“The trouble! Oh, if that is the way you speak, then your case is hopeless! I suspected it for some time, but now I am certain. The trouble! The delight of reading a new novel by Howells is something that you evidently have not the remotest idea of. Why, I don’t know what I would give to have with me a novel of Howells’ that I had not read.”
“Goodness gracious! You don’t mean to say that you have read everything he has written?”
“Certainly I have, and I am reading one now that is coming out in the magazine; and I don’t know what I shall do if I am not able to get the magazine when I go to Europe.”
“Oh, you can get them over there right enough, and cheaper than you can in America. They publish them over there.”
“Do they? Well, I am glad to hear it.”
“You see, there is something about American literature that you are not acquainted with, the publication of our magazines in England, for instance. Ah, there is the breakfast gong. Well, we will have to postpone our lesson in literature until afterwards. Will you be up here after breakfast?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, we will leave our chairs and rugs just where they are. I will take your book down for you. Books have the habit of disappearing if they are left around on shipboard.”
After breakfast Mr. Morris went to the smoking-room to enjoy his cigar, and there was challenged to a game of cards. He played one game; but his mind was evidently not on his amusement, so he excused himself from any further dissipation in that line, and walked out on deck. The promise of the morning had been more than fulfilled in the day, and the warm sunlight and mild air had brought on deck many who had not been visible up to that time. There was a long row of muffled up figures on steamer chairs, and the deck steward was kept busy hurrying here and there attending to the wants of the passengers. Nearly every one had a book, but many of the books were turned face downwards on the steamer rugs, while the owners either talked to those next them, or gazed idly out at the blue ocean. In the long and narrow open space between the chairs and the bulwarks of the ship, the energetic pedestrians were walking up and down.
At this stage of the voyage most of the passengers had found congenial companions, and nearly everybody was acquainted with everybody else. Morris walked along in front of the reclining passengers, scanning each one eagerly to find the person he wanted, but she was not there. Remembering then that the chairs had been on the other side of the ship, he continued his walk around the wheel-house, and there he saw Miss Earle, and sitting beside her was the blonde young lady talking vivaciously, while Miss Earle listened.
Morris hesitated for a moment, but before he could turn back the young lady sprang to her feet, and said—“Oh, Mr. Morris, am I sitting in your chair?”
“What makes you think it is my chair?” asked that gentleman, not in the most genial tone of voice.
“I thought so,” replied the young lady, with a laugh, “because it was near Miss Earle.”
Miss Earle did not look at all pleased at this remark. She coloured slightly, and, taking the open book from her lap, began to read.
“You are quite welcome to the chair,” replied Morris, and the moment the words were spoken he felt that somehow it was one of those things he would rather have left unsaid, as far as Miss Earle was concerned. “I beg that you will not disturb yourself,” he continued; and, raising his hat to the lady, he continued his walk.
A chance acquaintance joined him, changing his step to suit that of Morris, and talked with him on the prospects of the next year being a good business season in the United States. Morris answered rather absent-mindedly, and it was nearly lunch-time before he had an opportunity of going back to see whether or not Miss Earle’s companion had left. When he reached the spot where they had been sitting he found things the very reverse of what he had hoped. Miss Earle’s chair was vacant, but her companion sat there, idly turning over the leaves of the book that Miss Earle had been reading. “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Morris?” said the young woman, looking up at him with a winning smile. “Miss Earle has gone to dress for lunch. I should do the same thing, but, alas! I am too indolent.”
Morris hesitated for a moment, and then sat down beside her.
“Why do you act so perfectly horrid to me?” asked the young lady, closing the book sharply.
“I was not aware that I acted horridly to anybody,” answered Morris.
“You know well enough that you have been trying your very best to avoid me.”
“I think you are mistaken. I seldom try to avoid any one, and I see no reason why I should try to avoid you. Do you know of any reason?”
The young lady blushed and looked down at her book, whose leaves she again began to turn.
“I thought,” she said at last, “that you might have some feeling against me, and I have no doubt you judge me very harshly. You never did make any allowances.”
Morris gave a little laugh that was half a sneer.
“Allowances?” he said.
“Yes, allowances. You know you always were harsh with me, George, always.” And as she looked up at him her blue eyes were filled with tears, and there was a quiver at the corner of her mouth. “What a splendid actress you would make, Blanche,” said the young man, calling her by her name for the first time.
She gave him a quick look as he did so. “Actress!” she cried. “No one was ever less an actress than I am, and you know that.”
“Oh, well, what’s the use of us talking? It’s all right. We made a little mistake, that’s all, and people often make mistakes in this life, don’t they, Blanche?”
“Yes,” sobbed that young lady, putting her dainty silk handkerchief to her eyes.
“Now, for goodness sake,” said the young man, “don’t do that. People will think I am scolding you, and certainly there is no one in this world who has less right to scold you than I have.”
“I thought,” murmured the young lady, from behind her handkerchief, “that we might at least be friends. I didn’t think you could ever act so harshly towards me as you have done for the past few days.”
“Act?” cried the young man. “Bless me, I haven’t acted one way or the other. I simply haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you till the other evening, or morning, which ever it was. I have said nothing, and done nothing. I don’t see how I could be accused of acting, or of anything else.”
“I think,” sobbed the young lady, “that you might at least have spoken kindly to me.”
“Good gracious!” cried Morris, starting up, “here comes Miss Earle. For heaven’s sake put up that handkerchief.”
But Blanche merely sank her face lower in it, while silent sobs shook her somewhat slender form.
Miss Earle stood for a moment amazed as she looked at Morris’s flushed face, and at the bowed head of the young lady beside him; then, without a word, she turned and walked away.
“I wish to goodness,” said Morris, harshly, “that if you are going to have a fit of crying you would not have it on deck, and where people can see you.”
The young woman at once straightened up and flashed a look at him in which there were no traces of her former emotion.
“People!” she said, scornfully. “Much you care about people. It is because Miss Katherine Earle saw me that you are annoyed. You are afraid that it will interfere with your flirtation with her.”
“Flirtation?”
“Yes, flirtation. Surely it can’t be anything more serious?”
“Why should it not be something more serious?” asked Morris, very coldly. The blue eyes opened wide in apparent astonishment.
“Would you marry her?” she said, with telling emphasis upon the word.
“Why not?” he answered. “Any man might be proud to marry a lady like Miss Earle.”
