The Honorable Percival by Alice Hegan Rice

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The one fly in his amber these days was Andy Black; only Andy was not a
fixed object. His activities were endless, and, strangely enough, they
exerted a powerful influence on Percival, causing him to change his
entire mode of life from his hour of getting up to his hour of retiring.
In order to get half an hour's conversation with Bobby Boynton it was
necessary to outwit Andy, and he was devoting himself assiduously to
the task.

What complicated the matter was that Andy had embraced him in his
general affection for humanity, and despite persistent snubbing
continued to treat him as the friend of his bosom. Percival could hate
him contemptuously when he was out of sight, but he found it difficult
to keep up the dislike when the fat, boyish fellow sat on the sofa
opposite his berth and poured out his innermost confidences.

"You see," he would say plaintively as he reached for Percival's silver
shoe-horn, "I never slide into love, like most fellows. I always splash
right in, head first. That's what I did the first night I came on board,
and I haven't come up yet. When I do, she'll hit me in the head. She
won't have me; you see if she does."

Of course Percival agreed with him, but in the meanwhile he wondered
what Bobby could find in him to afford her such constant amusement.

One sparkling morning when the white caps were dancing on the blue
water, and every bit of loose canvas was spanking the wind for joy,
Bobby announced that she was going again to the crow's-nest. She had
circled the deck some ten times between her two cavaliers, and the
difficulty of keeping mental step with either in the presence of the
other may have influenced her sudden decision.

"What do you want to do that for?" said Andy, whose weight made him
cautious. "It's a mean climb, and there's nothing to see when you get
up there."

"There's everything to see," said Bobby and she looked at Percival.

Ten days ago nothing could have induced him to do such an unconventional
and conspicuous thing. He remembered the exact phrase he had applied
to it when told by the Scotchman of Bobby's previous adventure.
"Characteristically American," he had remarked, with a disparaging
shrug.

Now, with assumed languor, he said, "I don't mind going with you."

Two sailors were found to tie the ropes around their waists and stand
guard below while they slowly and cautiously climbed from one swaying
rung to another.

"All right?" asked Bobby, looking down over her shoulder.

"Right as rain," called Percival, with suggestion of eagerness in his
voice.

He followed her cautiously as she scrambled like a squirrel from the top
of the ladder to the crow's-nest. Swinging through the clear sky one
hundred feet above the water below, they found themselves in the sudden
intimacy of a vast and magnificent solitude. The sapphire sky met the
sapphire sea in a sharply defined, unbroken line around them, while
shimmers of palpitating light rose from the sparkling waters until they
lost themselves in the zenith above.

"Oh, look! look!" cried Bobby, with an eager hand on Percival's arm.
Turning, he saw the water suddenly disturbed by hundreds of curved
bodies that glistened in the sunlight as they leaped together in a
perfect riot of joy.

"Silly old fish, the porpoise," he said, "always making circles in the
water like that"

But the ennui expressed in his words was not reflected in his face. Even
silly old porpoises acquire an interest when one's attention is called
to them by a small and shapely hand that forgets in the enthusiasm of
the moment to remove itself from one's arm. It was only by sharply
calling to mind the haughty faces of his mother and sisters that he
refrained from indiscretion.

"You don't mind?" he asked, drawing his cigar-case from his pocket.
"Deuced clever of you, I call it, to think of coming up here. How did
you know that Black fellow wouldn't come?"

"He's too fat to climb," said Bobby. "He doesn't even like to walk."

"Thought he was quite keen about it from the way he walked with us every
evening. A decent chap would not intrude."

"That's funny!" said Bobby, with twinkling eyes. "That's almost exactly
what he said about you, only he didn't say intrude."

"What did he say?"

"Butt in," said Bobby.

The Honorable Percival suffered one of those acute revulsions that had
become less frequent of late. At such times he marveled at himself for
permitting such vulgarity in his presence.

"You Americans have the most extraordinary expressions, Miss Boynton!"
he said.

"How queer that sounds!"

"What?"

"Miss Boynton. I thought you'd got to the Bobby stage. Perhaps you'd
rather make it Roberta."

"Yes, I think I should, if I may."

For a few seconds they dropped into silence, he puffing away at his
cigar, and she gazing off to the horizon as if she had quite forgotten
his presence.

"Were you ever in love?" she asked, turning on him suddenly.

"Why do you ask?" he said, scrutinizing the ash of his cigar.

