“I’m beaten,” he whispered to the darkness as he turned restlessly from side to side. “I may as well admit it... I’ve never said it before in all my life. I never thought I should say it; and I can still put up a good bluff on occasion. But I’m beaten....”
CHAPTER TWO
DAWN
“And now... now that everything has turned out as I told you
it would, what do you mean to do?”
“I suppose... we must begin all over again.”
Eimar O’Duffy: “The Wasted Island.”
The dinner at the Plaza, described at length and extravagantly illustrated in a dozen papers, was hardly a greater personal triumph than the farewell scenes on board the Lithuania. Ambassadors honoured and beloved had left in less magnificence. Scores of his friends came on board to bid Eric good-bye; the management of the Grafton filled his state-room with hot-house roses, and he was loaded with presents ranging from a gold cigar-case to an unsinkable swimming-suit; German submarines were being recalled, but his friends would not expose him to the risk of a belated straggler or of a forgotten mine-field.
As the land receded and vanished, Eric turned away from the rail and went below. He had been watched ever since he came on board; round, wondering eyes followed the coming and going of his friends, interested and envious eyes explored the parcels which mounted like a rampart on the deck more quickly than his steward could carry them away. Eager whispers rippled about him, becoming hushed at his approach. So Irving and Melba had travelled—in regal state and more than regal loneliness.