“I’ve tried to make amends, and play fair. It hasn’t been easy. Shall I go back and look for him? It’s a small town, and I can find him.”
“Yes. I’ll write a note. No; I won’t. Never mind. I’ll manage it. Fitz, go and rest. You’re worn out,” she said gently.
Back into her stateroom went Miss Polly. From that time forth no man saw her nor woman, either, except perhaps her maid, and maids are dark and discreet persons on occasion. If this particular one kept her own counsel when she saw a trim but tremulous figure drop lightly over the starboard rail of the Polly far forward, pick up a small traveling-bag from the pier, step behind the opportune screen of a load of coffee on a flat car, and reappear to view only as a momentary swish of skirt far away at the shore end; if this same maid told Mr. Thatcher Brewster, half an hour later, that Miss Polly was asleep in her stateroom, and begged that she be disturbed on no account, as she was utterly worn out, who shall blame her for her silence on the one occasion or her speech on the other? She was but obeying, albeit with tearful misgivings, duly constituted authority.
Eight o’clock struck on the bell of the little Protestant mission church on the tiny plaza; struck and was welcomed by the echoes, and passed along to eventual silence. Within two minutes after, there was a special stir and movement on the pier, a corresponding stir and movement on board the trim craft, a swishing of great ropes, and a tooting of whistles. White foam churned astern of her. A comic-supplement-looking pelican on a buoy off to port flapped her a fantastic farewell. The blockade-defying yacht Polly was off for blue waters and the freedom of the seas.
On the shore, feeling woefully helpless and alone, she who had been the jewel and joy of the Polly bit her lips and closed her eyes, in a tremulous struggle against the dismal fear:—
“Suppose he doesn’t love me, after all!”
XIV.
THE YELLOW FLAG
The departing whistle of the yacht Polly struck sharply to the heart of a desolate figure seated on a bench in the blazing, dusty, public square of Puerto del Norte, waiting out his first day of pain. A kiskadee bird, the only other creature foolish enough to risk the hot bleakness of the plaza at that hour, flitted into a dust-coated palm, inspected him, put a tentative query or two, decided that he was of no possible interest, and left the Unspeakable Perk to his own cogitations.
So deep in wretchedness were the cogitations that he did not hear the light, hesitant footstep. But he felt in every vein and fiber the appealing touch on his shoulder.
“Good God! What are YOU doing here?” he cried, leaping to his feet. There was no awkwardness or shyness in his speech now; only wonder-stricken joy.