"Because it's so queer you never got married. I thought young Englishmen
with names and estates to keep up always married right away."

"Well, I suppose they do, as a rule. The Hascombes are rather
different. Of course there have been a lot of girls who were foolish
enough to--er--to think--"

"To think they were in love with you? Go ahead! I'll shut my eyes."

Instead, she opened them very wide, and he had to unbutton his coat just
for the sake of buttoning it up again.

"But I don't care about them," she went on; "I want to know if _you've_
ever been in love."

"Imagined I was once."

"Oh, what fun! Tell me about it from beginning to end!"

"How do you know it had an end!"

"I'd gamble on it," said Bobby, confidently. "But tell me!"

Just why Percival at this moment felt a sudden desire to discuss a
subject that hitherto he had shrunk from the slightest reference to can
be explained only by the fact that the confiding of an unhappy love
affair to a sympathetic member of the opposite sex seems a necessary
stage of convalescence. It was the first chance he had had to present
his version of the story to an unbiased listener, and if he omitted
certain details, and laid undue stress upon others, it must not be held
against him.

"Of course," he said in conclusion, "through a sense of honor I'd have
gone through with it. Fortunately, it was not necessary. Poor girl broke
it off herself."

He spoke as of one who had committed suicide, but in regard to whom a
kindly jury would have brought in a verdict of temporary insanity.

"Well, I think you were perfectly splendid, all through," cried Bobby.
"What sort of a girl could she have been to act like that?"

He took several long, satisfying pulls at his cigar; it was astonishing
how much he was enjoying it, and the conversation as well.

"Oh, she's quite one of the best, you know. Dare say she thought it was
all my fault."

"The idea! Was she pretty?"

"Opinions differ."

"Smart?"

"Rather!"

"Jolly?"

"Well, no, not exactly jolly; that's not quite the word."

"Very proper, I suppose,"

"Oh, yes, absolutely; most decidedly so. Perfect stickler for form."

Bobby sighed.

"Just the opposite from me all the way through. Well, I'm glad you
wouldn't make up. Serves her right."

"Probably best for everybody," said Percival. "Now it's your turn. How
about yourself!"

"Well," she said with what struck him as the strangest irrelevance, "our
scheme seems to be working with the captain. We've got him guessing. He
told me last night I was not to go to the prow with you again."

"Why not?"

"He thinks you like me too much."

"What do _you_ think?"

Percival bit his lip the moment he had asked it, but leaning there on
the railing, with her dancing eyes on a level with his own, and nothing
else on the entire horizon, it was difficult to keep the situation in
hand.

"I think you are getting a bully tan," she said, scrutinizing him
closely; "most men get a red nose or else they get all speckled around
the edges. Yours looks like a nice crust on an apple pie."

"I do tan rather decently," he said; "but you haven't told me what you
think."

"What about?"

"About my liking you too much."

"I think the captain exaggerated."

"He couldn't exaggerate that."

"But how can you like me when I'm all wrong?"

"I like you because of your possibilities. You've probably never met any
one before who understood you as I do. Quite extraordinary the way
you've improved since you came on board."

"And you've got fourteen days more to work on me! Do you think anybody
will recognize me when I get back to Wyoming?"

"Now you are chaffing!" complained Percival. "You never take me
seriously."

"Then you want me to be serious, and believe everything you say?"

He paused in awed contemplation of the direful consequences if she
should, but for the life of him he couldn't stop.

"I want you to believe me," he said tenderly, "when I say that you've
been most awfully sweet, and that I wouldn't give half a sovereign for
any other girl's chances if you were within ten miles. I want you to
know that I consider you the prettiest girl I've ever seen, and the
most--"

Bobby tightened the rope about her waist.

"It's time for me to be going," she exclaimed in mock alarm, "If you
keep on saying things like that, I may furnish another scalp to that
collection you were telling me about. I don't dare stay another minute."

Neither did Percival. He followed her down the ladder as if he had been
escaping from quicksands.

That night the crow's-nest was added to the prow on the list of places
about a ship which the captain felt young ladies should stay away from.

[Illustration: "You will have to join the crowd." suggested Bobby when
Percival complained of not seeing her as often as he wished]

"You will have to join the crowd," suggested Bobby when Percival
complained of not seeing her as often as he wished. "We sing up on the
boat-deck every night, and now the moon is up, it's perfectly gorgeous."

