Dinner that night was a rather strained affair. Curt, taking his accustomed place, was a little late. As he seated himself, he glanced at the captain’s empty place and said courteously, “Captain asks to be forgiven for not being here. He is quite busy in his quarters with various formalities that must be attended to before we dock tomorrow.”
Mrs. Burke leaned forward and glanced at Nora’s and at MacEwen’s empty chairs.
“But where is the girl, and that nice young man? Aren’t they coming to dinner?” she asked curiously.
Curt smiled at her. “Captain has invited them to dinner in his own quarters. There are some things he thinks Nora can shed some light on.”
“Well, I suppose that’s true,” Mrs. Burke admitted, and added, “And Mr. Russell? Was he in on all this ugly mess?”
“Oh, no, MacEwen first met Nora when they came aboard,” Curt answered, and his smile warmed faintly. “He seems to be determined to stand by her in any emergency that may develop.”
“Then he is in love with her. Isn’t that wonderful?” Mrs. Burke beamed happily and glanced across at Mrs. Hennessy. “I told you so, Amy. I’m rarely ever wrong about such things.”
Curt said briskly, “The formal inquiry tomorrow, as soon as we dock, will take care of all this. Have any of you been through the Canal? It’s quite an interesting experience.”
And he launched into a long and detailed account of what they would shortly experience. He had not once glanced at Claire since he had taken his place at the table, and his manner was cool, aloof, as though she were not there within the reach of his hand, the sound of his lowest whisper.
Gradually the table talk became general, and eventually the meal was over. As they rose from the table and congregated in small groups preparing for the nightly card games, Claire followed Curt out of the salon. In the corridor, as he was walking away from her, she called to him.
He turned back, glancing at her with a cool, detached look as though she had been someone he had never seen before.
“Yes, Miss Frazier?” he said with cold courtesy.
“Curt, please — I have to talk with you.”
“Of course, Miss Frazier.”
Claire searched his face, his cold, hostile eyes.
“If you aren’t too busy — ” Her voice stumbled.
“Why, how could I ever be too busy to entertain a feminine passenger, my dear Miss Frazier?” he mocked. “Remember me? I’m the line’s glamour boy, whose duty it is to entertain all the feminine passengers at any time. You said so yourself.”
“I’m terribly sorry, Curt,” she stammered. “That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“I didn’t think you’d left anything unsaid.”
Major Lesley emerged from the salon, gave them a startled glance and scurried like a small rabbit out of the corridor to the deck.
“Could we go out on the deck, Curt?” Claire pleaded.
“Why not? Tropic moonlight, flying fish, the phosphorescence on the water — all very romantic and part of the lines’ service to feminine passengers,” Curt drawled. And his tone made the words a derisive taunt as he bowed and motioned for her to precede him.
Out on the deck, Claire lifted her hot, shamed face gratefully to the fresh, salt-tangy wind and moved forward to the railing where, in the shadow of a lifeboat, she turned to look up at him.
“Curt, I’m sure you know what I want to say,” she began huskily.
“I’m afraid I haven’t the vaguest idea.”
“Oh, Curt, don’t be like that!” she wailed. “I’m so terribly sorry about everything I said. I didn’t mean it, Curt. What I did mean was what I said in the captain’s quarters last night, not what I said this morning. I do love you, Curt — I know it now.”
There was a small, taut silence in which she held her breath, waiting for him to take her into his arms, to forgive her, to make things right between them. Instead he leaned on the rail and looked out over the dark water, with the phosphorescent trail visible here and there as the sturdy old ship plodded her slow way along.
“I don’t think you do, Claire,” said Curt after what seemed to her an endless wait. “If you had loved me, you wouldn’t have jumped to the wrong conclusion when you thought you saw me leaving Mrs. Barclay’s room. You wouldn’t have hidden in your own room, placing the worst possible construction on what you saw. You would have taken it for granted that I had some logical, decent reason for being there. You might have offered to help, in case I needed your help. Instead you just skulked into your own cabin, and then this morning blasted me with every ugly thing you could think of to say. No, Claire, you’re not in love with me. Not the smallest, infinitesimal bit. You can’t be in love with someone without trusting him. And you showed me with insulting clarity just how little trust you had in me.”
There was so much truth in what he was saying that she could only shrink, as though the words had been physical blows, and feel her heart dying within her.
