* * * * *
This was Adith Mallory's especial afternoon and evening. She was emphatically alive. One of her dearest desires, and one which had long seemed farthest from her, was to do some big thing for Andrew Bedient. The plan was hers, every thought of it, and now she saw him safely stored in the forecastle.
She tried to put away all thoughts of fear. The party, of which she was the blithest,—ah, how she loved sailing!—stepped on board at six. Framtree was brought to the meeting. Celestino Rey was beguiled from his Pleiad throne, and helped to a seat in this floating Elba. Here, too, came the Sorensons and the Chinese—mob-stuff. There is a mob in every drama—poor mob that always loses, of untimely arousings, mere bewildered strength in the wiles of strategy. Poor undone mob—its head always in the lap of Wit, to be shorn like Samson…. And the Glow-worm—that incomparable female facing the South, her great yellow smoldering eyes, filled with the dusky Southern Sea, and who knows what lights and lovers of Buenos Aires, flitting across her dreams?… Had there been absolute need for an ally, Miss Mallory could almost have trusted the Señora.
"We didn't care to heat up the cabin from the galley," Señor Rey declared as they descended for supper, "so I have had our repast prepared at The Pleiad, save, of course, the coffee. You will not miss for once the entrée, if the cold roast fowl is prime, I am sure. There are compensations."
"Miss an entrée!" Miss Mallory exclaimed. "I could live a week on pickles and lettuce-leaves, to stay at sea in such weather!"
"Astonishingly fine sailor is Miss Mallory," the Spaniard enthused. "She talked ship with me like a pirate, and knew my Savonarola from boom to steering gear at a glance. You all must thank Miss Mallory for our little excursion to-night."
The lady in question wondered if the forecastle-door were proof against the voices in the cabin. She did not turn her eyes to it, but happened to note that the Spaniard caught a glance from Jim Framtree, as he spoke his last words; also that Framtree arose, looked aft from the cabin doorway, and turned back with a smile. Miss Mallory followed his eyes a moment later and discovered that Dictator Jaffier's gunboat had moved. Steam was up; her nose was pointed their way; more still, she was leisurely trailing! Señor Rey did not miss the American woman's interest.
"The Dictator is always so good about giving the Savonarola armed convoy," he said.
Miss Mallory became deeply thoughtful, but roused herself, realizing it did not become her in this company. She imagined that the great yellow eyes of the Glow-worm were regarding her with queer contemplative scrutiny. Sorenson felt the call to remark something, and the Savonarola was obvious.
"Fine little craft for a honeymoon," he observed, "that is, of course, if the lady in question enjoyed sailing. It's amusing to picture some women on a sailing-trip——"