But Percival's abhorrence of crowds made him hold out resolutely until
the day before they were to land in Japan. Everybody was making plans
for the few days to be spent in port, and small parties were being
formed to leave the steamer at Yokohama and join it three days later
at Kobe. Percival was annoyed because the steamer had to stop at all.
Any interruption in the present routine was a nuisance. He vacillated
between the inconvenience of going ashore and the stupidity of remaining
on board. An invitation from Mrs. Weston to join her party, and an
insistent demand from Bobby Boynton, decided him. He made his
preparations accordingly.

But an unforeseen incident occurred the night before the _Saluria_
landed which caused him suddenly to change his plans. He was just ready
to go below for the night when an overmastering desire for one more word
with Bobby seized him. By a bit of Machiavellian strategy he had
outwitted Andy that afternoon, and had her entirely to himself for three
blissful hours.

It was in their old haunt behind the wind-shelter, and he had taken the
opportunity, if not to "shatter her to bits," at least "to remold her
nearer to the heart's desire." He had done it with consummate tact, and
she had responded with adorable docility. He never admired himself more
than in the role of cicerone to a young and trusting maid. By the
subtlest methods he knew how to convey approval or disapproval of
anything from a beaded slipper to a moral sentiment. He could stir
dormant ambition, rouse lagging courage, inspire patience, and all he
demanded in return was unfaltering homage from the fair one.

In the present instance, however, the entire time was not devoted to
correcting faults of manner and speech or to acquiring the higher
Christian virtues. It was incredible how many things they found to talk
about, considering the fact that art, literature, music, the drama,
foreign travel, and London gossip were not among them. Bobby's way of
diving unexpectedly from the general into the personal made a
tete-a-tete with her peculiarly exhilarating.

The trouble was that the more one had, the more one wanted, and going to
bed now without a parting word seemed to Percival really more than he
had a right to ask of himself. He circled the deck several times in
indecision, then he ascended the companionway and made his way aft.

A full moon hung high in the heavens, and a flood of silver poured in a
dazzling stream across the level surface of the sea. The quarter-deck,
the white boats amidships, and all the brass work abaft the funnels
reflected the radiance.

"See who is here!" cried the irrepressible Andy from an
indistinguishable group that huddled together under steamer-rugs against
the big blue-and-white smoke-stack.

"May I speak to Miss Boynton for a moment?" asked Percival, icily.

"I'm afraid I can't get out," said Bobby. "Elise is sitting on my feet,
and Andy and I've got on the same sweater. There's a place for you here,
if you will come."

It is really too undignified an act in the life of the Honorable
Percival to chronicle, but before he had time to contradict his impulse,
he had actually doubled up his long legs and crawled into the small
space Bobby made for him beside her. If she persisted in preferring this
noisy bunch of inanity to a quiet stroll on the promenade-deck with him,
then he supposed for the time being he must humor her.

Youth and love and moonlight at sea are a magic combination, however,
and Percival soon decided that even though it was deuced uncomfortable
to be huddled up like that, with both feet asleep, yet there were
compensations.

"Sing!" commanded Bobby, and he joined obediently in the chorus. As the
night wore on a caressing coolness crept into the air, and the crowd
gathered into a closer group. Percival could feel Bobby breathing near
him, and could look down undisturbed into her upturned face as she sang
with passionate abandon to the moon. She seemed to have entirely lost
sight of her surroundings and was off on some high adventure of her own,
leaving him free to watch her to his heart's content.

It was a situation fraught with danger; yet he lingered. He did more:
he slipped his hand beneath the rug and sought cautiously for hers. As
their palms met, and her small fingers closed responsively over his,
such a thrill of satisfaction passed over him as he had never felt
before. His old wounds were suddenly healed, life became a passionate
love-song on a languorous, moonlit sea. But his ecstasy ceased with the
music. Bobby's voice broke the spell with frightful distinctness:

[Illustration: "If you want to hold my hand, Mr. Hascombe, you are
welcome to it."]

"If you want to hold my hand, Mr. Hascombe, you are welcome to it.
Andy's got the other one; but if you don't mind, we'll put them all
together, like that, on top of the steamer-rug."

During the laugh that followed he managed to got to his feet and make
his escape. He had never been so angry in his life; he even included
himself in his devastating wrath. Why shouldn't he have been insulted,
laughed at, jeered at! When one allows oneself to associate with such
people, he ought to expect such behavior.