“A lady! Much of a lady she is! Why, she is one of your own shop-girls. You know it.”
“Shop-girls?” cried Morris, in astonishment.
“Yes, shop-girls. You don’t mean to say that she has concealed that fact from you, or that you didn’t know it by seeing her in the store?”
“A shop-girl in my store?” he murmured, bewildered. “I knew I had seen her somewhere.”
Blanche laughed a little irritating laugh.
“What a splendid item it would make for the society papers,” she said. “The junior partner marries one of his own shop-girls, or, worse still, the junior partner and one of his shop-girls leave New York on the City of Buffalo, and are married in England. I hope that the reporters will not get the particulars of the affair.” Then, rising, she left the amazed young man to his thoughts.
George Morris saw nothing more of Miss Katherine Earle that day.
“I wonder what that vixen has said to her,” he thought, as he turned in for the night.
Fifth Day
In the early morning of the fifth day out, George Morris paced the deck alone.
“Shop-girl or not,” he had said to himself, “Miss Katherine Earle is much more of a lady than the other ever was.” But as he paced the deck, and as Miss Earle did not appear, he began to wonder more and more what had been said to her in the long talk of yesterday forenoon. Meanwhile Miss Earle sat in her own state-room thinking over the same subject. Blanche had sweetly asked her for permission to sit down beside her.
“I know no ladies on board,” she said, “and I think I have met you before.”
“Yes,” answered Miss Earle, “I think we have met before.”
“How good of you to have remembered me,” said Blanche, kindly.
“I think,” replied Miss Earle, “that it is more remarkable that you should remember me than that I should remember you. Ladies very rarely notice the shop-girls who wait upon them.”
“You seemed so superior to your station,” said Blanche, “that I could not help remembering you, and could not help thinking what a pity it was you had to be there.”
“I do not think that there is anything either superior or inferior about the station. It is quite as honourable, or dishonourable, which ever it may be, as any other branch of business. I cannot see, for instance, why my station, selling ribbons at retail, should be any more dishonourable than the station of the head of the firm, who merely does on a very large scale what I was trying to do for him on a very limited scale.”
“Still,” said Blanche, with a yawn, “people do not all look upon it in exactly that light.”
“Hardly any two persons look on any one thing in the same light. I hope you have enjoyed your voyage so far?”
“I have not enjoyed it very much,” replied the young lady with a sigh.
“I am sorry to hear that. I presume your father has been ill most of the way?”
“My father?” cried the other, looking at her questioner.
“Yes, I did not see him at the table since the first day.”
“Oh, he has had to keep his room almost since we left. He is a very poor sailor.”
“Then that must make your voyage rather unpleasant?”
The blonde young lady made no reply, but, taking up the book which Miss Earle was reading, said, “You don’t find Mr. Morris much of a reader, I presume? He used not to be.”
“I know very little about Mr. Morris,” said Miss Earle, freezingly.
“Why, you knew him before you came on board, did you not?” questioned the other, raising her eyebrows.
“No, I did not.”
“You certainly know he is junior partner in the establishment where you work?”
“I know that, yes, but I had never spoken to him before I met him on board this steamer.”
“Is that possible? Might I ask you if there is any probability of your becoming interested in Mr. Morris?”
“Interested! What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know well enough what I mean. We girls do not need to be humbugs with each other, whatever we may be before the men. When a young woman meets a young man in the early morning, and has coffee with him, and when she reads to him, and tries to cultivate his literary tastes, whatever they may be, she certainly shows some interest in the young man, don’t you think so?”
Miss Earle looked for a moment indignantly at her questioner. “I do not recognise your right,” she said, “to ask me such a question.”
“No? Then let me tell you that I have every right to ask it. I assure you that I have thought over the matter deeply before I spoke. It seemed to me there was one chance in a thousand—only one chance in a thousand, remember—that you were acting honestly, and on that one chance I took the liberty of speaking to you. The right I have to ask such a question is this—Mr. George Morris has been engaged to me for several years.”
“Engaged to you?”
“Yes. If you don’t believe it, ask him.”
“It is the very last question in the world I would ask anybody.”
“Well, then, you will have to take my word for it. I hope you are not very shocked, Miss Earle, to hear what I have had to tell you.”
“Shocked? Oh dear, no. Why should I be? It is really a matter of no interest to me, I assure you.”
“Well, I am very glad to hear you say so. I did not know but you might have become more interested in Mr. Morris than you would care to own. I think myself that he is quite a fascinating young gentleman; but I thought it only just to you that you should know exactly how matters stood.”
“I am sure I am very much obliged to you.”
This much of the conversation Miss Earle had thought over in her own room that morning. “Did it make a difference to her or not?” that was the question she was asking herself. The information had certainly affected her opinion of Mr. Morris, and she smiled to herself rather bitterly as she thought of his claiming to be so exceedingly truthful. Miss Earle did not, however, go up on deck until the breakfast gong had rung.
“Good morning,” said Morris, as he took his place at the little table. “I was like the boy on the burning deck this morning, when all but he had fled. I was very much disappointed that you did not come up, and have your usual cup of coffee.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” said Miss Earle; “if I had known I was disappointing anybody I should have been here.”
“Miss Katherine,” he said, “you are a humbug. You knew very well that I would be disappointed if you did not come.”
The young lady looked up at him, and for a moment she thought of telling him that her name was Miss Earle, but for some reason she did not do so.
“I want you to promise now,” he continued, “that to-morrow morning you will be on deck as usual.”
“Has it become a usual thing, then?”
“Well, that’s what I am trying to make it,” he answered. “Will you promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
“Very well, then, I look on that as settled. Now, about to-day. What are you going to do with yourself after breakfast?”
“Oh, the usual thing, I suppose. I shall sit in my steamer chair and read an interesting book.”
“And what is the interesting book for to-day?”
“It is a little volume by Henry James, entitled The Siege of London.”
“Why, I never knew that London had been besieged. When did that happen?”
“Well, I haven’t got very far in the book yet, but it seems to have happened quite recently, within a year or two, I think. It is one of the latest of Mr. James’s short stories. I have not read it yet.”
“Ah, then the siege is not historical?”
“Not historical further than Mr. James is the historian.”
“Now, Miss Earle, are you good at reading out loud?”
“No, I am not.”
