IN mid-afternoon of the day following the entertainment on board the “Consternation” our two girls were seated opposite one another under the rafters of the sewing room, in the listless, desultory manner of those who have not gone home till morning, till daylight did appear. The dominant note of a summer cottage is the rocking-chair, and there were two in the sewing room, where Katherine and Dorothy swayed gently back and forth as they talked. They sat close to the low, broad window which presented so beautiful a picture of the blue Bay and the white shipping. The huge “Consternation” lay moored with her broadside toward the town, all sign of festivity already removed from hull and rigging, and, to the scarcely slumber-satisfied eyes of the girls, something of the sadness of departure seemed to hang as a haze around the great ship. The girls were not discussing the past, but rather anticipating the future; forecasting it, with long, silent pauses intervening.
“So you will not stay with us? You are determined to turn your wealthy back on the poor Kempt family?” Katherine was saying.
“But I shall return to the Kempt family now and then, if they will let me. I must get away for a time and think. My life has suddenly become all topsy-turvy, and I need to get my bearings, as does a ship that has been through a storm and lost her reckoning.”
“‘She dunno where she are,’ as the song says.”
“Exactly: that is the state of things.”
“I think it’s too bad, Dorothy, that you did not allow us to make public announcement of your good fortune. Just imagine what an ovation you would have had on board the cruiser last night if it had been known that the richest woman in that assemblage was a pretty, shy little creature sitting all by herself, and never indulging in even one dance.”
“I shouldn’t in the least care for that sort of ovation, Kate, and if every one present were as well pleased with the festivities as I, they must all have enjoyed themselves immensely. I believe my friend Kate did my share of the dancing as well as her own.”
“‘She danced, and she danced, and she danced them a’ din.’ I think those are the words of the Scottish song that the Prince quoted. He seems up in Scottish poetry, and does not even resent being called a Scotchman. This energetic person of the song seems to have danced them all to a standstill, as I understood him, for he informs me ‘a’ means ‘all’ and ‘din’ means ‘done,’ but I told him I’d rather learn Russian than Scotch; it was so much easier, and his Highness was good enough to laugh at that. Didn’t the Lieutenant ask you to dance at all?”
“Oh, yes, he did.”
“And you refused?”
“I refused.”
“I didn’t think he had sense enough to ask a girl to dance.”
“You are ungrateful, Katherine. Remember he introduced you to the Prince.”
“Yes, that’s so. I had forgotten. I shall never say anything against him again.”
“You like the Prince, then?”
“Of all the crowned heads, emperors, kings, sultans, monarchs of every description, dukes, counts, earls, marquises, whom I have met, and who have pestered my life asking me to share their royal perquisites, I think I may say quite truthfully that I like this Jack Lamont better than any one of them.”
“Surely Prince Jack has not offered you his principality already?”
“No, not yet, but with an eye to the future I have persuaded him to give up Tolstoi and read Mark Twain, who is not only equally humorous, but much more sensible than the Russian writer. Jack must not be allowed to give away his estates to the peasants as his silly sister has done. I may need them later on.”
“Oh, you’ve got that far, have you?”
“I have got that far: he hasn’t. He doesn’t know anything about it, but I’ll wake him up when the right time comes. There are many elements of sanity about him. He told me that he intended to give up his estates, but in the first place he had been too busy, and in the second he needed the money. His good sense, however, requires refining, so that he may get rid of the dross. I don’t blame him; I blame Tolstoi. For instance, when I asked him if he had patented his liquid city invention, he said he did not wish to make a profit from his discovery, but intended it for the good of humanity at large. Imagine such an idiotic idea as that!”
“I think such views are entirely to his credit,” alarmed Dorothy.
“Oh, of course, but the plan is not practicable. If he allows such an invention to slip through his fingers, the Standard Oil people will likely get hold of it, form a monopoly, and then where would humanity at large be? I tell him the right way is to patent it, make all the money he can, and use the cash for benefiting humanity under the direction of some charitable person like myself.”
“Did you suggest that to him?”
“I did not intimate who the sensible person was, but I elucidated the principle of the thing.”
“Yes, and what did he say?”
