Adrian called a waiter to take their orders.
“You see,” continued Miss D’Amido, “we’re going into a storm, and you might be prostrated the rest of the trip, so I couldn’t take any chances.”
He saw that there was no undertone or innuendo in what she said, nor the need of any. The words themselves were enough, and the deference with which she neglected the young men and bent her politeness on him was somehow very touching. A little glow went over him; he was having rather more than a pleasant time.
Eva was less entertained; but the flat-nosed young man, whose name was Butterworth, knew people that she did, and that seemed to make the affair less careless and casual. She did not like meeting new people unless they had “something to contribute,” and she was often bored by the great streams of them, of all types and conditions and classes, that passed through Adrian’s life. She herself “had everything”—which is to say that she was well endowed with talents and with charm—and the mere novelty of people did not seem a sufficient reason for eternally offering everything up to them.
Half an hour later when she rose to go and see the children, she was content that the episode was over. It was colder on deck, with a damp that was almost rain, and there was a perceptible motion. Opening the door of her stateroom she was surprised to find the cabin steward sitting languidly on her bed, his head slumped upon the upright pillow. He looked at her listlessly as she came in, but made no move to get up.
“When you’ve finished your nap you can fetch me a new pillowcase,” she said briskly.
Still the man didn’t move. She perceived then that his face was green.
“You can’t be seasick in here,” she announced firmly. “You go and lie down in your own quarters.”
“It’s me side,” he said faintly. He tried to rise, gave out a little rasping sound of pain and sank back again. Eva rang for the stewardess.
A steady pitch, toss, roll had begun in earnest and she felt no sympathy for the steward, but only wanted to get him out as quick as possible. It was outrageous for a member of the crew to be seasick. When the stewardess came in Eva tried to explain this, but now her own head was whirring, and throwing herself on the bed, she covered her eyes.
“It’s his fault,” she groaned when the man was assisted from the room. “I was all right and it made me sick to look at him. I wish he’d die.”
In a few minutes Adrian came in. “Oh, but I’m sick!” she cried.
“Why, you poor baby.” He leaned over and took her in bis arms. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was all right upstairs, but there was a steward—Oh, I’m too sick to talk.”
“You’d better have dinner in bed.” “Dinner! Oh, my heavens!”
He waited solicitously, but she wanted to hear his voice, to have it drown out the complaining sound of the beams. “Where’ve you been ?”
“Helping to sign up people for the tournament.”
“Will they have it if it’s like this ? Because if they do I’ll just lose for you.”
He didn’t answer; opening her eyes, she saw that he was frowning.
“I didn’t know you were going in the doubles,” he said. “Why, that’s the only fun.” “I told the D’Amido girl I’d play with her.” “Oh.”
“I didn’t think. You know I’d much rather play with you.
“Why didn’t you, then?” she asked coolly.
“It never occurred to me.”
She remembered that on their honeymoon they had been in the finals and won a prize. Years passed. But Adrian never frowned in this regretful way unless he felt a little guilty. He stumbled about, getting his dinner clothes out of the trunk, and she shut her eyes.
When a particular violent lurch startled her awake again he was dressed and tying his tie. He looked healthy and fresh, and his eyes were bright.
“Well, how about it?” he inquired. “Can you make it, or no?”
“No.”
“Can I do anything for you before I go?”
“Where are you going?”
“Meeting those kids in the bar. Can I do anything for you?”
“No.”
“Darling, I hate to leave you like this.”
“Don’t be silly. I just want to sleep.”
That solicitous frown—when she knew he was crazy to be out and away from the close cabin. She was glad when the door closed. The thing to do was to sleep, sleep.
Up—down—sideways. Hey there, not so far! Pull her round the corner there! Now roll her, right—left—Crea-eak! Wrench! Swoop!
