He obeyed her; and now I had the deck entirely to myself, or, rather, but one other and distant person shared it with me.  The hour had come, the bells had struck; Charley’s crew was eating its dinner below forward; Charley’s guests were drinking their liquor below aft; Charley’s correct meal-flag was to be seen in the port fore rigging, as he had said, red and triangular; and away off from me in the bow was the anchor watch, whom I dreamily watched trying to light his pipe.  His matches seemed to be bad; and the brotherly thought of helping him drifted into my mind—­ and comfortably out of it again, without disturbing my agreeable repose.  It had been really entertaining in John to tell Kitty that she ought to see the inside of Kings Port; that was like his engaging impishness with Juno.  If by any possible contrivance (and none was possible) Kitty and her Replacers could have met the inside of Kings Port, Kitty would have added one more “quaint” impression to her stock, and gone away in total ignorance of the quality of the impression she had made—­and Bohm would probably have again remarked, “Worse than Sunday.”  No; the St. Michaels and the Replacers would never meet in this world, and I see no reason that they should in the next.  John’s light and pleasing skirmish with Kitty gave me the glimpse of his capacities which I had lacked hitherto.  John evidently “knew his way about,” as they say; and I was diverted to think how Miss Josephine St. Michael would have nodded over his adequacy and shaken her head at his squandering it on such a companion.  But it was no squandering; the boy’s heavy spirit was making a gallant “bluff” at playing up with the lively party he had no choice but to join, and this one saw the moment he was not called upon to play up.

The peaceful loveliness that floated from earth and water around me triumphed over the jangling hilarity of the cabin, and I dozed away, aware that they were now all thumping furiously in chorus, while Gazza sang something that went, “Oh, she’s my leetle preety poosee pet.”  When I roused, it was Kitty’s voice at the piano, but no change in the quality of the song or the thumping; and Hortense was stepping on deck.  She had a cigarette, her beauty flashed with devilment, and John followed her.  “They are going to have an explanation,” I thought, as I saw his face.  If that were so, then Kitty had blundered in her strategy and hurt Charley’s cause; for after the two came Gazza, as obviously “sent” as any emissary ever looked:  Kitty took care of the singing, while Gazza intercepted any tete-a-tete.  I rose and made a fourth with them, and even as I was drawing near, the devilment in Hortense’s face sank inward beneath cold displeasure.

I had never been a welcome person to Hortense, and she made as little effort to conceal this as usual.  Her indifferent eyes glanced at me with drowsy insolence, and she made her beautiful, low voice as remote and inattentive as her skilful social equipment could render it.