CHAPTER VIII.

An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then in patience our proceeding be.


We'll put on those shall praise your excellence
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together.
... I know love is begun by time.


I know him well: he is the brooch indeed
And gem of all the nation.


He made confession of you,
And gave you such a masterly report
For art...'twould be a sight indeed
If one could match you.
—Hamlet.

MRS. Crawford absolutely clung to Daireen all this evening. When the whist parties were formed in the cabin she brought the girl on deck and instructed her in some of the matters worth knowing aboard a passenger ship.

“On no account bind yourself to any whist set before you look about you: nothing could be more dangerous,” she said confidentially. “Just think how terrible it would be if you were to join a set now, and afterwards to find out that it was not the best set. You would simply be ruined. Besides that, it is better to stay on deck as much as possible during the first day or two at sea. Now let us go over to the major and Campion.”

So Daireen found herself borne onward with Mrs. Crawford's arm in her own to where Major Crawford and Doctor Campion were sitting on their battered deck-chairs lighting fresh cheroots from the ashes of the expiring ends.

“Don't tread on the tumblers, my dear,” said the major as his wife advanced. “And how is Miss Gerald now that we have got under weigh? You didn't take any of that liquid they insult the Chinese Empire by calling tea, aboard ship, I hope?”

“Just a single cup, and very weak,” said Mrs. Crawford apologetically.

“My dear, I thought you were wiser.”

“You will take this chair, Mrs. Crawford?” said Doctor Campion, without making the least pretence of moving, however.

“Don't think of such a thing,” cried the lady's husband; and to do Doctor Campion justice, he did not think of such a thing. “Why, you don't fancy these are our Junkapore days, do you, when Kate came out to our bungalow, and the boys called her the Sylph? It's a fact, Miss Gerald; my wife, as your father will tell you, was as slim as a lily. Ah, dear, dear! Time, they say, takes a lot away from us, but by Jingo, he's liberal enough in some ways. By Jingo, yes,” and the gallant old man kept shaking his head and chuckling towards his comrade, whose features could be seen puckered into a grin though he uttered no sound.

“And stranger still, Miss Gerald,” said the lady, “the major was once looked upon as a polite man, and politer to his wife than to anybody else. Go and fetch some chairs here, Campion, like a good fellow,” she added to the doctor, who rose slowly and obeyed.

“That's how my wife takes command of the entire battalion, Miss Gerald,” remarked the major. “Oh, your father will tell you all about her.”

The constant reference to her father by one who was an old friend, came with a cheering influence to the girl. A terrible question as to what might be the result of her arrival at the Cape had suggested itself to her more than once since she had left Ireland; but now the major did not seem to fancy that there could be any question in the matter.

When the chairs were brought, and enveloped in karosses, as the old campaigners called the furs, there arose a chatter of bungalows, and punkahs, and puggarees, and calapashes, and curries, that was quite delightful to the girl's ears, especially as from time to time her father's name would be mentioned in connection with some elephant-trapping expedition, or, perhaps, a mess joke.

When at last Daireen found herself alone in the cabin which her grandfather had managed to secure for her, she did not feel that loneliness which she thought she should have felt aboard this ship full of strangers without sympathy for her.

She stood for a short time in the darkness, looking out of her cabin port over the long waters, and listening to the sound of the waves hurrying away from the ship and flapping against its sides, and once more she thought of the purple mountain and the green Irish Lough. Then as she moved away from the port her thoughts stretched in another direction—southward. Her heart was full of hope as she turned in to her bunk and went quietly asleep just as the first waves of the Bay of Biscay were making the good steamer a little uneasy, and bringing about a bitter remorse to those who had made merry over the dumplings and buttered toast.

Major Crawford was an officer who had served for a good many years in India, and had there become acquainted with Daireen's father and mother. When Mr. Gerald was holding his grandchild in his arms aboard the steamer saying good-bye, he was surprised by a strange lady coming up to him and begging to be informed if it was possible that Daireen was the daughter of Colonel Gerald. In another instant Mr. Gerald was overjoyed to know that Daireen would be during the entire voyage in the company of an officer and his wife who were old friends of her father, and had recognised her from her likeness to her mother, whom they had also known when she was little older than Daireen. Mr. Gerald left the vessel with a mind at rest; and that his belief that the girl would be looked after was well-founded is already known. Daireen was, indeed, in the hands of a lady who was noted in many parts of the world for her capacities for taking charge of young ladies. When she was in India her position at the station was very similiar to that of immigration-agent-general. Fond matrons in England, who had brought their daughters year after year to Homburg, Kissingen, and Nice, in the “open” season, and had yet brought them back in safety—matrons who had even sunk to the low level of hydropathic hunting-grounds without success, were accustomed to write pathetic letters to Junkapore and Arradambad conveying to Mrs. Crawford intelligence of the strange fancy that some of the dear girls had conceived to visit those parts of the Indian Empire, and begging Mrs. Crawford to give her valuable advice with regard to the carrying out of such remarkable freaks. Never in any of these cases had the major's wife failed. These forlorn hopes took passage to India and found in her a real friend, with tact, perseverance, and experience. The subalterns of the station were never allowed to mope in a wretched, companionless condition; and thus Mrs. Crawford had achieved for herself a certain fame, which it was her study to maintain. Having herself had men-children only, she had no personal interests to look after. Her boys had been swaddled in puggarees, spoon-fed with curry, and nurtured upon chutney, and had so developed into full-grown Indians ready for the choicest appointments, and they had succeeded very well indeed. Her husband had now received a command from the War Office to proceed to the Cape for the purpose of obtaining evidence on the subject of the regulation boots to be supplied to troops on active foreign service; a commission upon this most important subject having been ordered by a Parliamentary vote. Other officers of experience had been sent to various of the colonies, and much was expected to result from the prosecution of their inquiries, the opponents of the Government being confident that gussets would eventually be allowed to non-commissioned officers, and back straps to privates.

Of course Major Crawford could not set out on a mission so important without the companionship of his wife. Though just at the instant of Daireen's turning in, the major fancied he might have managed to get along pretty well even if his partner had been left behind him in England. He was inclined to snarl in his cabin at nights when his wife unfolded her plans to him and kept him awake to give his opinion as to the possibility of the tastes of various young persons becoming assimilated. To-night the major expressed his indifference as to whether every single man in the ship's company got married to every single woman before the end of the voyage, or whether they all went to perdition singly. He concluded by wishing fervently that they would disappear, married and single, by a supernatural agency.

“But think, how gratified poor Gerald would be if the dear girl could think as I do on this subject,” said Mrs. Crawford persistently, alluding to the matter of certain amalgamation of tastes. At this point, however, the major expressed himself in words still more vigorous than he had brought to his aid before, and his wife thought it prudent to get into her bunk without pursuing any further the question of the possible gratification of Colonel Gerald at the unanimity of thought existing between his daughter and Mrs. Crawford.