Some hours later Eva was dimly conscious of Adrian bending over her. She wanted him to put his arms around her and draw her up out of this dizzy lethargy, but by the time she was fully awake the cabin was empty. He had looked in and gone. When she awoke next the cabin was dark and he was in bed. The morning was fresh and cool, and the sea was just enough calmer to make Eva think she could get up. They breakfasted in the cabin and with Adrian’s help she accomplished an unsatisfactory makeshift toilet and they went up on the boat deck. The tennis tournament had already begun and was furnishing action for a dozen amateur movie cameras, but the majority of passengers were represented by lifeless bundles in deck chairs beside untasted trays.
Adrian and Miss D’Amido played their first match. She was deft and graceful; blatantly well. There was even more warmth behind her ivory skin than there had been the day before. The strolling first officer stopped and talked to her; half a dozen men whom she couldn’t have known three days ago called her Betsy. She was already the pretty girl of the voyage, the cynosure of starved ship’s eyes.
But after a while Eva preferred to watch the gulls in the wireless masts and the slow slide of the roll-top sky. Most of the passengers looked silly with their movie cameras that they had all rushed to get and now didn’t know what to use for, but the sailors painting the lifeboat stanchions were quiet and beaten and sympathetic, and probably wished, as she did, that the voyage was over.
Butterworth sat down on the deck beside her chair.
“They’re operating on one of the stewards this morning. Must be terrible in this sea.”
“Operating? What for?” she asked listlessly.
“Appendicitis. They have to operate now because we’re going into worse weather. That’s why they’re having the ship’s party tonight.”
“Oh, the poor man!” she cried, realizing it must be her steward.
Adrian was showing off now by being very courteous and thoughtful in the game.
“Sorry. Did you hurt yourself? … No, it was my fault… You better put on your coat right away, pardner, or you’ll catch cold.”
The match was over and they had won. Flushed and hearty, he came up to Eva’s chair.
“How do you feel?”
“Terrible.”
“Winners are buying a drink in the bar,” he said apologetically.
“I’m coming, too,” Eva said, but an immediate dizziness made sink back in her chair.
“You’d better stay here. I’ll send you up something.”
She felt that his public manner had hardened toward her slightly. “You’ll come back?”
“Oh, right away.”
She was alone on the boat deck, save for a solitary ship’s officer who slanted obliquely as he paced the bridge. When the cocktail arrived she forced herself to drink it, and felt better. Trying to distract her mind with pleasant things, she reached back to the sanguine talks that she and Adrian had had before sailing: There was the little villa in Brittany, the children learning French—that was all she could think of now—the little villa in Brittany, the children learning French—so she repeated the words over and over to herself until they became as meaningless as the wide white sky. The why of their being here had suddenly eluded her; she felt unmotivated, accidental, and she wanted Adrian to come back quick, all responsive and tender, to reassure her. It was in the hope that there was some secret of graceful living, some real compensation for the lost, careless confidence of twenty-one, that they were going to spend a year in France.
The day passed darkly, with fewer people around and a wet sky falling. Suddenly it was five o’clock, and they were all in the bar again, and Mr. Butterworth was telling her about his past. She took a good deal of champagne, but she was seasick dimly through it, as if the illness was her soul trying to struggle up through some thickening incrustation of abnormal life.
“You’re my idea of a Greek goddess, physically,” Butterworth was saying.
It was pleasant to be Mr. Butterworth’s idea of a Greek goddess physically, but where was Adrian? He and Miss D’Amido had gone out on a forward deck to feel the spray. Eva heard herself promising to get out her colors and paint the Eiffel Tower on Butterworth’s shirt front for the party tonight.
When Adrian and Betsy D’Amido, soaked with spray, opened the door with difficulty against the driving wind and came into the now-covered security of the promenade deck, they stopped and turned toward each other.
“Well?” she said. But he only stood with his back to the rail, looking at her, afraid to speak. She was silent, too, because she wanted him to be first; so for a moment nothing happened. Then she made a step toward him, and he took her in his arms and kissed her forehead.
“You’re just sorry for me, that’s all.” She began to
