The Professor hesitated, and the girl put her finger on the weak spot. “You didn’t bring her because you thought it was too dangerous,” she remarked shrewdly; “and you didn’t want others to know how risky you thought it was. And you picked me for the goat. Ain’t that it?”
The Professor leaned forward. “Not exactly,” he explained. “It would be very dangerous for her to visit Russia. Being what she is and who she is, it would be very dangerous. For you, it is not so. Danger may threaten you, but you can always escape by declaring who you are. With her it is different. Besides”—he spoke slowly and impressively—“I have reasons—reasons that I assure you are crucial—for having it thought that she is with us. I implore you to keep the secret. It might and probably would cost her her life if certain persons on board suspected the truth. You will keep faith?”
“Oh, sure! I’ll keep faith. You needn’t worry about that. Especially if that stuck-up Fitzhugh woman is one of the ‘certain persons.’”
The Professor said nothing more. He was by no means satisfied with the situation; but, then, he had been dissatisfied with it from the first. It was a mere choice of evils, and, he told himself despondently, in trying to better matters he was only too likely to make them worse. Nothing but the absolute necessity of keeping the real Olga out of Russia would have ever driven him to such a desperate scheme as this.
It was really more desperate than he knew, though not more so than he might have guessed had he known of the relations that were developing between Miss Lee and Thomas Wilkins.
These two had drawn very close together during the trip. While neither would have endured for a moment any intimation that they were not as good as any one breathing, still neither could help feeling more or less out of place in their new surroundings. The girl saw this more clearly and felt it more sharply than the man. She recognized the fact that these people were lucky enough to possess what she had longed for all her life—money and social position—and concluded that their ways must be correct ways. Therefore she set herself to study them and to mould herself by their standards. The conditions were peculiar, and perhaps she might grasp the money and the position if she once fitted herself for them.
Wilkins, on the other hand, had no yearnings for the social altitudes. It never occurred to him to copy any one else’s manners. He only felt vaguely uncomfortable, more or less seasick, and very much bored. Therefore he welcomed the companionship of the one person among the cabin passengers with whom he somehow felt himself to be on a plane.
As the voyage continued, this intimacy increased. Caruth noticed it and vaguely wondered at it; but then he had wondered from the first at the rather singular manners and conversation of the Professor’s daughter. Miss Fitzhugh noticed it, and did not like it; just why, she scarcely knew. But neither she nor Caruth made any effort to check it. Supposing Miss Lee to be the Professor’s daughter and therefore devoted to his cause, they naturally were glad of anything that tended to bind Wilkins closer to their cause.
So matters ran along till nearly the end of the voyage. Cattegat and Skagerrak had been traversed, Copenhagen was a blur of light on the clouds behind them; the widening sea space before them showed that the broad Baltic lay close at hand.
Miss Lee and Wilkins sat together on the quarter-deck watching the moonlight as it shone white on the wake of the Sea Spume. For some time neither had spoken.