CHAPTER VII

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_ The _Lapland_ was two days out from Tilbury before Pamela appeared on deck, followed by her maid with an armful of cushions, and the deck steward with her rugs. She had scarcely made herself comfortable in a sunny corner when she was aware of the approach of a large, familiar figure. Her astonishment was entirely genuine.

"Mr. Fischer!" she exclaimed. "Why, how on earth did you catch this steamer? I thought you were coming on the Thursday boat?"

"Some inducement to change my mind," Mr. Fischer replied, drawing a chair up to her side.

"Meaning me?"

"I guess that's so!"

"Of course, I'm exceedingly flattered," Pamela observed, "or rather I should be if I believed you, but I don't see how you could leave a supper-party at Henry's and go straight to Tilbury."

"Say, how did you know I was supping at Henry's?" he inquired.

"Because I was there for luncheon myself, as you know," she answered carelessly, "and I heard you order your table for supper."

Mr. Fischer nodded reminiscently.

"I always wind up with a little supper at Henry's, on my last night in London," he remarked. "It left me two hours to get down to Tilbury, but it don't take me long to start for anywhere when I once make up my mind. That's the American of us, I suppose. Besides, I never need much in the way of luggage. I keep clothes over on the other side and clothes in New York, and a grip always ready packed for a journey."

"You're so typical," she murmured, smiling.

"I don't know about that," he replied. "My business makes it necessary for me to be always on the go. Have you heard from your brother lately?"

Pamela shook her head.

"Jimmy is the most terrible correspondent," she complained. "I don't think I've had any mail from him for two months."

"You didn't know that he and I were sharing rooms together, then, in the Plaza Hotel, I suppose?"

Pamela turned her head a little and gazed at her companion in genuine surprise.

"Sharing rooms in the Plaza Hotel?" she repeated.... "You and Jimmy?"

"I guess that's so," Mr. Fischer assented. "We were doing business together one day, and the subject cropped up somehow or other. Your brother was thinking of making a move, and I'd just been shown these rooms, which were a trifle on the large side for me. I made him an offer and he jumped at it."

"I hope you're not leading James into extravagant ways," she remarked anxiously. "I loved his little apartment in Forty-Second Street and it was so inexpensive."

"Your brother's share of these rooms isn't anything more than he can afford," Mr. Fischer assured her. "That I can promise you. I guess his firm is doing well just now. If they've many more clients like me they are."

"It is very nice of you to put business in his way," Pamela said thoughtfully. "I wonder why you do it, Mr. Fischer?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Well," Pamela went on, her eyes travelling out seaward for a moment, "you seem to be one of those sort of men, Mr. Fischer, who never do anything without an object."

"_Some_ powers of observation," he admitted blithely.

"You have an object in being kind to Jimmy, then?"

Mr. Fischer produced a cigar case and selected a cheroot.

"Mind my smoking?"

"Not in the least. The only time I mind things is when people don't answer my questions."

"I was only kind of hesitating," Mr. Fischer went on, leaning back once more in his chair. "You want the truth, don't you?"

"I never think anything else is worth while."

"In the first place, then," her companion began, "your brother belongs to what I suppose is known as the exclusive set in New York. I am a Westerner with few friends there. Through him I have obtained introductions to several people whom it was interesting to me, from a business point of view, to know."

"I see," Pamela murmured. "You are at least frank, Mr. Fischer."

"I am going to be more frank still," he promised her. "Then another reason, of course, was because I liked him, and a third, which I am not sure wasn't the chief of all, because he was your brother."

Pamela laughed gaily.

"Is that necessary?"

"Necessary or not, it's the truth," he assured her. "I am a man of quick impressions and lasting ones."

"But we've never met except on a steamer," Pamela reminded him.

"I know it's the fashion," Mr. Fischer said, "to turn up one's nose at steamer acquaintances. It isn't like that with me. You see, I don't have as much opportunity of meeting folk as some others, perhaps. The most interesting people I've known socially I've met on steamers. I sat at your table, side by side with you, Miss Van Teyl, for seven days a few months ago. I guess I'll remember those seven days as long as I live."

Pamela turned her head and looked at him. The faintly derisive smile died away from her lips. The man was in earnest. A certain curiosity stole into her eyes as the seconds passed. She studied his hard, strong face, with its great jaw and prominent forehead; the mouth, a little too full, and belying the rest of his physiognomy, yet with its own peculiar strength. He had taken off his spectacles, and it seemed to her that the cold, flinty light of his eyes had caught for a moment some touch of the softer blue of the sea or the sky. Seated, he lost some of the awkwardness of his too great and ill-carried height. It seemed to her that he was at least a person to be reckoned with, either in friendship or enmity.

"Are you an American born, Mr. Fischer," she asked him.

He shook his head.

"I was born at Offenbach," he told her, "near Frankfurt. My father brought me out to America when I was eleven years old."

"You must find the present condition of things a little trying for you," she observed.

Oscar Fischer put on his glasses again. He did not answer for several moments.

"That opens up a subject, Miss Van Teyl," he said, "which some day I should like to discuss with you."

