"Thanks, so much!" said Ida Larpent, making no attempt to disguise her sense of triumph at being on the yacht. "How delightful it will be to get away from the land and its people for a time. I congratulate you on the Galatea."
Franklin waited until she had disappeared and then strode over to Malcolm Fraser, who was watching the arriving baggage, took his arm and marched him out of ear-shot of the crew. "What the devil have you done? You call yourself a friend and land me in this mess!" His voice was thick with anger.
Fraser looked as astonished as he felt. "But you called me down to the Vanderdykes to do this very thing," he said. "I've done it. What's the trouble?"
"You colossal idiot!" said Franklin. "Haven't you imagination enough to see it for yourself? Have you forgotten every blessed thing that I told you last night? You haven't persuaded this girl to come aboard to oblige her people or to keep my name out of the papers. She doesn't give a solitary curse whether hers is in them or not. She's come just to have the satisfaction of playing with fire, and has brought Ida Larpent because she knows instinctively that she is the last woman on earth I care to see her with or have on the Galatea."
All the way back to town, Fraser had been congratulating himself on having achieved the impossible. He opened his mouth to speak.
"I think you'd better dry up," said Franklin, "and give me time to cool down. At this moment I feel like pitching you overboard." He turned on his heel, went forward and stood, with his hands thrust into his pockets, gazing down the river.
Like all poets, Malcolm Fraser was a very sensitive person. He was deeply hurt at the way in which his efforts were received by the man for whom he had a very deep regard. Like all poets,—even those who confine themselves to gloomy verses, to graves and broken hearts and wind in the trees,—he was an optimist. He had made up his mind that he had only to get Beatrix away to sea with Franklin to bring romance into their very strange, exotic story. He held the belief,—shared by many philosophers,—that in most cases love is the outcome of propinquity,—especially at sea. He didn't possess much, but he would give it all to watch the girl he loved become a woman and find herself for love of his friend. He threw a sympathetic glance at the square shoulders of his friend, and went below to his own familiar stateroom. From this he could hear Beatrix's merry laugh. She, at any rate, seemed to be happy, and that was something. He could not for the life of him understand,—with his friend's confession still warm in his memory,—why, he, too, was not in the seventh heaven of delight at the fulfilment of what had yesterday seemed to be a dream. To the amazing unconventionality of the whole affair he gave no thought. He was an artist.
Finally, and with a huge effort to master his anger and amazement, joy and sense of impending trouble, Franklin summed things up to the best of his ability: "Here's Beatrix," he said to himself, "not married to me,—supposedly on our honeymoon. I love her like an idiotic school-boy—she loathes me like the devil. Here's Ida Larpent, out for everything that she can get, playing her own hand with all the cunning of a card-sharp. Here's Fraser, one of the very best, a man with a heart of gold to whom friendship means loyalty, with a love for Beatrix which has outlasted his boyhood. And almost in sight of us all is the open sea. Great Scott, what a mess!"
And then Captain McBean stood at his elbow. "Orders stand, sir?"
"Of course," said Franklin. "But before we put off do what you can to get a stewardess aboard for Mrs. Larpent. You had better send Jones ashore. He has a wide smile and does things pretty quick, and,—wait a second, Captain,—let him bring back all the latest novels that he can find. We shall need something to keep the ladies busy."