Scandal: A Novel

by Cosmo Hamilton

The met again at dinner.

The chief steward, after giving the matter very considerable thought, had taken several leaves out of the table, thus making the happy pair "more cosy-like" as he put it. Beatrix and Franklin were equally glad to find that they were not going to sit in solemn state at the opposite ends of a long and narrow board. It would have added difficulty to a position already difficult enough.

Franklin had waited outside the dining saloon until Beatrix put in an appearance. The orchestra, with quite unconscious irony, was playing the Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla from Das Rheingold. The stewards were in their places. With an irresistible touch of mischief and her senses alive to the grim humor of it all, Beatrix laid her hand on Franklin's arm and went into dinner as though the saloon were a stage, and the curtain had risen on a crowded auditorium. She deliberately switched her mind into a belief that she was playing the part of a girl who had been forced by her family into a marriage of convenience with a man whom she hardly knew and that the scene in which she was to take part was comedy, one with an underlying note of tragedy in it. She told herself that she was required to portray a girl of high courage and spirit who was to convey the impression of being perfectly at ease although her heart was full of fright. She did this in order to string herself up to go through an ordeal with pluck and to prevent Franklin from having the satisfaction of imagining that he was forcing her to do something that went against the grain. Not for one instant did she intend to let Franklin see how intensely she resented being compelled to remain on the yacht or permit him to feel that he was winning. As to that she had absolutely made up her mind.

Franklin was glad beyond words to fall in with her mood,—as he took it to be. Not being psychologically inclined he was unable to deduce the meaning of it. He simply told himself that she was fearless and daring and added these things to the credit list of her splendid points which was growing larger and larger. He led her to the table, placed her chair, sat opposite and looked at her over an arrangement of roses. She was in a white dress with a string of pearls round her neck,—a dress so simple and clean in its lines as to prove the hand of a master in its making. She sat with a straight back, her chin up, her golden hair shimmering. She reminded Franklin of a daffodil.

He utterly failed to find any answers to his questions as to what he was to do with her now that he had her alone, how he was to proceed to bring about the end that obsessed him, or in what way he could persuade or coerce her out of her supreme and all-controlling individualism. He was not one of those curious men who, like Micawber, the master of the silly art of self-deception, drug themselves into a belief that all is well for the sake of wandering in a temporary paradise to which they have paid no entrance fee in the way of work and service. He was fundamentally incapable of indulging in that form of mental delusion which enables children to turn the floor of a nursery into a battlefield and slothful people with the artistic temperament to wallow in the triumph of a great achievement before they have even commenced to lay the foundations of it. He had the gift of seeing straight. He could find no point in looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. He was, in a word, honest. While, therefore, he delighted in seeing Beatrix playing the role of his wife so perfectly and enjoyed her almost affectionate manner and charming smiles he remained coldly truthful to himself and the position in which they both stood and realized that he was, if anything, farther away than ever from, the fulfilment of what he had called his "job."

All through dinner Beatrix talked well and quietly about plays and books, as to which Franklin had very little to say. So with uncharacteristic tact she switched off to shooting and fishing and all was well. She liked hearing him give forth on his own subjects and was amused to find how much more he knew of the ways and habits of birds and beasts than those of women. She made up her mind to see what she could do with Mr. Jones as soon as possible.

The night was warm and windless. When Beatrix rose from the table she went on deck and sat where she could listen to the orchestra. She asked the leader to play three pieces for her,—the strange mixture of which made him smile. They were Brahms' "Minnelied," "I Love a Piano," and "Lead, Kindly Light." Franklin, believing that she had had enough of him for the time being, went off to smoke a cigar with McLeod. As soon as the little band finished playing and went to dinner Beatrix walked aft to where, about thirty feet from the stern, a heavy canvas screen ran 'thwartships from one side of the yacht to the other, shutting off the deck space allotted to the crew. In this a fiddle and a mouth organ were playing one of those heavily sentimental vaudeville songs about home and mother, and several voices were harmonizing the air rather well. The owner of the falsetto with a pronounced tremulo Beatrix imagined to be a very tall, soft-looking, fat man with a beard which grew almost up to his eyes. She was right. He was the butt of the crew until he opened his mouth to sing. Presently the music changed to an Irish reel and Beatrix saw Horatio Jones with an almost smoked cigarette in his mouth come out, as though drawn by a magnet, or the reed instrument of the Pied Piper, and with droll solemnity proceed, all alone, into an orgy of toe and heel with his back to her.

Seeing her chance Beatrix slipped nearer and stood smiling. "Very nice," she said, when the dancer wound up with a resounding double smack.

Mr. Jones was disconcerted, not in being caught in his ecstatic solo, which he was quite ready to repeat, but because he had his cap on the wrong way round and was wearing his second-best monkey jacket. Being a complete lady's man he was naturally a conceited person and nothing put him out so much as to be taken unprepared. He grinned fatuously and put his cap on correctly.

"It must have taken a long time to become so proficient," she went on, giving him a dazzling smile.