“Many things, Dorothy, many things. At one time he became confidential about his possessions in foreign lands. It seems he owns several castles, and when he visits any of them he cannot prevent the moujiks, if that is the proper term for the peasantry over there, from prostrating themselves on the ground as he passes by, beating their foreheads against the earth, and chanting, in choice Russian, the phrase: ‘Defer, defer, here comes the Lord High Executioner,’ or words to that effect. I told him I didn’t see why he should interfere with so picturesque a custom, and he said if I visited one of his castles that these estimable people, at a word from him, would form a corduroy road in the mud with their bodies, so that I might step dry-shod from the carriage to the castle doors, and I stipulated that he should at least spread a bit of stair carpet over the poor wretches before I made my progress across his front yard.”
“Well, you did become confidential if you discussed a visit to Russia.”
“Yes, didn’t we? I suppose you don’t approve of my forward conduct?”
“I am sure you acted with the utmost prudence, Kate.”
“I didn’t lose any time, though, did I?”
“I don’t know how much time is required to attain the point of friendship you reached. I am inexperienced. It is true I have read of love at first sight, and I am merely waiting to be told whether or not this is an instance of it.”
“Oh, you are very diffident, aren’t you, sitting there so bashfully!”
“I may seem timid or bashful, but it’s merely sleepiness.”
“You’re a bit of a humbug, Dorothy.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why, but you are. No, it was not a case of love at first sight. It was a case of feminine vengeance. Yes, you may look surprised, but I’m telling the truth. After I walked so proudly off with his high mightiness, we had a most agreeable dance together; then I proposed to return to you, but the young man would not have it so, and for the moment I felt flattered. By and by I became aware, however, that it was not because of my company he avoided your vicinity, but that he was sacrificing himself for his friend.”
“What friend?”
“Lieutenant Drummond, of course.”
“How was he sacrificing himself for Lieutenant Drummond?”
“I surmise that the tall Lieutenant did not fall a victim to my wiles as I had at first supposed, but, in some unaccountable manner, one can never tell how these things happen; he was most anxious to be left alone with the coy Miss Dorothy Amhurst, who does not understand how long a time it takes to fall in love at first sight, although she has read of these things, dear, innocent girl. The first villain of the piece has said to the second villain of the piece: ‘There’s a superfluous young woman over on our bench; I’ll introduce you to her. You lure her off to the giddy dance, and keep her away as long as you can, and I’ll do as much for you some day.’
“Whereupon Jack Lamont probably swore—I understand that profanity is sometimes distressingly prevalent aboard ship—but nevertheless he allowed the Lieutenant to lead him like a lamb to the slaughter. Well, not being powerful enough to throw him overboard when I realized the state of the case, I did the next best thing. I became cloyingly sweet to him. I smiled upon him: I listened to his farrago of nonsense about the chemical components of his various notable inventions, as if a girl attends a ball to study chemistry! Before half an hour had passed the infant had come to the conclusion that here was the first really sensible woman he had ever met. He soon got to making love to me, as the horrid phrase goes, as if love were a mixture to be compounded of this ingredient and that, and then shaken before taken. I am delighted to add, as a testimony to my own powers of pleasing, that Jack soon forgot he was a sacrifice, and really, with a little instruction, he would become a most admirable flirt. He is coming to call upon me this afternoon, and then he will get his eyes opened. I shall tread on him as if he were one of his own moujiks.”
“What a wonderful imagination you have, Kate. All you have said is pure fancy. I saw he was taken with you from the very first. He never even glanced at me.”
“Of course not: he wasn’t allowed to.”
“Nonsense, Kate. If I thought for a moment you were really in earnest, I should say you underestimate your own attractions.”
“Oh, that’s all very well, Miss Dorothy Dimple; you are trying to draw a red herring across the trail, because you know that what I want to hear is why Lieutenant Drummond was so anxious to get me somewhere else. What use did he make of the opportunity the good-natured Prince and my sweet complacency afforded him?”
“He said nothing which might not have been overheard by any one.”
“Come down to particulars, Dorothy, and let me judge. You are so inexperienced, you know, that it is well to take counsel with a more sophisticated friend.”
“I don’t just remember—”
“No, I thought you wouldn’t. Did he talk of himself or of you?”
“Of himself, of course. He told me why he was going to Russia, and spoke of some checks he had met in his profession.”
“Ah! Did he cash them?”
“Obstacles—difficulties that were in his way, which he hoped to overcome.”
“Oh, I see. And did you extend that sympathy which—”
There was a knock at the door, and the maid came in, bearing a card.