“Why, how decisively you say that. I couldn’t answer like that, because I don’t know whether I am or not. I have never tried any of it. But if you will allow me, I will read that book out to you. I should like to have the good points indicated to me, and also the defects.”
“There are not likely to be many defects,” said the young lady. “Mr. James is a very correct writer. But I do not care either to read aloud or have a book read to me. Besides, we disturb the conversation or the reading of any one else who happens to sit near us. I prefer to enjoy a book by reading it myself.”
“Ah, I see you are resolved cruelly to shut me out of all participation in your enjoyment.”
“Oh, not at all. I shall be very happy to discuss the book with you afterwards. You should read it for yourself. Then, when you have done so, we might have a talk on its merits or demerits, if you think, after you have read it, that it has any.”
“Any what? merits or demerits?”
“Well, any either.”
“No; I will tell you a better plan than that. I am not going to waste my time reading it.”
“Waste, indeed!”
“Certainly waste. Not when I have a much better plan of finding out what is in the book. I am going to get you to tell me the story after you have read it.”
“Oh, indeed, and suppose I refuse?”
“Will you?”
“Well, I don’t know. I only said suppose.”
“Then I shall spend the rest of the voyage trying to persuade you.”
“I am not very easily persuaded, Mr. Morris.”
“I believe that,” said the young man. “I presume I may sit beside you while you are reading your book?”
“You certainly may, if you wish to. The deck is not mine, only that portion of it, I suppose, which I occupy with the steamer chair. I have no authority over any of the rest.”
“Now, is that a refusal or an acceptance?”
“It is which ever you choose to think.”
“Well, if it is a refusal, it is probably softening down the No, but if it is an acceptance it is rather an ungracious one, it seems to me.”
“Well, then, I shall be frank with you. I am very much interested in this book. I should a great deal rather read it than talk to you.”
“Oh, thank you, Miss Earle. There can be no possible doubt about your meaning now.”
“Well, I am glad of that, Mr. Morris. I am always pleased to think that I can speak in such a way as not to be misunderstood.”
“I don’t see any possible way of misunderstanding that. I wish I did.”
“And then, after lunch,” said the young lady, “I think I shall finish the book before that time;—if you care to sit beside me or to walk the deck with me, I shall be very glad to tell you the story.”
“Now, that is perfectly delightful,” cried the young man. “You throw a person down into the depths, so that he will appreciate all the more being brought up into the light again.”
“Oh, not at all. I have no such dramatic ideas in speaking frankly with you. I merely mean that this forenoon I wish to have to myself, because I am interested in my book. At the end of the forenoon I shall probably be tired of my book and will prefer a talk with you. I don’t see why you should think it odd that a person should say exactly what a person means.”
“And then I suppose in the evening you will be tired of talking with me, and will want to take up your book again.”
“Possibly.”
“And if you are, you won’t hesitate a moment about saying so?”
“Certainly not.”
“Well, you are a decidedly frank young lady, Miss Earle; and, after all, I don’t know but what I like that sort of thing best. I think if all the world were honest we would all have a better time of it here.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You believe in honesty, then?”
“Why, certainly. Have you seen anything in my conduct or bearing that would induce you to think that I did not believe in honesty?”
“No, I can’t say I have. Still, honesty is such a rare quality that a person naturally is surprised when one comes unexpectedly upon it.”
George Morris found the forenoon rather tedious and lonesome. He sat in the smoking room, and once or twice he ventured near where Miss Earle sat engrossed in her book, in the hope that the volume might have been put aside for the time, and that he would have some excuse for sitting down and talking with her. Once as he passed she looked up with a bright smile and nodded to him.
“Nearly through?” he asked dolefully.
“Of The Siege of London?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh, I am through that long ago, and have begun another story.”
“Now, that is not according to contract,” claimed Morris. “The contract was that when you got through with The Siege of London you were to let me talk with you, and that you were to tell me the story.”
“That was not my interpretation of it. Our bargain, as I understood it, was that I was to have this forenoon to myself, and that I was to use the forenoon for reading. I believe my engagement with you began in the afternoon.”
“I wish it did,” said the young man, with a wistful look.
“You wish what?” she said, glancing up at him sharply.
He blushed as he bent over towards her and whispered, “That our engagement, Miss Katherine, began in the afternoon.”
The colour mounted rapidly into her cheeks, and for a moment George Morris thought he had gone too far. It seemed as if a sharp reply was ready on her lips; but, as on another occasion, she checked it and said nothing. Then she opened her book and began to read. He waited for a moment and said—
“Miss Earle, have I offended you?”
“Did you mean to give offence?” she asked.
“No, certainly, I did not.”
“Then why should you think you had offended me?”
“Well, I don’t know, I—” he stammered.
Miss Earle looked at him with such clear, innocent, and unwavering eyes that the young man felt that he could neither apologise nor make an explanation.
“I’m afraid,” he said, “that I am encroaching on your time.”
“Yes, I think you are: that is, if you intend to live up to your contract, and let me live up to mine. You have no idea how much more interesting this book is than you are.”
“Why, you are not a bit flattering, Miss Earle, are you?”
“No, I don’t think I am. Do you try to be?”
“I’m afraid that in my lifetime I have tried to be, but I assure you, Miss Earle, that I don’t try to be flattering, or try to be anything but what I really am when I am in your company. To tell the truth, I am too much afraid of you.”
Miss Earle smiled and went on with her reading, while Morris went once more back into the smoking-room.
“Now then,” said George Morris, when lunch was over, “which is it to be? The luxurious languor of the steamer chair or the energetic exercise of the deck? Take your choice.”
“Well,” answered the young lady, “as I have been enjoying the luxurious languor all the forenoon, I prefer the energetic exercise, if it is agreeable to you, for a while, at least.”
“It is very agreeable to me. I am all energy this afternoon. In fact, now that you have consented to allow me to talk with you, I feel as if I were imbued with a new life.”
“Dear me,” said she, “and all because of the privilege of talking to me?”
“All.”
“How nice that is. You are sure that it is not the effect of the sea air?”
“Quite certain. I had the sea air this forenoon, you know.”
“Oh, yes, I had forgotten that.”
“Well, which side of the deck then?”
“Oh, which ever is the least popular side. I dislike a crowd.”
“I think, Miss Earle, that we will have this side pretty much to ourselves. The madd’ing crowd seems to have a preference for the sunny part of the ship. Now, then, for the siege of London. Who besieged it?”
