"The worst of standing here, Meade"—Major Crupp had taken his position by the side of the journalist—"is that no matter how matters are handled, we can no more interfere than if we were children in steerage. And yet some of us, Cadogan here especially, could help out a lot."
"Why can't you jump in there and help?" inquired Meade.
"Discipline. A man whose trade calls above all things for discipline must be the last of all to interfere with it. There's an officer there foolishly displaying a revolver, frightening people needlessly. Some foolish woman—did you hear her? —just said: 'How brave!' Brave! When his boat is loaded he goes off with it."
"Well, he's welcome, Major. I wouldn't care to be out there all night. What do you say, Cadogan?"
Cadogan made no answer. He was not losing a finger's crook of Miss Huttle's actions; and yet he was listening to and studying Meade and Crupp, old Mrs. Weiscopf and her husband, the ship's officers and men, a steerage woman with her baby in a shawl—however she came to be there—everybody and everything within sight and hearing. He could not help it. If he were one of a file of prisoners to be taken out and shot, his last curiosity would be to know what everybody was saying and doing—the executioners, the executed, himself, the spectators.
He noted the parting of bride and groom, and wondered what that groom would have given to go with her into the boat. He was taking note of the women who went reluctantly from the sides of their men-folk, and those who could hardly be held back until their turn came. He studied the faces of the men who by some mysterious dispensation were allowed to go into the boats. Some, as they stepped under the cluster of electric lights, betrayed to him that they knew. Some one in authority had told them, or, like himself, they had found out for themselves.
It was then that he saw Lavis. A woman with a baby in the shawl had, with a sublime gesture, abandoned her baby to a woman already in the boat, so that it might be saved. Lavis was standing behind her when she did it, and as she lost herself in the crowd, Lavis had looked after her with such an expression of pity that Cadogan's attention was attracted anew to him.
When Lavis turned to the circle of light again, his eyes met Cadogan's. "And you, too, know," thought Cadogan. Lavis came over to him.
"I was wishing I could give that poor woman this big coat of mine," began Cadogan; "it might make things a little less miserable for her."
Lavis's eyes thanked him. "I will find her and give it to her." Cadogan took it off. "I will see you again," said Lavis, and,went off with the coat.