"That wouldn't do much good," she replied, more curtly than before. "You see, I'd have to make a definite accusation against her, and I've nothing to go on except what he'd call mere suspicion and we call logical deduction. I'd give her a tremendous handle against me, especially with him; and if she had any suspicion that I suspected her—why, she might call me down pretty badly by not putting anything in the stuff at all. No, poppa, under the circumstances, we can't do anything except not drink that punch. I'm going to have a headache to-night and stop in my berth. You have some of your gastric trouble and drink hot milk or something of that sort: and if you get a show I think you might, as matters are coming to a head pretty quickly, just give a hint to Captain Burgess and Mr M'Niven to drink as little of that punch as they politely can."
"Well, Chrysie," replied her father, "you've been right so far, but I do hope you're wrong this time. It's a pretty large order, you know, drugging the whole ship's company."
"Yes; and a Frenchwoman with a lot to win is playing a game for pretty big dollars. Of course, there may be nothing in it at all, and I may be quite wrong, but I think this punch of hers has come along at the wrong time, and we can't take any risks. There's one thing, she'll have to drink some of it herself, and that old aunt of hers too. Still, she's pretty useless, and doesn't matter; but if anything does really happen, poppa, you'd better go straight and shake the viscount up. I'll have the steward make some pretty strong coffee to-night for me, and I'll keep it hot and you can give it him; and if the doctor isn't dead, too, with the stuff, get a drop of prussic acid from him. That'll bring him round."
"It strikes me, Chrysie," said her father, looking down admiringly on her flushed and animated face, "as though you're getting ready to run this ship in case of trouble."
"It's just that, poppa," she said, with an impatient little tap of her foot on the deck; "that is, of course, with you. I don't say it's altogether disinterested, because it isn't; but I'd do that and a lot more to keep to windward of that Frenchwoman, and she knows it. You can work your gun and I can work a Maxim, so if there's only the two of us, we can do something with that Russian ship. And now I guess we'd better go to the other end and show how friendly we can be with our enemies."
"Chrysie," said her father, with a very tender note in a voice which could be as hard as the ring of steel, "I don't want you to be a bit different to what you are, but if you'd been a man you'd have been a great one."
"I'd sooner be a good woman and get what I want than be the biggest man on earth," laughed Chrysie. "When a woman gets all she wants she doesn't want to envy big men anything."
And with that they went aft and subsided into deck-chairs in a sort of irregular circle, in which Lord Orrel was fast asleep, Madame de Bourbon rapidly subsiding, and the marquise and Lady Olive making a pretence of reading with drooping eyelids.
The punch á le Grand Monarque was a great success that evening after dinner. It was delicious; and every one regretted that the president's attack of gastritis and Miss Chrysie's headache prevented them from sharing in its delights.
The marquise brewed a little pot of her aunt's special Russian tea for them, which the president declined with many apologies, and which Miss Chrysie, after accepting a cup from the hands of Felice, emptied out of the port-hole as soon as her ladyship's lady had left the cabin.