“Good gracious me!” cried Katherine, jumping to her feet. “The Prince has come. What a stupid thing that we have no mirror in this room, and it’s a sewing and sitting room, too. Do I look all right, Dorothy?”
“To me you seem perfection.”
“Ah, well, I can glance at a glass on the next floor. Won’t you come down and see him trampled on?”
“No, thank you. I shall most likely drop off to sleep, and enjoy forty winks in this very comfortable chair. Don’t be too harsh with the young man, Kate. You are quite wrong in your surmises about him. The Lieutenant never made any such arrangement as you suggest, because he talked of nothing but the most commonplace subjects all the time I was with him, as I was just about to tell you, only you seem in such a hurry to get away.”
“Oh, that doesn’t deceive me in the least. I’ll be back shortly, with the young man’s scalp dangling at my belt. Now we shan’t be long,” and with that Katherine went skipping downstairs.
Dorothy picked up a magazine that lay on the table, and for a few moments turned its leaves from one story to another, trying to interest herself, but failing. Then she lifted the newspaper that lay at her feet, but it also was soon cast aside, and she leaned back in her chair with half-closed eyes, looking out at the cruiser in the Bay. A slight haze arose between her and the ship, thickening and thickening until at last it obscured the vessel.
Dorothy was oppressed by a sense of something forgotten, and she strove in vain to remember what it was. It was of the utmost importance, she was certain, and this knowledge made her mental anxiety the greater.
At last out of the gloom she saw Sabina approach, clothed in rags, and then a flash of intuition enabled her to grasp the difficulty. Through her remissness the ball dress was unfinished, and the girl, springing to her feet, turned intuitively to the sewing-machine, when the ringing laugh of Katherine dissolved the fog.
“Why, you poor girl, what’s the matter with you? Are you sitting down to drudgery again? You’ve forgotten the fortune!”
“Are—are you back already?” cried Dorothy, somewhat wildly.
“Already! Why, bless me, I’ve been away an hour and a quarter. You dear girl, you’ve been asleep and in slavery again!”
“I think I was,” admitted Dorothy with a sigh.
THREE days later the North Atlantic squadron of the British Navy sailed down the coast from Halifax, did not even pause at Bar Harbor, but sent a wireless telegram to the “Consternation,” which pulled up anchor and joined the fleet outside, and so the war-ships departed for another port.
Katherine stood by the broad window in the sewing room in her favorite attitude, her head sideways against the pane, her eyes languidly gazing upon the Bay, fingers drumming this time a very slow march on the window sill. Dorothy sat in a rocking-chair, reading a letter for the second time. There had been silence in the room for some minutes, accentuated rather than broken by the quiet drumming of the girl’s fingers on the window sill. Finally Katherine breathed a deep sigh and murmured to herself:
I wonder if I’ve got the lines right,” she whispered to herself. She had forgotten there was anyone else in the room, and was quite startled when Dorothy spoke.
“Kate, that’s a solemn change, from Gilbert to Kipling. I always judge your mood by your quotations. Has life suddenly become too serious for ‘Pinafore’ or the ‘Mikado’?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Katherine, without turning round. “They are humorous all, and so each furnishes something suitable for the saddened mind. Wisdom comes through understanding your alphabet properly. For instance, first there was Gilbert, and that gave us G; then came Kipling, and he gave us K; thus we get an algebraic formula, G.K., which are the initials of Chesterton, a still later arrival, and as the mind increases in despondency it sinks lower and lower down the alphabet until it comes to S, and thus we have Barn-yard Shaw, an improvement on the Kail-yard school, who takes the O pshaw view of life. And relaxing hold of him I sink deeper until I come to W—W. W. Jacobs—how I wish he wrote poetry! He should be the humorist of all sailors, and perhaps some time he will desert barges for battleships. Then I shall read him with increased enjoyment.”
“I wouldn’t give Mark Twain for the lot,” commented Dorothy with decision.
“Mark Twain isn’t yours to give, my dear. He belongs to me also. You’ve forgotten that comparisons are odious. Our metier is not to compare, but to take what pleases us from each.
Watts. You see, I’m still down among the W’s. Oh, Dorothy, how can you sit there so placidly when the ‘Consternation’ has just faded from sight? Selfish creature!
I don’t know who wrote that, but you have no tears for others’ woes, merely greeting them with ribald laughter,” for Dorothy, with the well-read letter in her hand, was making the rafters ring with her merriment, something that had never before happened during her long tenancy of that room. Kate turned her head slowly round, and the expression on her face was half-indignant, half-humorous, while her eyes were uncertain weather prophets, and gave equal indication of sunshine or rain.”
