In all her pampered life Miss Cecily Wayne had never before been addressed in that tone or anything remotely resembling it, by man, woman, or child. Her grip relaxed. She shrank back, appalled.
For perhaps a second she had checked him, and in that second the huddle of blue had drifted almost abreast. It was an easy leap from where the Tyro stood. One foot was on the rail, when he staggered aside from an impact very different from the feminine assault. Mr. Henry Clay Wayne had turned from an absorbing conversation with Mrs. Denyse in time to see his daughter in hand-to-hand combat with a man. Observing the man now about to precipitate himself into the sea, he formulated the theory of an attempted robbery and escape, and acted with the promptitude which had made him famous in Wall Street. As he was a decidedly husky one hundred-and-seventy-pounds' worth, his arrival notably interfered with the Tyro's projects.
Now the Tyro's naturally equable temper had been disturbed by the other encounter, and this one loosed its bonds. Here was no softening consideration of sex. Who the interferer was, the Tyro knew not, nor cared. He drove an elbow straight into the midsection of the enemy, lashed out with a heel which landed square on the most sensitive portion of the shin, broke the relaxed hold with one effort, and charged like a bull through the crowd now lining the rail at the stern curve,—and stopped dead, as a general shout, part cheers, part laughter, arose. The woman was ploughing through the water with great overhand strokes. In a few seconds she stood on the tender's deck, while the crowd congratulated and questioned.
"I'm a feesh," she explained, pointing to a crudely embroidered dolphin on her sleeve, which, as Dr. Alderson explained, meant that she had undergone the famous swimming test in her own German town of Dessau on the Mulde.
Meantime two dukes, a ship's pilot, a negro pugilist, a goddess of grand opera, a noted aviator, and some scores of lesser people looked on in amazement at the third richest man in America hopping on one foot like an inebriated and agonized crane, with his other shin clasped in his hands, and making faces which an amateur photographer hastened to snap, subsequently suppressing them for reasons of humanity and art.
Several people, including Mrs. Charlton Denyse with two red spots on her cheeks besides what she had put there herself, endeavored to explain to the Tyro just what species of high treason he had committed by his assault, but he was in no mood for gratuitous information, and removed himself determinedly from their vicinity. Presently Judge Enderby appeared upon his horizon.
"His leg isn't broken," he announced.
"Whose leg?"
"That of the gentleman you so brutally assaulted. He wants to see you."
"Tell him to go to the devil."