Drying her eyes, she went aft on the upper deck. The air was soft and wooing. All the harbor full of shipping; and lights—lights everywhere. The arch of heaven was very wide and filled with an infinite dusk. It was like some soothing and benignant presence. She faced about, still looking up, and saw the keen little crescent of the young moon hanging aslant, seeming to bend down over the Los Angeles. The sight of the little moon comforted the girl curiously. It seemed to be shining so hopefully, so gallantly, setting its tiny horns for a signal just over Hildegarde’s ship. She turned a silver coin in her pocket while she wished, and in the dusk she curtsied to her Moonship. Feeling a little less forlorn after performance of these rites, she walked the silent deck with firmer step and the hornèd moon for company, trying not to listen to those sounds down there upon the wharf—trying to recapture her early zest in this enterprise. Now there were dim figures moving about the shadowy deck, and in the smoking-room a light was turned on. Through the window she could see a group of four men. They stood before a big sheet of paper laid upon the table, and they argued some point with anger. Why, one of the men was the little agent! “I swear it’s all right”—he raised his voice excitedly—“all quite regillar an’ legal.”
A snigger near where the girl stood made her aware of the presence of two men behind her there in the dusk, one indifferent, half turned away; the other, through spectacles that caught the smoking-room light, looked in over Hildegarde’s shoulder at the angry group.
“What are they arguing so about?” asked the girl, a little anxiously. If either of the men outside answered she didn’t hear, for the noise below on the wharf had been growing louder. Surely there was a riot going on! “Oh, what is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter down there?”
“The matter is it’s close on ten o’clock,” said the man with the spectacles.
“But they promised to let the people in at nine!”
“That’s the trouble.”
“Why didn’t they?”
“That’s why.” The spectacled face nodded toward the smoking-room window. The voices in there were held down now, but three of the faces were angrier than ever. The fourth was sullen and set.
“Won’t you tell me what is happening?”