“Why, Katherine, you look like a tragedy queen, rather than the spirit of comedy! Is it really a case of ‘Tit-willow, tit-willow, tit-willow’? You see, I’m a-rescuing you from the bottom of the alphabet, and bringing you up to the Gilbert plane, where I am more accustomed to you, and understand you better. Is this despondency due to the departure of the ‘Consternation,’ and the fact that she carries away with her Jack Lamont, blacksmith?”
The long sigh terminated in a woeful “yes.”
“The ship that has gone out with him we call she. If he had eloped with a real she, then wearing the willow, or singing it, however futile, might be understandable. As it is I see nothing in the situation to call for a sigh.”
“That is because you are a hardened sinner, Dorothy. You have no heart, or at least if you have, it is untouched, and therefore you cannot understand. If that note in your hand were a love missive, instead of a letter from your lawyers, you would be more human, Dorothy.”
The hand which held the paper crumpled it up slightly as Katherine spoke.
“Business letters are quite necessary, and belong to the world we live in,” said Dorothy, a glow of brighter color suffusing her cheeks. “Surely your acquaintance with Mr. Lamont is of the shortest.”
“He has called upon me every day since the night of the ball,” maintained Katherine stoutly.
“Well, that’s only three times.”
“Only three! How you talk! One would think you had never been schooled in mathematics. Why, three is a magic figure. You can do plenty of amazing things with it. Don’t you know that three is a numeral of love?”
“I thought two was the number,” chimed Dorothy, with heartless mirth.
“Three,” said Katherine taking one last look at the empty horizon, then seating herself in front of her friend, “three is a recurring decimal. It goes on and on and on forever, and if you write it for a thousand years you are still as far from the end as when you began. It will carry you round the world and back again, and never diminish. It is the mathematical emblem of the nature of true love.”
“Is it so serious as all that, Kate, or are you just fooling again?” asked Dorothy, more soberly than heretofore. “Has he spoken to you?”
“Spoken? He has done nothing but speak, and I have listened—oh, so intently, and with such deep understanding. He has never before met such a woman as I, and has frankly told me so.”
“I am very glad he appreciates you, dear.”
“Yes, you see, Dorothy, I am really much deeper than the ordinary woman. Who, for instance, could find such a beautiful love simile from a book of arithmetic costing twenty-five cents, as I have unearthed from decimal fractions? With that example in mind how can you doubt that other volumes of college learning reveal to me their inner meaning? John presented to me, as he said good-by, a beautifully bound copy of that celebrated text-book, ‘Saunders’ Analytical Chemistry,’ with particularly tender passages marked in pencil, by his own dear hand.”
Rather bewildered, for Kate’s expression was one of pathos, unrelieved by any gleam of humor, Dorothy nevertheless laughed, although the laugh brought no echo from Katherine.
“And did you give him a volume of Browning in return?”
“No, I didn’t. How can you be so unsympathetic? Is it impossible for you to comprehend the unseen link that binds John and me? I rummaged the book store until I found a charming little edition of ‘Marshall’s Geologist’s Pocket Companion,’ covered with beautiful brown limp Russia leather—I thought the Russia binding was so inspirational—with a sweet little clasp that keeps it closed—typical of our hands at parting. On the fly-leaf I wrote: ‘To J. L., in remembrance of many interesting conversations with his friend, K. K.’ It only needed another K to be emblematic and political, a reminiscence of the olden times, when you people of the South, Dorothy, were making it hot for us deserving folks in the North. I hadn’t time to go through the book very thoroughly, but I found many references to limestone, which I marked, and one particularly choice bit of English relating to the dissolution and re-consolidation of various minerals I drew a parallelogram around in red ink. A friend of mine in a motor launch was good enough to take the little parcel direct to the ‘Consternation,’ and I have no doubt that at this moment Jack is perusing it, and perhaps thinking of the giver. I hope it’s up-to-date, and that he had not previously bought a copy.”
“You don’t mean to say, Kate, that your conversation was entirely about geology?”
