The Girl on the Boat | Page 9

I couldn't meet him
because I hadn't any trousers! He was pretty peeved, judging from what
he said about my being on the wrong number. And mother, listening all
the time, and I knowing that she knew--something told me that she
knew--and she knowing that I knew she knew.... I tell you, it was
awful!"
"And the girl?"
"She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church
from eleven till one-thirty, and then began to get impatient. She
wouldn't see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from
her saying that what had happened was all for the best, as she had been
thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a
mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had
thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like
Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed."
"Did you explain about the trousers?"
"Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a
man anything except being ridiculous."
"I think you're well out of it," said Sam, judicially. "She can't have been
much of a girl."
"I feel that now. But it doesn't alter the fact that my life is ruined. I
have become a woman-hater. It's an infernal nuisance, because
practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its way

to boost women, and now I'll have to start all over again and approach
the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother
behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me, I wonder there isn't a law
against them. 'What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who
was't betrayed the Capitol....'"
"In Washington?" said Sam, puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But
then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting
page.
"In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome."
"Oh, as long ago as that?"
"I was quoting from Thomas Otway's 'Orphan.' I wish I could write like
Otway. He knew what he was talking about. 'Who was't betrayed the
Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Anthony the world? A woman.
Who was the cause of a long ten years' war and laid at last old Troy in
ashes? Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!'"
"Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I
mean. But the girl I met on the dock...."
"Don't!" said Eustace Hignett. "If you have anything bitter and
derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if
you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some
dashed girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it
to the captain or the ship's cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that I
am a soul in torment. I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a future.
What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again. My work? I
haven't any. I think I shall take to drink."
"Talking of that," said Sam, "I suppose they open the bar directly we
pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?"
Eustace shook his head gloomily.
"Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and

feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move, I go to bed and stay there.
As a matter of fact, I think it would be wisest to go to bed now. Don't
let me keep you if you want to go on deck."
"It looks to me," said Sam, "as if I had been mistaken in thinking that
you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage."
"Ray of sunshine!" said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve
pyjamas out of the kit-bag. "I'm going to be a volcano!"
Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to
get on deck and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now, the
sheep would be separating from the goats; the passengers would be on
deck and their friends returning to the shore. A slight tremor in the
boards on which he trod told him that this separation must have already
taken place. The ship was moving. He ran lightly up the companion.
Was she on board or was she not? The next few minutes would decide.
He reached the top of the stairs, and passed out on to the crowded deck.
And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came from
the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with
people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water.
Samuel