“A lady.”
“Did she succeed?”
“She did.”
“Well, I am very glad to hear it, indeed. What was she besieging it for?”
“For social position, I presume.
“Then, as we say out West, I suppose she had a pretty hard row to hoe?”
“Yes, she had.”
“Well, I never can get at the story by cross-questioning. Now, supposing that you tell it to me.”
“I think that you had better take the book and read it. I am not a good story-teller.”
“Why, I thought we Americans were considered excellent story-tellers.’
“We Americans?”
“Oh, I remember now, you do not lay claim to being an American. You are English, I think you said?”
“I said nothing of the kind. I merely said I lay no claims to being an American.”
“Yes, that was it.”
“Well, you will be pleased to know that this lady in the siege of London was an American. You seem so anxious to establish a person’s nationality that I am glad to be able to tell you at the very first that she was an American, and, what is more, seemed to be a Western American.”
“Seemed? Oh, there we get into uncertainties again. If I like to know whether persons are Americans or not, it naturally follows that I am anxious to know whether they were Western or Eastern Americans. Aren’t you sure she was a Westerner?”
“The story, unfortunately, leaves that a little vague, so if it displeases you I shall be glad to stop the telling of it.”
“Oh no, don’t do that. I am quite satisfied to take her as an American citizen; whether she is East or West, or North or South, does not make the slightest difference to me. Please go on with the story.”
“Well, the other characters, I am happy to be able to say, are not at all indefinite in the matter of nationality. One is an Englishman; he is even more than that, he is an English nobleman. The other is an American. Then there is the English nobleman’s mother, who, of course, is an English woman; and the American’s sister, married to an Englishman, and she, of course, is English-American. Does that satisfy you?”
“Perfectly. Go on.”
“It seems that the besieger, the heroine of the story if you may call her so, had a past.”
“Has not everybody had a past?”
“Oh no. This past is known to the American and is unknown to the English nobleman.”
“Ah, I see; and the American is in love with her in spite of her past?”
“Not in Mr. James’s story.”
“Oh, I beg pardon. Well, go on; I shall not interrupt again.”
“It is the English nobleman who is in love with her in spite of his absence of knowledge about her past. The English nobleman’s mother is very much against the match. She tries to get the American to tell what the past of this woman is. The American refuses to do so. In fact, in Paris he has half promised the besieger not to say anything about her past. She is besieging London, and she wishes the American to remain neutral. But the nobleman’s mother at last gets the American to promise that he will tell her son what he knows of this woman’s past. The American informs the woman what he has promised the nobleman’s mother to do, and at this moment the nobleman enters the room. The besieger of London, feeling that her game is up, leaves them together. The American says to the nobleman, who stands rather stiffly before him, ‘If you wish to ask me any questions regarding the lady who has gone out I shall be happy to tell you.’ Those are not the words of the book, but they are in substance what he said. The nobleman looked at him for a moment with that hauteur which, we presume, belongs to noblemen, and said quietly, ‘I wish to know nothing.’ Now, that strikes me as a very dramatic point in the story.”
“But didn’t he wish to know anything of the woman whom he was going to marry?”
“I presume that, naturally, he did.”
“And yet he did not take the opportunity of finding out when he had the chance?”
“No, he did not.”
“Well, what do you think of that?”
“What do I think of it? I think it’s a very dramatic point in the story.”
“Yes, but what do you think of his wisdom in refusing to find out what sort of a woman he was going to marry? Was he a fool or was he a very noble man?”
“Why, I thought I said at the first that he was a nobleman, an Englishman.”
“Miss Katherine, you are dodging the question. I asked your opinion of that man’s wisdom. Was he wise, or was he a fool?”
“What do you think about it? Do you think he was a fool, or a wise man?”
“Well, I asked you for your opinion first. However, I have very little hesitation in saying, that a man who marries a woman of whom he knows nothing, is a fool.”
“Oh, but he was well acquainted with this woman. It was only her past that he knew nothing about.”
“Well, I think you must admit that a woman’s past and a man’s past are very important parts of their lives. Don’t you agree with me?”
“I agree with you so seldom that I should hesitate to say I did on this occasion. But I have told the story very badly. You will have to read it for yourself to thoroughly appreciate the different situations, and then we can discuss the matter intelligently.”
“You evidently think the man was very noble in refusing to hear anything about the past of the lady he was interested in.”
“I confess I do. He was noble, at least, in refusing to let a third party tell him. If he wished any information he should have asked the lady himself.”
“Yes, but supposing she refused to answer him?”
“Then, I think he should either have declined to have anything more to do with her, or, if he kept up his acquaintance, he should have taken her just as she was, without any reference to her past.”
“I suppose you are right. Still, it is a very serious thing for two people to marry without knowing something of each other’s lives.”
“I am tired of walking,” said Miss Earle, “I am now going to seek comfort in the luxuriousness, as you call it, of my steamer chair.”
“And may I go with you?” asked the young man.
“If you also are tired of walking.”
“You know,” he said, “you promised the whole afternoon. You took the forenoon with The Siege, and now I don’t wish to be cheated out of my half of the day.”
“Very well, I am rather interested in another story, and if you will take The Siege of London, and read it, you’ll find how much better the book is than my telling of the story.”
George Morris had, of course, to content himself with this proposition, and they walked together to the steamer chairs, over which the gaily coloured rugs were spread.
“Shall I get your book for you?” asked the young man, as he picked up the rugs.
“Thank you,” answered Miss Earle, with a laugh, “you have already done so,” for, as he shook out the rugs, the two books, which were small handy volumes, fell out on the deck.
“I see you won’t accept my hint about not leaving the books around. You will lose some precious volume one of these days.”
“Oh, I fold them in the rugs, and they are all right. Now, here is your volume. Sit down there and read it.” “That means also, ‘and keep quiet,’ I suppose?”
“I don’t imagine you are versatile enough to read and talk at the same time. Are you?”
“I should be very tempted to try it this afternoon.”
Miss Earle went on with her reading, and Morris pretended to go on with his. He soon found, however, that he could not concentrate his attention on the little volume in his hand, and so quickly abandoned the attempt, and spent his time in meditation and in casting furtive glances at his fair companion over the top of his book. He thought the steamer chair a perfectly delightful invention. It was an easy, comfortable, and adjustable apparatus, that allowed a person to sit up or to recline at almost any angle. He pushed his chair back a little, so that he could watch the profile of Miss Katherine Earle, and the dark tresses that formed a frame for it, without risking the chance of having his espionage discovered.