“Certainly not. How could you have become imbued with an idea so absurd? We had many delightful dalliances down the romantic groves of chemistry, heart-to-heart talks on metallurgy, and once—ah, shall I ever forget it—while the dusk gently enfolded us, and I gazed into those bright, speaking, intelligent eyes of his as he bent nearer and nearer; while his low, sonorous voice in well-chosen words pictured to me the promise which fortified cement holds out to the world; that is, ignorant person, Portland cement strengthened by ribs of steel; and I sat listening breathless as his glowing phrases prophesied the future of this combination.”
Katherine closed her eyes, rocked gently back and forth, and crooned, almost inaudibly:
I know what I shall get. It will probably be a newly discovered recipe for the compounding of cement which will do away with the necessity of steel strengthening.”
“Kate, dear, you are overdoing it. It is quite right that woman should be a mystery to man, but she should not aspire to become a mystery to her sister woman. Are you just making fun, or is there something in all this more serious than your words imply?”
“Like the steel strengthening in the cement, it may be there, but you can’t see it, and you can’t touch it, but it makes—oh, such a difference to the slab. Heigho, Dorothy, let us forsake these hard-headed subjects, and turn to something human. What have your lawyers been bothering you about? No trouble over the money, is there?”
Dorothy shook her head.
“No. Of course, there are various matters they have to consult me about, and get my consent to this project or the other.”
“Read the letter. Perhaps my mathematical mind can be of assistance to you.”
Dorothy had concealed the letter, and did not now produce it.
“It is with reference to your assistance, and your continued assistance, that I wish to speak to you. Let us follow the example of the cement and the steel, and form a compact. In one respect I am going to imitate the ‘Consternation.’ I leave Bar Harbor next week.”
Katherine sat up in her chair, and her eyes opened wide.
“What’s the matter with Bar Harbor?” she asked.
“You can answer that question better than I, Kate. The Kempt family are not visitors, but live here all the year round. What do you think is the matter with Bar Harbor?”
“I confess it’s a little dull in the winter time, and in all seasons it is situated a considerable distance from New York. Where do you intend to go, Dorothy?”
“That will depend largely on where my friend Kate advises me to go, because I shall take her with me if she will come.”
“Companion, lady’s-maid, parlor maid, maid-of-all-work, cook, governess, typewriter-girl—which have I to be? Shall I get one afternoon a week off, and may my young man come and see me, if I happen to secure one, and, extremely important, what are the wages?”
“You shall fix your own salary, Kate, and my lawyer men will arrange that the chosen sum is settled upon you so that if we fall out we can quarrel on equal terms.”
“Oh, I see, it’s an adopted daughter I am to be, then?”
“An adopted sister, rather.”
“Do you think I am going to take advantage of my friendship with an heiress, and so pension myself off?”
“It is I who am taking the advantage,” said Dorothy, “and I beg you to take compassion, rather than advantage, upon a lone creature who has no kith or kin in the world.”
“Do you really mean it, Dot?”
“Of course I do. Should I propose it if I didn’t?”
“Well, this is the first proposal I’ve ever had, and I believe it is customary to say on those occasions that it is so sudden, or so unexpected, and time is required for consideration.”
“How soon can you make up your mind, Kate?”
“Oh, my mind’s already made up. I’m going to jump at your offer, but I think it more ladylike to pretend a mild reluctance. What are you going to do, Dorothy?”
“I don’t know. I’ve settled on only one thing. I intend to build a little stone and tile church, very quaint and old-fashioned, if I get the right kind of architect to draw a plan for it, and this church is to be situated in Haverstock.”
“Where’s Haverstock?”
“It is a village near the Hudson River, on the plain that stretches toward the Catskills.”
“It was there you lived with your father, was it not?”
“Yes, and my church is to be called the Dr. Amhurst Memorial Church.”
“And do you propose to live at Haverstock?”
“I was thinking of that.”
“Wouldn’t it be just a little dull?”
“Yes, I suppose it is, but it seems to me a suitable place where two young women may meditate on what they are going to do with their lives.”
“Yes, that’s an important question for the two. I say, Dorothy, let’s take the other side of the river, and enter Vassar College. Then we should at least have some fun, and there would be some reasonably well-educated people to speak to.”
“Oh, you wish to use your lately acquired scientific knowledge in order to pass the examinations; but, you see, I have had no tutor to school me in the mysteries of lime-burning and the mixing of cement. Now, you have scorned my side of the river, and I have objected to your side of the river. That is the bad beginning which, let us hope, makes the good ending. Who is to arbitrate on our dispute?”
