As It Was in the Beginning

by Philip Verrill Mighels

She found him boyish, unexpected, apparently indifferent, and even unaware, at times, of her existence on the vessel, then fairly effervescent with deviltry that left her all but gasping. He was not to be classified, fixed, or calculated, save in certain traits of fearlessness, generosity, and kindness to those most needful of a helping smile, a merry word, or a spell of relief from daily cares.

He commanded a certain admiration from the puzzled girl, but as yet her actual feelings towards him were quite unanalyzed. She was constantly finding herself astonished at the scope and variety of his information; she was glad to listen when he talked; she was frequently touched to the very heart by his tender care of one or two frail little beings on the ship to whom much of his time was devoted.

There they were, with the situation between them apparently commonplace to dullness—till this one particular day.

It was not a common day on the ocean. Despite the fact he was neither mariner nor meteorologist, Grenville felt some vast disturbance impending in all the lifeless air, regardless of the fact the barometer was steady and the calm, rainless spell had been exceptionally prolonged. It was not precisely a premonition that addressed itself to his senses; it was something he could not explain.

A wave of heat passed swiftly through his body, leaving a strange excitement in its train, as he paused for a second to wonder if the "symptoms" he sensed were concerned not at all with sea or weather, but wholly with Elaine.

He admitted the love—the wild, free, passionate love that had swept him away, past all safe anchorage, with her entry into his existence. He had made no effort to conceal it from himself, to deny its overwhelming force. He had cursed Gerald Fenton most heartily and consistently for casting him into this maelstrom of conflicting emotions, and daily and nightly he had waged mighty war with that fortunately absent individual, who had calmly accepted his challenge.

The trouble had come unbidden. Elaine was so wholly different from the girl represented by Fenton's photograph! The picture had seemed so lifeless—and she was so gloriously alive! That one fact alone seemed sufficient excuse to Grenville for all that had happened to him since. He had not been fully informed, he argued, respecting her wondrous charms.

The two weeks mentioned, with Elaine at his side, had certainly accomplished the world-old complication once more, despite all his hard and honest struggling. When the fight had ceased he did not even know. What Elaine's private attitude was towards himself he had taken no time to inquire. That part mattered less than nothing at all—at least as concerned the present. He had warned old Fenton what to expect, but now—by the gods—how deeply he was mired in the quandary!

He was certainly mighty hard hit, he confessed, but meantime was equally positive that the singular something he plainly felt, invading the air and telling its message to some faint, imperfect sense of his being, had nothing whatsoever to do with this business of passionate emotions. Yet not a sign of uneasiness on the part of officers and crew could his keenest wit discover, in any quarter of the iron craft plowing steadily on across the sea.

He had climbed to the topmost deck of the ship, where he and a carpenter, who was hewing out a boat thwart with a gleaming adze, were temporarily alone. It was not Grenville's manner of wooing to hover beside Elaine throughout the day or evening. He had done no wooing, as a matter of fact, beyond assuming a somewhat bold but unoffending guardianship, which she might have found refreshing had it not so frequently taken her breath with its very matter-of-factness.