“Aren’t you comfortable?” asked the young lady, as he shoved back his chair.
“I am very, very comfortable,” replied the young man.
“I am glad of that,” she said, as she resumed her reading.
George Morris watched her turn leaf after leaf as he reclined lazily in his chair, with half-closed eyes, and said to himself, “Shop-girl or not, past or not, I’m going to propose to that young lady the first good opportunity I get. I wonder what she will say?”
“How do you like it?” cried the young lady he was thinking of, with a suddenness that made Morris jump in his chair.
“Like it?” he cried; “oh, I like it immensely.”
“How far have you got?” she continued.
“How far? Oh, a great distance. Very much further than I would have thought it possible when I began this voyage.”
Miss Earle turned and looked at him with wide-open eyes, as he made this strange reply.
“What are you speaking of?” she said.
“Oh, of everything—of the book, of the voyage, of the day.”
“I was speaking of the book,” she replied quietly. “Are you sure you have not fallen asleep and been dreaming?”
“Fallen asleep? No. Dreaming? Yes.”
“Well, I hope your dreams have been pleasant ones.”
“They have.”
Miss Earle, who seemed to think it best not to follow her investigations any further, turned once more to her own book, and read it until it was time to dress for dinner. When that important meal was over, Morris said to Miss Earle: “Do you know you still owe me part of the day?”
“I thought you said you had a very pleasant afternoon.”
“So I had. So pleasant, you see, that I want to have the pleasure prolonged. I want you to come out and have a walk on the deck now in the starlight. It is a lovely night, and, besides, you are now halfway across the ocean, and yet I don’t think you have been out once to see the phosphorescence. That is one of the standard sights of an ocean voyage. Will you come?”
Although the words were commonplace enough, there was a tremor in his voice which gave a meaning to them that could not be misunderstood. Miss Earle looked at him with serene composure, and yet with a touch of reproachfulness in her glance. “He talks like this to me,” she said to herself, “while he is engaged to another woman.”
“Yes,” she answered aloud, with more firmness in her voice than might have seemed necessary, “I will be happy to walk on the deck with you to see the phosphorescence.”
He helped to hinder her for a moment in adjusting her wraps, and they went out in the starlit night together.
“Now,” he said, “if we are fortunate enough to find the place behind the after-wheel house vacant we can have a splendid view of the phosphorescence.”
“Is it so much in demand that the place is generally crowded?” she asked.
“I may tell you in confidence,” replied Mr. Morris, “that this particular portion of the boat is always very popular. Soon as the evening shades prevail the place is apt to be pre-empted by couples that are very fond of—”
“Phosphorescence,” interjected the young lady.
“Yes,” he said, with a smile that she could not see in the darkness, “of phosphorescence.”
“I should think,” said she, as they walked towards the stern of the boat, “that in scientific researches of that sort, the more people who were there, the more interesting the discussion would be, and the more chance a person would have to improve his mind on the subject of phosphorescence, or other matters pertaining to the sea.”
“Yes,” replied Morris. “A person naturally would think that, and yet, strange as it may appear, if there ever was a time when two is company and three is a crowd, it is when looking at the phosphorescence that follows the wake of an ocean steamer.”
“Really?” observed the young lady, archly. “I remember you told me that you had crossed the ocean several times.”
The young man laughed joyously at this repartee, and his companion joined him with a laugh that was low and musical.
“He seems very sure of his ground,” she said to herself. “Well, we shall see.”
As they came to the end of the boat and passed behind the temporary wheel-house erected there, filled with debris of various sorts, blocks and tackle and old steamer chairs, Morris noticed that two others were there before them standing close together with arms upon the bulwarks. They were standing very close together, so close in fact, that in the darkness, it seemed like one person. But as Morris stumbled over some chains, the dark, united shadow dissolved itself quickly into two distinct separate shadows. A flagpole stood at the extreme end of the ship, inclining backwards from the centre of the bulwarks, and leaning over the troubled, luminous sea beneath. The two who had taken their position first were on one side of the flag-pole and Morris and Miss Earle on the other. Their coming had evidently broken the spell for the others. After waiting for a few moments, the lady took the arm of the gentleman and walked forward. “Now,” said Morris, with a sigh, “we have the phosphorescence to ourselves.”
“It is very, very strange,” remarked the lady in a low voice. “It seems as if a person could see weird shapes arising in the air, as if in torment.”
The young man said nothing for a few moments. He cleared his throat several times as if to speak, but still remained silent. Miss Earle gazed down at the restless, luminous water. The throb, throb of the great ship made the bulwarks on which their arms rested tremble and quiver.
Finally Morris seemed to muster up courage enough to begin, and he said one word—
“Katherine.” As he said this he placed his hand on hers as it lay white before him in the darkness upon the trembling bulwark. It seemed to him that she made a motion to withdraw her hand, and then allowed it to remain where it was.
“Katherine,” he continued, in a voice that he hardly recognised as his own, “we have known each other only a very short time comparatively; but, as I think I said to you once before, a day on shipboard may be as long as a month on shore. Katherine, I want to ask you a question, and yet I do not know—I cannot find—I—I don’t know what words to use.”
The young lady turned her face towards him, and he saw her clear-cut profile sharply outlined against the glowing water as he looked down at her. Although the young man struggled against the emotion, which is usually experienced by any man in his position, yet he felt reasonably sure of the answer to his question. She had come with him out into the night. She had allowed her hand to remain in his. He was, therefore, stricken dumb with amazement when she replied, in a soft and musical voice—
“You do not know what to say? What do you usually say on such an occasion?”
“Usually say?” he gasped in dismay. “I do not understand you. What do you mean?”
“Isn’t my meaning plain enough? Am I the first young lady to whom you have not known exactly what to say?”
Mr. Morris straightened up, and folded his arms across his breast; then, ridiculously enough, this struck him as a heroic attitude, and altogether unsuitable for an American, so he thrust his hands deep in his coat pockets.
“Miss Earle,” he said, “I knew that you could be cruel, but I did not think it possible that you could be so cruel as this.”
