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She considered him askance. "If you wish to row in, do so. I did not mean to keep you here at sea " "Oh, I belong out here; I'm from the Ariani yonder; you heard her bell in the fog. We came from Nassau last night.... Have you ever been to Nassau?" The girl nodded listlessly and glanced at the white yacht, now becoming visible through the thinning mist.
So lingered the living memory of Malcourt among men a little while longer among women then faded as shadows die at dusk when the mala is told for the soul that waits the Rosary of a Thousand Beads. In January the Ariani sailed with her owner aboard; but Hamil was not with him. In February Constance Palliser wrote Hamil from Palm Beach: "It is too beautiful here and you must come.
Hamil, however, though with the gay company aboard, was not of them; he had business at Palm Beach; his luggage had already been sent ashore; and now, prepared to follow, he stood a little apart from the others on the moonlit deck, making his adieux to the master of the Ariani. "It's been perfectly stunning this cruise," he said.
And he followed, as did his heroic namesake in the golden noon of the age of fable. As they came in sight of the sea he halted. "That's curious!" he exclaimed; "there is the Ariani again!" "The yacht you came on?" "Yes. I wonder if there's been an accident. She cleared for Miami last night." They stood looking at the white steamer for a moment.
Clear and near sounded the ship's bell on the Ariani; a moment's rattle of block and tackle, a dull call, answered; and silence. Through which, without a sound, swept a great bird with scarce a beat of its spread wings; and behind it, another, and, at exact intervals another and another in impressive processional, sailing majestically through the fog; white pelicans winging inland to the lagoons.
She had known many, many such moments; one was upon her now, the clutching terror of it seeming to stiffen the very soul within her. "I hope all's well with the Ariani" he repeated under his breath, staring at the sea. Miss Cardross said nothing. February, the gayest winter month on the East Coast, found the winter resorts already overcrowded.
And drunk or sober he had the Ariani. But the house that Youth had built in the tinted obscurity of an old New York parlour no, he didn't have that; and even memory of it were wellnigh gone had not Constance Palliser spoken from the shadows of the past. He lifted his glass unsteadily and replaced it. Then slowly he raised his head and looked full at Constance Palliser.
And after a while he settled back on his oars, cast a last glance astern, and pulled for the Ariani, aboard of which Portlaw was already bellowing at him through an enormous megaphone.
"I hope everything's all right with the Ariani" he murmured; then turned to the girl beside him. "By the way I have a message for you from a man on board; I forgot to deliver it." "A message for me?" "From a very ornamental young man who desired to be particularly remembered to Shiela Cardross until he could pay his respects in person. Can you guess?"
It was all very new and interesting to him the shore with its spectral palms and giant caravansary, the misty, opalescent sea where a white steam-yacht lay anchored north of him the Ariani from which he had come, and on board of which the others were still doubtless asleep Portlaw, Malcourt, and Wayward.
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