"Capital! I should just love to see a real storm. Now promise me solemnly that you will take me up into the charthouse when this typhoon is simply tearing things to pieces."
"Oh dear! I do hope it will not be very bad. Is there no way in which you can avoid it, captain? Will it last long?"
The politic skipper for once preferred to answer Lady Tozer. "There is no cause for uneasiness," he said. "Of course, typhoons in the China Sea are nasty things while they last, but a ship like the Sirdar is not troubled by them. She will drive through the worst gale she is likely to meet here in less than twelve hours. Besides, I alter the course somewhat as soon as I discover our position with regard to its center. You see, Miss Deane—"
And Captain Ross forthwith illustrated on the back of a menu card the spiral shape and progress of a cyclone. He so thoroughly mystified the girl by his technical references to northern and southern hemispheres, polar directions, revolving air-currents, external circumferences, and diminished atmospheric pressures, that she was too bewildered to reiterate a desire to visit the bridge.
Then the commander hurriedly excused himself, and the passengers saw no more of him that day.
But his short scientific lecture achieved a double result. It rescued him from a request which he could not possibly grant, and reassured Lady Tozer. To the non-nautical mind it is the unknown that is fearful. A storm classed as "periodic," whose velocity can be measured, whose duration and direction can be determined beforehand by hours and distances, ceases to be terrifying. It becomes an accepted fact, akin to the steam-engine and the electric telegraph, marvelous yet commonplace.
So her ladyship dismissed the topic as of no present interest, and focused Miss Deane through her eye-glasses.
"Sir Arthur proposes to come home in June, I understand?" she inquired.
Iris was a remarkably healthy young woman. A large banana momentarily engaged her attention. She nodded affably.
"You will stay with relatives until he arrives?" pursued Lady Tozer.
The banana is a fruit of simple characteristics. The girl was able to reply, with a touch of careless hauteur in her voice:
"Relatives! We have none—none whom we specially cultivate, that is. I will stop in town a day or two to interview my dressmaker, and then go straight to Helmdale, our place in Yorkshire."
"Surely you have a chaperon!"
"A chaperon! My dear Lady Tozer, did my father impress you as one who would permit a fussy and stout old person to make my life miserable?"
The acidity of the retort lay in the word "stout." But Iris was not accustomed to cross-examination. During a three months' residence on the island she had learnt how to avoid Lady Tozer. Here it was impossible, and the older woman fastened upon her asp-like. Miss Iris Deane was a toothsome morsel for gossip. Not yet twenty-one, the only daughter of a wealthy baronet who owned a fleet of stately ships—the Sirdar amongst them—a girl who had been mistress of her father's house since her return from Dresden three years ago—young, beautiful, rich—here was a combination for which men thanked a judicious Heaven, whilst women sniffed enviously.
Business detained Sir Arthur. A war-cloud over-shadowed the two great divisions of the yellow race. He must wait to see how matters developed, but he would not expose Iris to the insidious treachery of a Chinese spring. So, with tears, they separated. She was confided to the personal charge of Captain Ross. At each point of call the company's agents would be solicitous for her welfare. The cable's telegraphic eye would watch her progress as that of some princely maiden sailing in royal caravel. This fair, slender, well-formed girl—delightfully English in face and figure—with her fresh, clear complexion, limpid blue eyes, and shining brown hair, was a personage of some importance.
Lady Tozer knew these things and sighed complacently.
"Ah, well," she resumed. "Parents had different views when I was a girl. But I assume Sir Arthur thinks you should become used to being your own mistress in view of your approaching marriage."
"My—approaching—marriage!" cried Iris, now genuinely amazed.
"Yes. Is it not true that you are going to marry Lord Ventnor?"
A passing steward heard the point-blank question.
It had a curious effect upon him. He gazed with fiercely eager eyes at Miss Deane, and so far forgot himself as to permit a dish of water ice to rest against Sir John Tozer's bald head.
Iris could not help noting his strange behavior. A flash of humor chased away her first angry resentment at Lady Tozer's interrogatory.
"That may be my happy fate," she answered gaily, "but Lord Ventnor has not asked me."
"Every one says in Hong Kong—" began her ladyship.
"Confound you, you stupid rascal! what are you doing?" shouted Sir John. His feeble nerves at last conveyed the information that something more pronounced than a sudden draught affected his scalp; the ice was melting.
The incident amused those passengers who sat near enough to observe it. But the chief steward, hovering watchful near the captain's table, darted forward. Pale with anger he hissed—
"Report yourself for duty in the second saloon tonight," and he hustled his subordinate away from the judge's chair.
Miss Deane, mirthfully radiant, rose.
"Please don't punish the man, Mr. Jones," she said sweetly. "It was a sheer accident. He was taken by surprise. In his place I would have emptied the whole dish."
The chief steward smirked. He did not know exactly what had happened; nevertheless, great though Sir John Tozer might be, the owner's daughter was greater.
"Certainly, miss, certainly," he agreed, adding confidentially:—"It is rather hard on a steward to be sent aft, miss. It makes such a difference in the—er—the little gratuities given by the passengers."
The girl was tactful. She smiled comprehension at the official and bent over Sir John, now carefully polishing the back of his skull with a table napkin.
"I am sure you will forgive him," she whispered. "I can't say why, but the poor fellow was looking so intently at me that he did not see what he was doing."
The ex-Chief Justice was instantly mollified. He did not mind the application of ice in that way—rather liked it, in fact—probably ice was susceptible to the fire in Miss Deane's eyes.
Lady Tozer was not so easily appeased. When Iris left the saloon she inquired tartly: "How is it, John, that Government makes a ship-owner a baronet and a Chief Justice only a knight?"
"That question would provide an interesting subject for debate at the Carlton, my dear," he replied with equal asperity.
Suddenly the passengers still seated experienced a prolonged sinking sensation, as if the vessel had been converted into a gigantic lift. They were pressed hard into their chairs, which creaked and tried to swing round on their pivots. As the ship yielded stiffly to the sea a whiff of spray dashed through an open port.
"There," snapped her ladyship, "I knew we should run into a storm, yet Captain Ross led us to believe—— John, take me to my cabin at once."
From the promenade deck the listless groups watched the rapid advance of the gale. There was mournful speculation upon the Sirdar's chances of reaching Singapore before the next evening.
"We had two hundred and ninety-eight miles to do at noon," said Experience. "If the wind and sea catch us on the port bow the ship will pitch awfully. Half the time the screw will be racing. I once made this trip in the Sumatra, and we were struck by a south-east typhoon in this locality. How long do you think it was before we dropped anchor in Singapore