_"Plebeians!_" he snarled as he jerked together the curtains of his
berth and turned his face to the wall.

IX

DRAGGING ANCHOR

Of course, after what had happened, nothing could induce Percival to
join the Weston party in Japan. He left a note of formal regret, and
hastened ashore on the first launch in the morning. His one desire was
to avoid those detestable young Americans, whose diabolical laughter had
rung in his ears all night. The wounds received by vanity are never
serious, but they are very hard to heal, and as Percival stopped ashore
in this strange land he felt that he was the most unhappy of mortals.

"Call a hansom," he demanded impatiently of Judson, who stood grinning
at the queer sights on the hatoba.

"There ain't none, sir."

"Of course; I forgot. But how are we to get to the hotel?"

"Carn't say, sir, unless we go in a couple of them perambulators."

Percival took an instant dislike to a country that forced him to ride
in a ridiculous vehicle, pulled by a small bare-legged brown man in a
mushroom hat. All the way to the hotel he was unhappy in the conviction
that he was making a spectacle of himself.

The rooms which he had engaged in advance were not satisfactory, and it
was not until he had inspected all the suites that were unoccupied that
he decided upon one that commanded a view of the bay. Once established
therein, he despatched Judson for his mail and for any English papers
that might be found, then took up his position by a front window and
sternly watched the bund.

The picturesque harbor, full of sampans and junks, the gay streets, full
of color and movement, the thousand unfamiliar sights and sounds, held
no interest for the Honorable Percival. His whole attention was focused
upon the jinrikishas that constantly arrived and departed at the
entrance below.

He wanted to see Bobby's face and read there the signs of contrition,
which he felt sure must have followed her unfeeling conduct of the night
before. But he intended to punish her before he forgave. Such a violence
to their friendship could not go unrebuked. Even when he received the
note of apology which he felt sure she would send up the moment she
reached the hotel, he would delay answering it. She must be made to
suffer in order to profit by this unhappy experience.

His reflections were interrupted by a rap at the door, which called him
away from the window. It proved to be a sleek Chinaman, who proffered
his card, bearing the inscription:

"G. Lung Fat, Ladies' and Gents' Tailer."

G. Lung Fat, it seemed, had beheld Percival in the lobby and been
greatly impressed with his bearing. It would be an honor, he urged, with
the fervor of an artist craving permission to paint a subject that had
captured his fancy, to cut, fit, and finish any number of garments for
such a figure before the ship sailed on the morrow.

Percival was impressed. He examined the samples with the air of a
connoisseur. Like most Englishmen, he had a weakness for light clothes
and sun-helmets. The regalia suggested English supremacy in foreign
lands. He had ordered his fourth suit and was earnestly considering a
white dinner-jacket when familiar voices from the street below made him
spring to the window.

It was Bobby Boynton and Andy Black, who were evidently setting forth in
jinrikishas alone, Mrs. Weston and the other young people remaining to
inspect the fascinating array of curios that were being displayed on the
pavement. If any sorrow for past misdeeds dwelt in Bobby's bosom, there
was certainly no trace of it on her face as she called gaily back over
her shoulder:

"We are off for a lark; you needn't look for us until you see us."

Percival dismissed the Chinaman peremptorily, and paced his room in
indignation. It was incredible that a girl who had basked in the sun of
his approval could find even temporary pleasure in the feeble rushlight
of Andy Black's society. Not that it made the slightest difference to
him where she went or with whom. If her father saw fit to permit her to
go forth in a strange city with a strange man, unchaperoned, of course
it was not for him to interfere. But that she should have, at the first
opportunity, disregarded his counsels, to which she had listened with
such flattering attention, angered him beyond measure. He bitterly
assured himself that all women were alike, an assertion which seems to
bring universal relief to the masculine mind.

His ill humor was not decreased when Judson returned, after a long
delay, and reported that the mail had been sent to the steamer. Not
content with being the bearer of this unpleasant news, Judson committed
the indiscretion of waxing eloquent over the charms of Japan. Percival
considered it impertinent in an inferior to express enthusiasm for
anything that was under the ban of his disapproval. Before the
discussion ended it became his painful duty to remind Judson of the fact
that he was an ass.

