“An Italianate Englishman,” his grandfather descanted, “they used to call a devil incarnate. I leave it to fancy what an Italian who—”
“Aha, but I’m not!” cried Tony warmly. “I have you there. My father was Italian born, yes. That’s only half. And me, bless you, I sailed out on an English ship a twelve-year-old. Under the same flag ever since. An English deck is English soil. Come now, Mr. Bissant, to be honest—”
While their debate ran high, Miles slipped quietly from the room.
Last night’s fog had poured up the channel, overflowed the hills, and now submerged all but the smoky loom of the hackmatack pillars, as Miles passed between them. Sea-rime silvered his rough jacket; from beneath wet eyelashes he peered into motionless, white space; the very hill underfoot was a declivity felt, not seen. He wandered slowly down it, hands in pockets, head bent.
To be honest! Tony’s chance phrase recurred ironically; and after it, his saying on the hill above Kilmarnock, “You’re the sort a man can trust.” With what? thought Miles bitterly: with lies, calculated, shaped as confidences. He had not known, before, how utterly the older man had captured his liking; or how, divorced from belief, liking could become reproach. A raw simpleton, to lend a stranger his heart!
In this mood he found himself halting, without purpose, on the Admiral’s quarter-deck. From the rail he saw neither rocks nor river, but only the globular, spiny tufts of young Norway pines that stepped down toward the beach. Wind-slanted, rooted in crevices, they lent their fixity as a gauge to sight: their needles, carding sluggish vapor, freed the spellbound air; formlessness became texture; and fleecy filaments dissolving, twining, blending, thick as the smoke of wet brushwood, set the whole snowy void adrift in level motion. Somewhere, far below in the bay, a whistle mournfully bellowed. Nearer home, but deep in the fog, sounded the unsteady bumping of a single oar.
“Hallo-o-o!” The rowing stopped; and a moment later the same high, clear voice called, “Hallo-o-o!”
Miles trumpeted through his hands an answering hail.
“Oh!” cried the rower, with evident relief. “Hallo again. Are you a vessel or the shore?”
“I’m the shore,” laughed Miles. “What’s wrong?”