“Is the cruelty all on my side, Mr. Morris?” she answered. “Have you been perfectly honest and frank with me? You know you have not. Now, I shall be perfectly honest and frank with you. I like you very much indeed. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying this, because it is true, and I don’t care whether you know it, or whether anybody else knows it or not.”
As she said this the hope which Morris had felt at first, and which had been dashed so rudely to the ground, now returned, and he attempted to put his arm about her and draw her to him; but the young lady quickly eluded his grasp, stepping to the other side of the flag-pole, and putting her hand upon it.
“Mr. Morris,” she said, “there is no use of your saying anything further. There is a barrier between us; you know it as well as I. I would like us to be friends as usual; but, if we are to be, you will have to remember the barrier, and keep to your own side of it.”
“I know of no barrier,” cried Morris, vehemently, attempting to come over to her side.
“There is the barrier,” she said, placing her hand on the flag-pole. “My place is on this side of that barrier; your place is on the other. If you come on this side of that flag-pole, I shall leave you. If you remain on your own side, I shall be very glad to talk with you.”
Morris sullenly took his place on the other side of the flag-pole. “Has there been anything in my actions,” said the young lady, “during the time we have been acquainted that would lead you to expect a different answer?”
“Yes. You have treated me outrageously at times, and that gave me some hope.”
Miss Earle laughed her low, musical laugh at this remark.
“Oh, you may laugh,” said Morris, savagely; “but it is no laughing matter to me, I assure you.”
“Oh, it will be, Mr. Morris, when you come to think of this episode after you get on shore. It will seem to you very, very funny indeed; and when you speak to the next young lady on the same subject, perhaps you will think of how outrageously I have treated your remarks to-night, and be glad that there are so few young women in the world who would act as I have done.”
“Where did you get the notion,” inquired George Morris, “that I am in the habit of proposing to young ladies? It is a most ridiculous idea. I have been engaged once, I confess it. I made a mistake, and I am sorry for it. There is surely nothing criminal in that.”
“It depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“It depends on how the other party feels about it. It takes two to make an engagement, and it should take two to break it.”
“Well, it didn’t in my case,” said the young man.
“So I understand,” replied Miss Earle. “Mr. Morris, I wish you a very good evening.” And before he could say a word she had disappeared in the darkness, leaving him to ponder bitterly over the events of the evening.
Sixth Day
In the vague hope of meeting Miss Earle, Morris rose early, and for a while paced the deck alone; but she did not appear. Neither did he have the pleasure of her company at breakfast. The more the young man thought of their interview of the previous evening, the more puzzled he was.
Miss Earle had frankly confessed that she thought a great deal of him, and yet she had treated him with an unfeelingness which left him sore and bitter. She might have refused him; that was her right, of course. But she need not have done it so sarcastically. He walked the deck after breakfast, but saw nothing of Miss Earle. As he paced up and down, he met the very person of all others whom he did not wish to meet. “Good morning, Mr. Morris,” she said lightly, holding out her hand.
“Good morning,” he answered, taking it without much warmth.
“You are walking the deck all alone, I see. May I accompany you?”
“Certainly,” said the young man, and with that she put her hand on his arm and they walked together the first two rounds without saying anything to each other. Then she looked up at him, with a bright smile, and said, “So she refused you?”
“How do you know?” answered the young man, reddening and turning a quick look at her.
“How do I know?” laughed the other. “How should I know?”
For a moment it flashed across his mind that Miss Katherine Earle had spoken of their interview of last night; but a moment later he dismissed the suspicion as unworthy.
“How do you know?” he repeated.
“Because I was told so on very good authority.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Ha, ha! now you are very rude. It is very rude to say to a lady that she doesn’t speak the truth.”
“Well, rude or not, you are not speaking the truth. Nobody told you such a thing.”
“My dear George, how impolite you are. What a perfect bear you have grown to be. Do you want to know who told me?”
“I don’t care to know anything about it.”
“Well, nevertheless, I shall tell you. You told me.”
“I did? Nonsense, I never said anything about it.”
“Yes, you did. Your walk showed it. The dejected look showed it, and when I spoke to you, your actions, your tone, and your words told it to me plainer than if you had said, ‘I proposed to Miss Earle last night and I was rejected.’ You poor, dear innocent, if you don’t brighten up you will tell it to the whole ship.”
“I am sure, Blanche, that I am very much obliged to you for the interest you take in me. Very much obliged, indeed.”
“Oh no, you are not; and now, don’t try to be sarcastic, it really doesn’t suit your manner at all. I was very anxious to know how your little flirtation had turned out. I really was. You know I have an interest in you, George, and always will have, and I wouldn’t like that spiteful little black-haired minx to have got you, and I am very glad she refused you, although why she did so I cannot for the life of me imagine.”
“It must be hard for you to comprehend why she refused me, now that I am a partner in the firm.” Blanche looked down upon the deck, and did not answer.
“I am glad,” she said finally, looking up brightly at him with her innocent blue eyes, “that you did not put off your proposal until to-night. We expect to be at Queenstown to-night some time, and we leave there and go on through by the Lakes of Killarney. So, you see, if you hadn’t proposed last night I should have known nothing at all about how the matter turned out, and I should have died of curiosity and anxiety to know.”
“Oh, I would have written to you,” said Morris. “Leave me your address now, and I’ll write and let you know how it turns out.”
“Oh,” she cried quickly, “then it isn’t ended yet? I didn’t think you were a man who would need to be refused twice or thrice.”
“I should be glad to be refused by Miss Earle five hundred times.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, five hundred times, if on the five hundredth and first time she accepted.”
“Is it really so serious as that?”
“It is just exactly that serious.”
“Then your talk to me after all was only pretence?”
“No, only a mistake.”
“What an escape I have had!”
“You have, indeed.”
“Ah, here comes Miss Earle. Really, for a lady who has rejected a gentleman, she does not look as supremely happy as she might. I must go and have a talk with her.”
“Look here, Blanche,” cried the young man, angrily, “if you say a word to her about what we have been speaking of, I’ll—”
“What will you do?” said the young lady, sweetly.
Morris stood looking at her. He didn’t himself know what he would do; and Blanche, bowing to him, walked along the deck, and sat down in the steamer chair beside Miss Earle, who gave her a very scant recognition.
“Now, you needn’t be so cool and dignified,” said the lady. “George and I have been talking over the matter, and I told him he wasn’t to feel discouraged at a first refusal, if he is resolved to have a shop-girl for his wife.”
