"You just wait," nodded the oracular Gwendolen.
It is a memorable experience, analogous to nothing else in the world, that landing, for one iridescent day, in the Pacific's mid-ocean, throwing one's fancies and one's heart into strange tropic scenes, and then returning at nightfall, like tired, happy children, to the great old mother-nursery of the ship.
By the next morning, not even a cloud on that horizon from which we are fleeing betrays the hiding-place of land. At once the island takes proper place as a vision, a mirage of the imagination, where souls of certain privileged beings have met, and are henceforth bound in a unity of mystic comradeship. After such a day, Pacific passengers turn to one another with kindlier smiles, the whole ship changes into one heaving picnic party, old Time himself joins in the holiday, and personal dislikes, brought on board, are flung to the waves. That most of these animosities, like the Biblical bread, return to the owners after not so many days, need not affect present hilarity.
As may be supposed, Gwendolen and her closest attendant, Dodge, were small whirling centres in the round of gay diversions. The conventional deck-games were started, and a terminating three days of competitive skill, with prizes bought at Honolulu and marked with the name of the ship and date of voyage, duly announced. Revelry was to culminate in a grand "fancy dress ball," the night before landing, a prize being given to the costumer who showed most skill in fashioning his or her attire from things procurable on board ship, and in carrying out the character assumed. In order to waste no more time upon this function, it may be stated that Mr. T. Caraway Dodge as "Dandy Jim,"—with painted purple rings on a dress shirt and a "claw-hammer" coat a size too small, ebony countenance, lips like two flaming sausages caught loosely at the ends, and a wig fashioned from the hair of his bunk mattress,—sang and cake-walked himself straight to the prize, while defeated contestants rent night with applause and acclamation.
From the smoking-room an incessant clinking, as of fairy castanets, fretted the ears of feminine curiosity. Mr. Todd explained that it was merely the sound of checkers and chessmen rattling to the shiver of the ship's screw.
The sun came up each morning, small and round, like a mandarin orange; expanded himself into a blinding deity; and at evening went down again, a blood-red orange, into the sea. The days he brought were long and golden, but not long enough for all the practising of bull-board, quoits, shuffle-board, and deck tennis. Each morning, after breakfast, certain acrobatic performances, free of charge, were held. Bag-punching was the children's favorite. One could count on an audience there, of upturned faces, wide-eyed and solemn with admiration. Some of the passengers saw fit to attach pedometers, and walk an incredible number of miles each day.
In the evening, Mrs. Todd and bridge whist reigned supreme. The Captain proved to be a player; so, to his present anguish, was Dodge. Gwendolen took an elfish delight in luring this young man to a table, under pretence of desiring to be his partner, and then, at the last moment, slipping in a foreordained substitute; after which she sped off, carolling, to a moonlit deck. Once there, the fuming and impotent Dodge recognized only too clearly what she would do. At least a dozen new acquaintances of the other sex had been made thus far by Gwendolen. It was her wont to dispense Emersonian philosophy and delicately portioned encouragement to those who were fortunate enough to secure her companionship. There was a young Dutch merchant on his way to coffee plantations in Java, very blond and fierce as to mustachios, and mild in the eyes. A Chicago representative, on his way to sell to Eastern potentates his particular make of automobile, had already needed, to quote Gwendolen's own, words, "a slight slackening of speed."
An English "leftenant" returning to South Africa, carried with him his own marvellous outfit for the making of afternoon tea, backed by a mammoth English plum-cake in a tin box. He was one to be propitiated, especially toward eight bells on an afternoon.
An Austrian viscount posed as the slayer of jungle beasts. "Beeg gam," he called them. He doted upon seeing this timid and shrinking maid cower beneath the bloody wonder of his yarns. No one before had inspired such thrilling denouements as Mees Todd. He recognized her at once for his affinity, and on the night before landing condescended to tell her so. The shock was rude, but he deserved what he got.