CHAPTER XXV
AN UNDERSTANDING
Jimmy went to Austerly's, and during the evening related his adventures in the north to a sympathetic audience. His companions insisted on this, and though there was one fact he would rather not have mentioned he complied good-humoredly with their request. The narrative was essentially matter-of-fact, but he had sufficient sense to avoid any affectation of undue diffidence, and the others appeared to find it interesting. Indeed, Nellie Austerly, at least, noticed the faint sparkle which now and then crept into Anthea's eyes as he told them how, in order to keep his promise to the miners that there should be no delay, he had come out of a snug anchorage and groped his way northward through a bewildering smother of unlifting fog. He also told them simply, but, though he was not aware of the latter fact, with a certain dramatic force, how, straining every nerve and muscle in tense suspense, they hove the steamer off just before the gale broke, and of the strenuous labor cutting wood for fuel on the southward voyage.
When he stopped, Nellie Austerly looked up with a little nod. "Yes," she said, "you took those miners in as you had promised, in spite of the fog, and you brought the Shasta down all that way with only a few tons of coal. Still, I don't think you should expect any particular commendation. There are men who can't help doing things of that kind."
Jimmy laughed, though his face grew slightly flushed. "I'm afraid I also put her ashore. One can't get over that." Then he looked at Jordan. "In fact, I scarcely think I'm out of the wood yet. There will be an inquiry."
"Purely formal," said his comrade. "They'll have a special whitewash brush made for you. Nautical assessors have some conscience, after all. Besides, it depends largely on the facts you supply them whether they consider it worth while to have one."
Austerly had a few questions to ask, and then the conversation drifted away to other topics, until some little time later Jimmy found himself sitting alone beside Nellie Austerly. She lay wrapped in fleecy shawls in a big chair near the foot of the veranda stairway, looking very frail, but she smiled at him benevolently.
"I am glad they have gone," she said. "You see, I wanted to talk to you, but the dew is commencing to settle and I must go in soon. That is insisted on, though I don't think it matters."
She smiled again. "It is a beautiful world, Jimmy, isn't it?"
Jimmy drew in his breath as he glanced about him, for he guessed part of what she was thinking, and it hurt him. He could see the dark pines towering against the wondrous green transparency which follows hard upon the sunset splendors in that country. The Inlet shone in the gaps amid that stately colonnade, and far off beyond it there was a faint ethereal gleam of snow. To him, filled as he was with the clean vigor of the sea, it seemed too beautiful a world to leave.
"Still," said his companion, "it has had very little to offer me, and perhaps that is why I feel one should never stand by and let any good thing it holds out go; that is, of course, when one has the strength to grasp it. It usually needs some courage, too."