“What! Mr. Morris and you have been discussing me, have you?”
“Is there anything forbidden in that, Miss Earle? You must remember that George and I are very, very old friends, old and dear friends. Did you refuse him on my account? I know you like him.”
“Like him?” said Miss Earle, with a fierce light in her eyes, as she looked at her tormentor. “Yes, I like him, and I’ll tell you more than that;” she bent over and added in an intense whisper, “I love him, and if you say another word to me about him, or if you dare to discuss me with him, I shall go up to him where he stands now and accept him. I shall say to him, ‘George Morris, I love you.’ Now if you doubt I shall do that, just continue in your present style of conversation.”
Blanche leaned back in the steamer chair and turned a trifle pale. Then she laughed, that irritating little laugh of hers, and said, “Really I did not think it had gone so far as that. I’ll bid you good morning.”
The moment the chair was vacated, George Morris strolled up and sat down on it.
“What has that vixen been saying to you?” he asked.
“That vixen,” said Miss Earle, quietly, “has been telling me that you and she were discussing me this morning, and discussing the conversation that took place last night.”
“It is a lie,” said Morris.
“What is? What I say, or what she said, or what she says you said?”
“That we were discussing you, or discussing our conversation, is not true. Forgive me for using the coarser word. This was how it was; she came up to me—”
“My dear Mr. Morris, don’t say a word. I know well enough that you would not discuss the matter with anybody. I, perhaps, may go so far as to say, least of all with her. Still, Mr. Morris, you must remember this, that even if you do not like her now—”
“Like her?” cried Morris; “I hate her.”
“As I was going to say, and it is very hard for me to say it, Mr. Morris, you have a duty towards her as you—we all have our duties to perform,” said Miss Earle, with a broken voice. “You must do yours, and I must do mine. It may be hard, but it is settled. I cannot talk this morning. Excuse me.” And she rose and left him sitting there.
“What in the world does the girl mean? I am glad that witch gets off at Queenstown. I believe it is she who has mixed everything up. I wish I knew what she has been saying.”
Miss Earle kept very closely to her room that day, and in the evening, as they approached the Fastnet Light, George Morris was not able to find her to tell her of the fact that they had sighted land. He took the liberty, however, of scribbling a little note to her, which the stewardess promised to deliver. He waited around the foot of the companion-way for an answer. The answer came in the person of Miss Katherine herself.
If refusing a man was any satisfaction, it seemed as if Miss Katherine Earle had obtained very little gratification from it. She looked weary and sad as she took the young man’s arm, and her smile as she looked up at him had something very pathetic in it, as if a word might bring the tears. They sat in the chairs and watched the Irish coast. Morris pointed out objects here and there, and told her what they were. At last, when they went down to supper together, he said—
“We will be at Queenstown some time to-night. It will be quite a curious sight in the moonlight. Wouldn’t you like to stay up and see it?”
“I think I would,” she answered. “I take so few ocean voyages that I wish to get all the nautical experiences possible.”
The young man looked at her sharply, then he said—
“Well, the stop at Queenstown is one of the experiences. May I send the steward to rap at your door when the engine stops?”
“Oh, I shall stay up in the saloon until that time?”
“It may be a little late. It may be as late as one or two o’clock in the morning. We can’t tell. I should think the best thing for you to do would be to take a rest until the time comes. I think, Miss Earle, you need it.”
It was a little after twelve o’clock when the engine stopped. The saloon was dimly lighted, and porters were hurrying to and fro, getting up the baggage which belonged to those who were going to get off at Queenstown. The night was very still, and rather cold. The lights of Queenstown could be seen here and there along the semi-circular range of hills on which the town stood. Passengers who were to land stood around the deck well muffled up, and others who had come to bid them good-bye were talking sleepily with them. Morris was about to send the steward to Miss Earle’s room, when that young lady herself appeared. There was something spirit-like about her, wrapped in her long cloak, as she walked through the half-darkness to meet George Morris.
“I was just going to send for you,” he said.
“I did not sleep any,” was the answer, “and the moment the engine stopped I knew we were there. Shall we go on deck?”
“Yes,” he said, “but come away from the crowd,” and with that he led her towards the stern of the boat. For a moment Miss Earle seemed to hold back, but finally she walked along by his side firmly to where they had stood the night before. With seeming intention Morris tried to take his place beside her, but Miss Earle, quietly folding her cloak around her, stood on the opposite side of the flagpole, and, as if there should be no forgetfulness on his part, she reached up her hand and laid it against the staff.
“She evidently meant what she said,” thought Morris to himself, with a sigh, as he watched the low, dim outlines of the hills around Queenstown Harbour, and the twinkling lights here and there.
“That is the tender coming now,” he said, pointing to the red and green lights of the approaching boat. “How small it looks beside our monster steamship.”
Miss Earle shivered.
“I pity the poor folks who have to get up at this hour of the night and go ashore. I should a great deal rather go back to my state-room.”
“Well, there is one passenger I am not sorry for,” said Morris, “and that is the young woman who has, I am afraid, been saying something to you which has made you deal more harshly with me than perhaps you might otherwise have done. I wish you would tell me what she said?”
“She has said nothing,” murmured Miss Earle, with a sigh, “but what you yourself have confirmed. I do not pay much attention to what she says.”
“Well, you don’t pay much attention to what I say either,” he replied. “However, as I say, there is one person I am not sorry for; I even wish it were raining. I am very revengeful, you see.”
“I do not know that I am very sorry for her myself,” replied Miss Earle, frankly; “but I am sorry for her poor old father, who hasn’t appeared in the saloon a single day except the first. He has been sick the entire voyage.”
“Her father?” cried Morris, with a rising inflection in his voice.
“Certainly.”
“Why, bless my soul! Her father has been dead for ages and ages.”
“Then who is the old man she is with?”
“Old man! It would do me good to have her hear you call him the old man. Why, that is her husband.”
“Her husband!” echoed Miss Earle, with wide open eyes, “I thought he was her father.”
