Under Rocking Skies

by L. Frank Tooker

"You don't? Why, mother said she told you all about it one time when you were at the house; she said she had to tell some one. That's how I felt to-night, and I thought you knew."

A light broke in upon Drew.

"Ah!" he said. Then he went on: "Yes, she told me; but she did not tell me the young lady's name. It is Miss March?"

"Yes," Medbury answered. "I thought you must know. You'd have been the only one in Blackwater if you hadn't. Sometimes I feel like the town clock, with every one watching my face. That's one reason why I like the China seas; I can't get farther away."

"Your mother told me very little," said Drew; "she was worrying about your not coming home, and lonely, and it did her good to speak. It did not seem to me a hopeless situation as she told it. Captain March strikes me as being a reasonable man."

"I guess she didn't tell you all, then. Well, I was thinking of what she said and how much she thought of you, and, thinking you knew, I made up my mind to ask your advice. I felt that I had to talk to some one." He hesitated a moment and then, with a boyish laugh, went on: "You see, Hetty and I had always been pretty good friends from the time we went to school together. Well, I've never got over it. When I first went to sea she used to write to me; but after a while she went out to Oberlin to live with an aunt while she went to college; and as I was half the time on the other side of the world, we kind of lost track of each other. I guess she lost track of me more than I did of her, for she's changed since I saw her last, three years ago, and I can't quite make her out. She's friendly enough, but she's different, and has come home with a wild notion of going out to China as a missionary. Good Lord! a girl like that to be thrown away on those—" He could think of no word strong enough to convey his contempt. "Well," he went on, "I can't see any place for me in that plan, but that doesn't seem to trouble her. That's what worries me. Of course the old man's set against her going; but he's set against me, too, because I'm a sailor. That's the way things stand. When I heard she was going out with her father this trip, and the mate was sick, I rushed off to the old man and offered to go with him. He wouldn't hear of it, and engaged two others; but I saw them privately, and they backed out. The old man can't understand why they did. To-day he came to me, and here I am. I've been offered a good vessel, and I intended to stay home a spell; but when I heard Hetty was going, it seemed to me it was my last chance—to go with her; but I guess it was a mistake. I can see she thinks I've done a foolish thing, and is angry."

"I think I can understand how she feels—how most women would feel," said Drew, slowly, after a long pause. "Her sense of justice is outraged—perhaps that's too strong a word; but she feels that you have taken an unfair advantage of her in leaving her no way of escape. She might not have cared to escape, but she likes to feel that retreat is open to her. A woman fights at a disadvantage in these things; she is more sensitive to public opinion than are men, and she has the instinct of a hunted creature. I don't know that I can make it clear," he concluded hopelessly. "Then, too, I may be wholly wrong."

"Well, I don't know what I am going to do, now I'm here," said Medbury, forlornly.

"I should say, attend strictly to business and see her as little as possible for a while," Drew told him. "As for her anger, that may be a good sign. If she were simply indifferent to you, she wouldn't care. She could leave it safely to time to make your coming ridiculous."

When Drew entered the cabin, an hour later, Hetty sat at the table reading, shading her eyes with her hand; her mother sat knitting near her; and on the lounge her father reclined, pipe in mouth, his hat on the floor beside him. Blinking in the strong light, Drew sat down without removing his overcoat.