After a long moment she moistened her dry lips and managed words.
“You expect an awful lot, don’t you, Curt?”
He straightened and turned toward her; in the shadow of the lifeboat she could only guess at his expression.
“Why, yes, Claire, I suppose I do,” he agreed at last. “I’m not a callow kid, you know. A man doesn’t reach my age without learning a little something about women. As you so sweetly pointed out, aboard the Highland Queen part of my duty is entertaining the feminine passengers. A fellow learns quite a bit that way. I’d never been in love before; I’d rather side-stepped it. I was wary, suspicious if you like, but then you came along and I thought, I’ve found her at last — my girl! I was as sure you trusted me as I was that I trusted you. It didn’t occur to me for a moment that your love was such a cheap and flimsy thing that it would come apart the first moment any stress was placed on it.”
Claire winced beneath the scathing indictment, and then she realized that if ever she was going to put things right between them, she had to fight now, that minute.
“I trusted Rick Massey,” she said quietly.
She could feel the small start of surprise Curt gave as he looked down at her through the shadows.
“Rick Massey? Who’s he?” he asked curiously.
“The man whose jilting sent me off on this cruise,” Claire told him levelly. “We’d known each other for years. We had planned to be married as soon as he finished his year in residency; and then he eloped with a wealthy patient.”
Curt was silent for a moment that seemed to her all but endless.
“And so, because one man has proved himself faithless, you took it for granted every other man in the world was equally so,” he drawled at last.
“I’d known him for so long.” Her voice stumbled painfully. “I’d known you such a little while. Oh, Curt, can’t you understand?”
“Why, yes,” he said at last, and his tone held no warmth at all. “I think I can understand very well. You were on the rebound from him and I was available. That’s about it, isn’t it?”
There was a silence she found all but impossible to break, and after a moment he went on slowly, “As a matter of fact, Claire, it’s probably just as well that it’s come to this. It wouldn’t have worked, you know.”
“It wouldn’t?” she whispered.
“Of course not.” His tone was brusque. “You can see for yourself it could never have worked. Marriage for you and me, I mean. I couldn’t give up the sea — ”
“I wouldn’t ask you to.”
“Because,” he plowed on as though she hadn’t spoken, “it’s all I know of a way to make a living. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted to know. And you wouldn’t be happy living aboard ship.”
“Captain Rodolfson’s wife was.”
“She was very different,” Curt stated flatly. “She’d never had a career or been out on her own or put down roots ashore as you have.”
“It all boils down to the fact that you were mistaken in thinking you love me, is that it?”
He turned toward her in the shadows, his expression one she could not see.
“Why, no, it just means I was mistaken about you being in love with me,” he pointed out with brutal candor. “You said just a shipboard romance; I think that’s all it was with you. With me — well, with me it was quite different. I felt I’d come into safe harbor after a very rough and stormy voyage. That was where I made my mistake.”
Claire drew a deep, hard breath.
“And you’d like to leave it at that?” she asked huskily.
“I don’t see what else we can do, do you?”
Claire set her teeth for a moment, and then she flung up her head and faced him in the shadows.
“Why, no, I don’t suppose there is anything else since you’re so stiff-necked and arrogant and so convinced that I’ve insulted you beyond any possibility of forgiveness,” she said harshly. “So all right. We’ll leave it at that. But it seems to me I’ve stripped my pride to ribbons and tied it up in a slovenly bundle and offered it to you, and that’s something I’ll never do again, you may be very sure! I did say nasty things to you this morning; I did jump to an ugly conclusion when I saw you last night at Vera’s door. I’ve asked your forgiveness. And you’ve been too stiff-necked to accept it. And that means that you aren’t really in love with me, either. If you were, you’d understand. And since you don’t want to-then by all means leave it at that!”
Curt made a gesture, and she drew back.
“Maybe you’re quite right, after all.” She spat the words at him furiously. “Maybe it was just a shipboard romance. Maybe I’m not in love with you; maybe it was just the rebound from Rick’s jilting. But whatever it was, I’ll forget you. I’ll get over you, don’t you ever doubt that. Why, in time, I’ll forget the color of your eyes, the sound of your voice, as I’m sure you’ll forget mine. And that’ll be just dandy, because that’s the way it’s got to be.”
She turned swiftly, evading his hand, ignoring his voice, and went running back across the deck to the corridor and along it to her own room.