"Why not now?" she invited. "I feel much more inclined for conversation than reading."

"Tell me, then, to begin with," he asked thoughtfully, "on which side are your sympathies?"

"I try to do my duty as an American citizen," she replied promptly, "and that is to have no sympathies. Our dear country has set the world an example of what neutrality should be. I think it is the duty of us Americans to try and bring ourselves into exactly the same line of feeling."

He changed his position a little uneasily. His attitude became less of a sprawl. His eyes were fixed upon her face.

"I fear," he said, "that we are going to begin by a disagreement. I do not consider that America has realised in the least the duties of a neutral nation."

"You must explain that at once, if you please, before we go any further," Pamela insisted.

"Is this neutrality?" Fischer demanded, his rather harsh voice almost raucous now with a touch of real feeling. "America ships daily millions of dollars' worth of those things that make war possible, to France, to Italy, above all to England. She keeps them supplied with ammunition, clothing, scientific instruments, food--a dozen things which make war easier. To Germany she sends nothing. Is that neutrality?"

"But America is perfectly willing to deal in the same way with Germany," Pamela pointed out. "German agents can come and place their orders and take away whatever they want. The market is as much open to her as to the Allies."

Fischer was sitting bolt upright in his chair now. There was a little spot of colour in his cheeks and his eyes flashed behind his spectacles. He struck the side of the chair. He was very angry.

"That is Jesuitical," he declared. "It is perfectly well-known that Germany is not in a position to fetch munitions from America. Therefore, I say that there is no neutrality in supplying one side in the war with goods which the other is unable to procure."

"Then you place upon America the onus of Germany's naval inferiority," Pamela remarked drily.

"Germany's maritime inferiority does not exist," Mr. Fischer protested. "When the moment arrives that the High Seas fleet comes out for action the world will know the truth."

"Then hadn't it better come," Pamela suggested, "and clear the ocean for your commerce?"

"That isn't the point," Fischer insisted. "We have wandered from the main issue. I say that America abandons its neutrality when it helps the Allies to continue the war."

"I don't think you will find," Pamela replied, "that international law prevents any neutral country from supplying either combatant with munitions. If one country can fetch the things and the other can't, that is the misfortune of the country that can't. For one moment look at the matter from England's point of view. She has built up a mighty navy to keep the seas clear for exactly this purpose--to continue her commerce from abroad. Germany instead has built up a mighty army, with which she has overrun Europe. Germany has had the advantage from her army. Why shouldn't England have the advantage from her navy?"

"Let me ask you the question you asked me a few minutes ago," her companion begged. "Were you born in America--or England?"

"I was born in America," Pamela told him; "so were my parents and my grandparents. I claim to be American to the backbone. I claim even to treat any sympathies I might have in this affair as prejudices, and not even to allow them a single corner in my brain."

Mr. Fischer sat quite still for several moments. He was struggling very hard to keep his temper. In the end he succeeded.

"We will not, then, pursue the subject of America's neutrality," he said, "because it is obvious that we disagree fundamentally. But tell me this, now, as an American and a patriot. Which do you think would be better for America--That Germany and Austria won this war, or the Allies?"

"Upon that question I have not altogether made up my mind," Pamela confessed.

"Then there is room there for a discussion," Mr. Fischer pointed out eagerly. "I should like to put my views before you on this matter."

"And I should love to hear them," Pamela replied, "but I feel just now as though we had talked enough politics. Do you know that I came up on deck in a state of great agitation?"

"Submarine alarms from the stewardess?" Mr. Fischer suggested.

"I am not afraid of submarines, but I have a most profound dislike for thieves," Pamela declared.

"You have not had anything stolen?" he asked quickly.

"I have not," Pamela replied, "but the only reason seems to be that I have nothing worth stealing. When I got back from luncheon this afternoon I found that my stateroom had been systematically searched."

She turned her head a little lazily and looked at her neighbour. His expression was entirely sympathetic.

"Your jewellery?"

"Deposited with the purser."

"I congratulate you," he said.

"Nothing has been stolen," she observed, "but one hates the feeling of insecurity, all the same. Both my steward and stewardess are old friends. It must have been a very clever person who found his way into my room."

"A very clever person," Mr. Fischer objected, "would have known that you had deposited your jewels with the purser."

"If it was my jewels of which they were in search," Pamela murmured. "By the bye, do you remember all that fuss about the disappearance of a young soldier that morning at Henry's?"

Fischer nodded.

"I heard something about it," he confessed. "They were talking about it at dinner-time."

"I had an idea that you might be interested," Pamela went on. "He was rather a foolish young man. He came into the restaurant telling every one at the top of his voice that he had made a great discovery! Even in London, which is, I should think, the most prosaic city in the world, there must be people who are on the lookout to pick up war secrets."

"Even in London, as you remark," Fischer assented.

"You didn't hear the end of the affair, I suppose?" she asked him.

The steward had arrived with afternoon tea. Fischer threw into the sea the cigar which he had been smoking.

"I do not think," he said, "that the end has been reached yet."

Pamela sighed.

"Les oreilles ennemies!" she quoted. "I suppose one has to be careful everywhere." _

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