“Oh, not at all. It is true, as you know, that I was engaged to the young lady, and I presume if I had become a partner in our firm sooner we would have been married. But that was a longer time coming than suited my young lady’s convenience, and so she threw me over with as little ceremony as you would toss a penny to a beggar, and she married this old man for his wealth, I presume. I don’t see exactly why she should take a fancy to him otherwise. I felt very cut up about it, of course, and I thought if I took this voyage I would at least be rid for a while of the thought of her. They are now on their wedding trip. That is the reason your steamer chair was broken, Miss Earle. Here I came on board an ocean steamer to get rid of the sight or thought of a certain woman, and to find that I was penned up with that woman, even if her aged husband was with her, for eight or nine days, was too much for me. So I raced up the deck and tried to get ashore. I didn’t succeed in that, but I did succeed in breaking your chair.”
Miss Earle was evidently very much astonished at this revelation, but she said nothing. After waiting in vain for her to speak, Morris gazed off at the dim shore. When he looked around he noticed that Miss Earle was standing on his side of the flagstaff. There was no longer a barrier between them.
Seventh Day
If George Morris were asked to say which day of all his life had been the most thoroughly enjoyable, he would probably have answered that the seventh of his voyage from New York to Liverpool was the red-letter day of his life. The sea was as calm as it was possible for a sea to be. The sun shone bright and warm. Towards the latter part of the day they saw the mountains of Wales, which, from the steamer’s deck, seemed but a low range of hills. It did not detract from Morris’s enjoyment to know that Mrs. Blanche was now on the troubleless island of Ireland, and that he was sailing over this summer sea with the lady who, the night before, had promised to be his wife.
During the day Morris and Katherine sat together on the sunny side of the ship looking at the Welsh coast. Their books lay unread on the rug, and there were long periods of silences between them.
“I don’t believe,” said Morris, “that anything could be more perfectly delightful than this. I wish the shaft would break.”
“I hope it won’t,” answered the young lady; “the chances are you would be as cross as a bear before two days had gone past, and would want to go off in a small boat.”
“Oh, I should be quite willing to go off in a small boat if you would come with me. I would do that now.”
“I am very comfortable where I am,” answered Miss Katherine. “I know when to let well enough alone.”
“And I don’t, I suppose you mean?”
“Well, if you wanted to change this perfectly delightful day for any other day, or this perfectly luxurious and comfortable mode of travel for any other method, I should suspect you of not letting well enough alone.”
“I have to admit,” said George, “that I am completely and serenely happy. The only thing that bothers me is that to-night we shall be in Liverpool. I wish this hazy and dreamy weather could last for ever, and I am sure I could stand two extra days of it going just as we are now. I think with regret of how much of this voyage we have wasted.”
“Oh, you think it was wasted, do you?”
“Well, wasted as compared with this sort of life. This seems to me like a rest after a long chase.”
“Up the deck?” asked the young lady, smiling at him.
“Now, see here,” said Morris, “we may as well understand this first as last, that unfortunate up-the-deck chase has to be left out of our future life. I am not going to be twitted about that race every time a certain young lady takes a notion to have a sort of joke upon me.”
“That was no joke, George. It was the most serious race you ever ran in your life. You were running away from one woman, and, poor blind young man, you ran right in the arms of another. The danger you have run into is ever so much greater than the one you were running away from.”
“Oh, I realise that,” said the young man, lightly; “that’s what makes me so solemn to-day, you know.” His hand stole under the steamer rugs and imprisoned her own.
“I am afraid people will notice that,” she said quietly.
“Well, let them; I don’t care. I don’t know anybody on board this ship, anyhow, except you, and if you realised how very little I care for their opinions you would not try to withdraw your hand.”
“I am not trying very hard,” answered the young woman; and then there was another long silence. Finally she continued—
“I am going to take the steamer chair and do it up in ribbons when I get ashore.”
“I am afraid it will not be a very substantial chair, no matter what you do with it. It will be a trap for those who sit in it.”
“Are you speaking of your own experience?”
“No, of yours.”
“George,” she said, after a long pause, “did you like her very much?”
“Her?” exclaimed the young man, surprised. “Who?”
“Why, the young lady you ran away from. You know very well whom I mean.”
“Like her? Why, I hate her.”
“Yes, perhaps you do now. But I am asking of former years. How long were you engaged to her?”
“Engaged? Let me see, I have been engaged just about—well, not twenty-four hours yet. I was never engaged before. I thought I was, but I wasn’t really.”
Miss Earle shook her head. “You must have liked her very much,” she said, “or you never would have proposed marriage to her. You would never have been engaged to her. You never would have felt so badly when she—”
“Oh, say it out,” said George, “jilted me, that is the word.”
“No, that is not the phrase I wanted to use. She didn’t really jilt you, you know. It was because you didn’t have, or thought you didn’t have, money enough. She would like to be married to you to-day.”
George shuddered.
“I wish,” he said, “that you wouldn’t mar a perfect day by a horrible suggestion.”
“The suggestion would not have been so horrible a month ago.”
“My dear girl,” said Morris, rousing himself up, “it’s a subject that I do not care much to talk about, but all young men, or reasonably young men, make mistakes in their lives. That was my mistake. My great luck was that it was discovered in time. As a general thing, affairs in this world are admirably planned, but it does seem to me a great mistake that young people have to choose companions for life at an age when they really haven’t the judgment to choose a house and lot. Now, confess yourself, I am not your first lover, am I?”
Miss Earle looked at him for a moment before replying.
“You remember,” she said, “that once you spoke of not having to incriminate yourself. You refused to answer a question I asked you on that ground. Now, I think this is a case in which I would be quite justified in refusing to answer. If I told you that you were my first lover, you would perhaps be manlike enough to think that after all you had only taken what nobody else had expressed a desire for. A man does not seem to value anything unless some one else is struggling for it.”
“Why, what sage and valuable ideas you have about men, haven’t you, my dear?”
“Well, you can’t deny but what there is truth in them.”
“I not only can, but I do. On behalf of my fellow men, and on behalf of myself, I deny it.”
“Then, on the other hand,” she continued, “if I confessed to you that I did have half a score or half a dozen of lovers, you would perhaps think I had been jilting somebody or had been jilted. So you see, taking it all in, and thinking the matter over, I shall refuse to answer your question.”
“Then you will not confess?”
“Yes, I shall confess. I have been wanting to confess to you for some little time, and have felt guilty because I did not do so.”
“I am prepared to receive the confession,” replied the young man, lazily, “and to grant absolution.”
“Well, you talk a great deal about America and about Americans, and talk as if you were proud of the country, and of its ways, and of its people.”
“Why, I am,” answered the young man.