At tiffin-time, when he descended to the dining-room, owing to the
recent arrival of two steamers, all the tables were engaged. There was
one in the corridor, he was told, if he did not mind another gentleman.
He did mind; he much preferred a table alone, but he also wanted his
luncheon. He followed the unctuous head waiter the length of the big
dining-room, winding in and out among the small tables, only to emerge
finally into the corridor and find himself face to face with his _bete
noire_, Captain Boynton.

"Hello! Can't lose you," was the captain's gruff greeting. "How does it
happen that you aren't off with the crowd doing the sights?"

"Sights bore me," said Percival, unfolding his napkin with an air of
lassitude.

"Crowds, too, eh? Twoing more in your line?"

The remark was treated with contemptuous silence while Percival devoted
himself to the menu.

"Seen that girl of mine since she came ashore?" continued the captain.

"Miss Boynton?" asked Percival, as if not quite sure of the identity of
the person inquired for. "Oh, yes, I believe I did see her early this
morning. She went out with Mr. Black."

"Good! He'll show her a thing or two."

"Rather extraordinary," Percival could not help commenting, "the way
young American girls go about alone like that."

"Alone? What's the matter with Andy?"

"But I mean unchaperoned. Dare say young Black is very good in his way,
but he can't be called discreet."

"How do you mean?"

"Taking your daughter into that nasty mess of Chinamen in the steerage,
for instance, to watch them play fan-tan."

"What of that? She only lost a couple of quarters and had a dollar's
worth of fun. Can't see it was any worse than keeping her out at the
prow until midnight, or taking her up to the crow's-nest." The captain
pushed back his chair, and smiled with maddening significance. "See
here, my young friend, you needn't worry about Bobby. She's been taking
care of herself for twenty years. You better look after yourself."

The Honorable Percival did not answer. He got his eye-glass right and
looked straight ahead of him.

But the captain was not through. He leaned across the table and shook a
warning finger:

"Beware of J. Lucy," he said, then he took a smiling departure.

Through the rest of the meal and well into the afternoon Percival
puzzled his brain over that cryptic warning. When its meaning dawned
upon him he flung "Guillim's Display of Heraldry" clear across the room,
and used language not becoming an English gentleman. He assured himself
for the hundredth time that Americans were the most odious people in the
world, and the captain the most convincing proof of it.

The afternoon dragged miserably, and the prospect of waiting about the
hotel until the steamer sailed at noon the next day appalled him. The
obvious thing, of course, was to go out and see the city, but he had
declared to Judson that there was nothing worth seeing, and one must be
consistent before one's servants. Even the morrow offered no abatement
to his misery. Most of the people he knew were going from Yokohama to
Kobe by rail, and he pictured himself the only guest at the captain's
table for three mortal days.

At three o'clock he went down to the terrace and took his seat at a
small table that commanded a view of the hotel entrance. To one with
a free mind the scene was highly diverting, with jinrikishas and
occasional victorias thronging the bund, and gay parties constantly
arriving and departing. Coolies in blue, with mysterious Chinese
lettering on their kimonos and with bright towels about their heads,
trotted past; women with blackened teeth and with babies strapped on
their backs clattered by on wooden shoes; street venders sang their
savory wares; merchants displayed treasures of lacquer and ivory, street
dancers posed and sang to the tinkle of the samisen.

But to Percival it was at best a purgatory where he seemed to be doomed
to wait through eternity. Not that he meant to speak to Bobby Boynton
when she arrived or make the slightest sign of forgiveness. That she
should have allowed Andy Black to keep her out from eleven in the
morning until after three in the afternoon was even more shocking than
her behavior to him the night before. He was resolved to show her by
every means in his power that to even a disinterested acquaintance like
himself her conduct was wholly unpardonable. Meanwhile that emotion to
which the captain had so grossly alluded took entire and absorbing
possession of him.

Toward the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Weston joined him on the terrace
in an anxious mood.

"Have you seen anything of that naughty Bobby Boynton?" she asked. "I am
quite distracted about her. Our train for Kioto leaves in half an hour.
You don't suppose anything has happened to her, do you?"

"I really can't say," said Percival, with a shrug that suggested the
direst possibilities.

"We simply must go on to Kioto tonight," continued Mrs. Weston,
anxiously nervous. "My cousin would never forgive me if I disappointed
him. You see, he's lived in Kioto for years, and he's promised to take
us out to an old Buddhist temple on a wonderful sacred mountain that I
can't pronounce. We've been looking forward to it for weeks."

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