“Why, we’ll split the difference, of course.”
“How can we do that? Live in a house-boat on the river like Frank Stockton’s ‘Budder Grange’?”
“No, settle in the city of New York, which is practically an island in the Hudson.”
“Would you like to live in New York?”
“Wouldn’t I! Imagine any one, having the chance, living anywhere else!”
“In a hotel, I suppose—the Holldorf for choice.”
“Yes, we could live in a hotel until we found the ideal flat, high up in a nice apartment house, with a view like that from the top of Mount Washington, or from the top of the Washington Monument.”
“But you forget I made one proviso in the beginning, and that is that I am going to build a church, and the church is to be situated, not in the city of New York, but in the village of Haverstock.”
“New York is just the place from which to construct such an edifice. Haverstock will be somewhere near the West Shore Railway. Very well. We can take a trip up there once a week or oftener, if you like, and see how the work is progressing, then the people of Haverstock will respect us. As we drive from the station they’ll say:
“‘There’s the two young ladies from New York who are building the church.’ But if we settle down amongst them they’ll think we’re only ordinary villagers instead of the distinguished persons we are. Or, while our flat is being made ready we could live at one of the big hotels in the Catskills, and come down as often as we like on the inclined railway. Indeed, until the weather gets colder, the Catskills is the place.
“That ought to carry the day for the Catskills, Kate. What sort of habitation shall we choose? A big hotel, or a select private boarding house?”
“Oh, a big hotel, of course—the biggest there is, whatever its name may be. One of those whose rates are so high that the proprietor daren’t advertise them, but says in his announcement, ‘for terms apply to the manager.’ It must have ample grounds, support an excellent band, and advertise a renowned cuisine. Your room, at least, should have a private balcony on which you can place a telescope and watch the building of your church down below. I, being a humble person in a subordinate position, should have a balcony also to make up for those deficiencies.”
“Very well, Kate, that’s settled. But although two lone women may set up housekeeping in a New York flat, they cannot very well go alone to a fashionable hotel.”
“Oh, yes, we can. Best of references given and required.”
“I was going to suggest,” pursued Dorothy, not noticing the interruption, “that we invite your father and mother to accompany us. They might enjoy a change from sea air to mountain air.”
Katherine frowned a little, and demurred.
“Are you going to be fearfully conventional, Dorothy?”
“We must pay some attention to the conventions, don’t you think?”
“I had hoped not. I yearn to be a bachelor girl, and own a latch-key.”
“We shall each possess a latch-key when we settle down in New York. Our flat will be our castle, and, although our latch-key will let us in, our Yale lock will keep other people out. A noted summer resort calls for different treatment, because there we lead a semi-public life. Besides, I am selfish enough to wish my coming-out to be under the auspices of so well-known a man as Captain Kempt.”
“All right, I’ll see what they say about it. You don’t want Sabina, I take it?”
“Yes, if she will consent to come.”
“I doubt if she will, but I’ll see. Besides, now that I come to think about it, it’s only fair I should allow my doting parents to know that I am about to desert them.”
With that Katherine quitted the room, and went down the stairs hippety-hop.
Dorothy drew the letter from its place of concealment, and read it for the third time, although one not interested might have termed it a most commonplace document. It began:
“Dear Miss Amhurst,” and ended “Yours most sincerely, Alan Drummond.” It gave some account of his doings since he bade good-bye to her. A sailor, he informed her, needs little time for packing his belongings, and on the occasion in question the Prince had been of great assistance. They set out together for the early morning train, and said “au revoir” at the station. Drummond had intended to sail from New York, but a friendly person whom he met on the train informed him that the Liverpool liner “Enthusiana” set out from Boston next day, so he had abandoned the New York idea, and had taken passage on the liner named, on whose note-paper he wrote the letter, which epistle was once more concealed as Dorothy heard Katherine’s light step on the stair.
That impulsive young woman burst into the sewing room.
“We’re all going,” she cried. “Father, mother and Sabina. It seems father has had an excellent offer to let the house furnished till the end of September, and he says that, as he likes high life, he will put in the time on the top of the Catskills. He abandons me, and says that if he can borrow a shilling he is going to cut me off with it in his will. He regrets the departure of the British Fleet, because he thinks he might have been able to raise a real English shilling aboard. Dad only insists on one condition, namely, that he is to pay for himself, mother and Sabina, so he does not want a room with a balcony. I said that in spite of his disinheritance I’d help the family out of my salary, and so he is going to reconsider the changing of his will.”
