"'We can't sell the house,' she muttered through her teeth. 'Where should we live? I've told you. Jack, it's quite impossible.'
"'The house 'ud fetch three hundred and fifty,' said Jack, looking at me with round solemn eyes, 'and the furniture 'ud fetch two hundred more. And there's—how much is there in the bank, Madeline? Say sixty odd. Six hundred pounds. You can live cheap in a place like Saloniki.'
"I could see Mrs. Evans was going to pieces. She went dull red and then dull white, dropped a stitch or so, moved her feet, took a deep breath through her nostrils. I was seeing the human being at last. The lunatic with the razor was after her. The Bengal tiger was growling near by.
"'Don't be in such a hurry,' I said, sharply, and for the first time that woman gave me a glance that might be tortured into a faint semblance of gratitude. 'I am not going into a thing until I've studied it, and nobody but a madman would commit himself on anybody's mere say-so. You see Macedoine, Jack, when you go ashore.'
"'You'd better come, too,' he said, rather glumly. 'Old Grünbaum wants some coal if you can spare it. Forty ton, he said. It'll be a fiver for you. Can you let him have it and get to Algiers?'
"'I'll see,' I said. 'I'll go through the bunkers in the morning.' And we left the dangerous subject for the time being. It was positively refreshing to get out of the heavy atmosphere charged with Macedoine's grandiose schemes and Mrs. Evans' premonitions of disaster and beggary for herself and Babs. That angel child slept through it all on the far end of the big plush settee, fenced in with a teak bunk-board, one predatory hand clutching the throat of an enormous teddy bear whose eyes stared upward with the protruding fixity of strangulation, as though even in sleep she found it necessary to cause someone or something acute discomfort. Yes, it was refreshing, for I don't mind admitting that the petty graft of a five-pound note that I was to get from Grünbaum for selling him forty tons of coal was more to me than all the cloudy millions of Macedoine's imagination. I am as anxious as any one to get something for nothing, but this Anglo-Hellenic Development Company, in which I was to get four hundred a year for living in Saloniki, didn't appeal. In the regions of fancy Macedoine was an incomparable inspiration; in business I preferred the unimaginative concessionaire. As I rose to go up on deck, I felt that whether Mrs. Evans was grateful or not I had earned her approbation. Perhaps she, with her feminine intuition—or possibly it was only the instinct of self-preservation—saw the necessity of flattering a poor silly single man, for she remarked, with her head bent over the child's to touch the tumbled locks:
"'I'm sure Mr. Spenlove will give you the best advice, dear.'
"And I felt my bosom swell with pride. Oh, women are wonderful! Even an inferior woman, as Mrs. Evans was, with a soul like a parched pea, and a heart so narrow that there was scarcely room in it for husband and child at the same time, a woman of meagre physique and frumpish in dress—even she could do a little in the animal-taming way—could crack a whip and make the lords of the jungle jump through paper hoops, and eat out of her hand. Oh, yes! Even she could harness us and drive us tandem through the narrow gate of her desire. She was sure I would give dear Jack the best advice. And in the glow of this benediction I departed.
"Mr. Bloom was on deck, moving softly to and fro, smoking an immense meerschaum carved to the likeness of a skull. It was a warm evening and he had discarded coat and vest, displaying a soiled starched shirt and black suspenders inadequately furnished with buttons. The doorway was in shadow and for a moment I watched him, promenading in the moonlight. He had the air, as he stepped back and forth, of sharing his vigil with some invisible companion. At times he nodded, and waving his pipe toward the rail, might have been holding forth in unspoken words. Getting the best of the argument, of course, I reflected bitterly, and startled him by stepping out in front of him.
"'Good evening, Chief. Fine night for courtin', eh? A night like this reminds me o' the time when I was master. The moonlight, and the cliff, like the Morro. I was under the Cuban flag then you know, Chief. This brings it all back.' He waved his grisly meerschaum and added: 'Lovely place, Havana.'