She did not reply. The whistle of the great vessel beside them shrieked mightily amid the hiss of escaping steam.
"Good-bye, Mary," he said brokenly, taking her hand. He hesitated, lifted it to his lips, and, without another glance at her, half ran to the gangplank, which had already been lifted a foot off the dock. So he did not see the tears that streamed down her face, and what was written behind the tears as she lifted her eyes and realized he was gone.
CHAPTER XVIII
The weather, for the winter season, was unusually fine during the first five or six days of the voyage eastward, and Rodrigo kept closely to his cabin. He slept much. It seemed to him that for six months he had gone virtually without sleep. The slight motion of the ship, the changed environment soothed him like a lullaby. He rested soundly at night and took frequent naps during the day. By the time the inevitable change in the weather came and stormy seas tossed the staunch vessel about so violently that his cabin had become virtually untenantable, he was fit and ready to endure the gusty blasts and angry, slanting rain. Rodrigo was an excellent sailor and really enjoyed the decks of a wave-tossed ship.
On a cloudy afternoon, with the wind lashing the rigging with screams and whines and the waves shooting spray as high as the canvas-protected bridge, Rodrigo sat wrapped in blankets in a steamer chair and calmly watched the mountainous watery madness on the other side of the rail. So thoroughly was the little man in the steamer chair beside him sheltered in overcoat, cap, and a whole battalion of blankets that Rodrigo was unaware that another foolish soul, in addition to himself, was on deck. Indeed he looked around bewildered for a moment to discover where the voice was coming from when his neighbor addressed him with a chuckle, "'What fools these mortals be', eh? Freezing to death up here when we might be down in nice warm cabins?"
Rodrigo laughed, "The cabins may be warm, but most of them are very damp by this time, I guess, and full of mal de mer germs."
He observed the habitation of this deep, cheerful voice more closely and saw that it came out of the fat, ruddy, cheerful face of a man about fifty years old, an American. Rodrigo suddenly became aware that he was very glad to hear a friendly voice, that he was in need of human companionship. They continued the conversation and Rodrigo learned that his companion was a Dr. Woodward from Washington, bound for Rome on a holiday. Still talking on inconsequential topics in a light, mind-easing vein, they later walked the abandoned deck together, sloshing through the water that the waves frequently splattered about them. That evening Woodward transferred his place in the dining saloon, now also practically abandoned save for them, to the table where Rodrigo had been eating alone heretofore.
Learning Rodrigo's line of business and having had explained to him how a titled Italian happened to be connected with a Fifth Avenue art emporium, David Woodward revealed casually, between courses of a rather damp dinner, that he was head of the psychiatric ward at the Luther Mead Hospital, Washington. His charges were for the most part, he explained, shell-shocked veterans of the late war, though they also included a number of civilian patients with mental disorders.
"Perhaps it's my association with mental deficients ashore that leads me to enjoy irrational pursuits, such as getting my feet soaked on a wave-washed deck," Woodward chortled.