"No matter!" bubbled West. "I'll sleep in the dining saloon, in a
lifeboat, on the lee scuppers--whatever they are. I'll sleep in the
air, without any visible support! I'll sleep anywhere--nowhere--but I'll
sail! And as for irons--they don't make 'em strong enough to hold me."
At five o'clock on Thursday afternoon the Saronia slipped smoothly away
from a Liverpool dock. Twenty-five hundred Americans--about twice the
number the boat could comfortably carry--stood on her decks and cheered.
Some of those in that crowd who had millions of money were booked
for the steerage. All of them were destined to experience during that
crossing hunger, annoyance, discomfort. They were to be stepped on, sat
on, crowded and jostled. They suspected as much when the boat left the
dock. Yet they cheered!
Gayest among them was Geoffrey West, triumphant amid the confusion. He
was safely aboard; the boat was on its way! Little did it trouble him
that he went as a stowaway, since he had no ticket; nothing but an
overwhelming determination to be on the good ship Saronia.
That night as the Saronia stole along with all deck lights out and every
porthole curtained, West saw on the dim deck the slight figure of a
girl who meant much to him. She was standing staring out over the black
waters; and, with wildly beating heart, he approached her, not knowing
what to say, but feeling that a start must be made somehow.
"Please pardon me for addressing--" he began. "But I want to tell you--"
She turned, startled; and then smiled an odd little smile, which he
could not see in the dark.
"I beg your pardon," she said. "I haven't met you, that I recall--"
"I know," he answered. "That's going to be arranged to-morrow. Mrs.
Tommy Gray says you crossed with them--"
"Mere steamer acquaintances," the girl replied coldly.
"Of course! But Mrs. Gray is a darling--she'll fix that all right. I
just want to say, before to-morrow comes--"
"Wouldn't it be better to wait?"
"I can't! I'm on this ship without a ticket. I've got to go down in a
minute and tell the purser that. Maybe he'll throw me overboard; maybe
he'll lock me up. I don't know what they do with people like me. Maybe
they'll make a stoker of me. And then I shall have to stoke, with no
chance of seeing you again. So that's why I want to say now--I'm sorry
I have such a keen imagination. It carried me away--really it did!
I didn't mean to deceive you with those letters; but, once I got
started--You know, don't you, that I love you with all my heart? From
the moment you came into the Carlton that morning I--"