“We will settle the conditions when we reach the Catskills,” said Dorothy, smiling.
CAPTAIN and Mrs. Kempt with Sabina had resided a week in the Matterhorn Hotel before the two girls arrived there. They had gone direct to New York, and it required the seven days to find a flat that suited them, of which they were to take possession on the first of October. Then there were the lawyers to see; a great many business details to settle, and an architect to consult. After leaving New York the girls spent a day at Haverstock, where Dorothy Amhurst bought a piece of land as shrewdly as if she had been in the real estate business all her life. After this transaction the girls drove to the station on the line connecting with the inclined railway, and so, as Katherine remarked, were “wafted to the skies on flowery beds of ease,” which she explained to her shocked companion was all right, because it was a quotation from a hymn. When at last they reached their hotel, Katherine was in ecstasies.
“Isn’t this heavenly?” she cried, “and, indeed, it ought to be, for I understand we are three thousand feet higher than we were in New York, and even the sky-scrapers can’t compete with such an altitude.”
The broad valley of the Hudson lay spread beneath them, stretching as far as the eye could see, shimmering in the thin, bluish veil of a summer evening, and miles away the river itself could be traced like a silver ribbon.
The gallant Captain, who had been energetically browbeaten by his younger daughter, and threatened with divers pains and penalties should he fail to pay attention and take heed to instructions, had acquitted himself with eclat in the selection of rooms for Dorothy and his daughter. The suite was situated in one corner of the huge caravansary, a large parlor occupying the angle, with windows on one side looking into the forest, and on the other giving an extended view across the valley. The front room adjoining the parlor was to be Dorothy’s very own, and the end room belonged to Katherine, he said, as long as she behaved herself. If Dorothy ever wished to evict her strenuous neighbor, all she had to do was to call upon the Captain, and he would lend his aid, at which proffer of assistance Katherine tossed her head, and said she would try the room for a week, and, if she didn’t like it, out Dorothy would have to go.
There followed days and nights of revelry. Hops, concerts, entertainments of all sorts, with a more pretentious ball on Saturday night, when the week-tired man from New York arrived in the afternoon to find temperature twenty degrees lower, and the altitude very much higher than was the case in his busy office in the city. Katherine revelled in this round of excitement, and indeed, so, in a milder way, did Dorothy. After the functions were over the girls enjoyed a comforting chat with one another in their drawing room; all windows open, and the moon a-shining down over the luminous valley, which it seemed to fill with mother-o’-pearl dust.
Young Mr. J. K. Henderson of New York, having danced repeatedly with Katherine on Saturday night, unexpectedly turned up for the hop on the following Wednesday, when he again danced repeatedly with the same joyous girl. It being somewhat unusual for a keen business man to take a four hours’ journey during an afternoon in the middle of the week, and, as a consequence, arrive late at his office next morning, Dorothy began to wonder if a concrete formation, associated with the name of Prince Ivan Lermontoff of Russia, was strong enough to stand an energetic assault of this nature, supposing it were to be constantly repeated. It was after midnight on Wednesday when the two reached the corner parlor. Dorothy sat in a cane armchair, while Katherine threw herself into a rocking-chair, laced her fingers behind her head, and gazed through the open window at the misty infinity beyond.
“Well,” sighed Katherine, “this has been the most enjoyable evening I ever spent!”
“Are you quite sure?” inquired her friend.
“Certainly. Shouldn’t I know?”
“He dances well, then?”
“Exquisitely!”
“Better than Jack Lamont?”
“Well, now you mention him I must confess Jack danced very creditably.”
“I didn’t know but you might have forgotten the Prince.”
“No, I haven’t exactly forgotten him, but—I do think he might have written to me.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it? Did he ask your permission to write?”
“Good gracious, no. We never talked of writing. Old red sandstone, rather, was our topic of conversation. Still, he might have acknowledged receipt of the book.”
“But the book was given to him in return for the one he presented to you.”
“Yes, I suppose it was. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Then again, Kate, Russian notions regarding writing to young ladies may differ from ours, or he may have fallen overboard, or touched a live wire.”
“Yes, there are many possibilities,” murmured Katherine dreamily.
“It seems rather strange that Mr. Henderson should have time to come up here in the middle of the week.”
“Why is it strange?” asked Katherine. “Mr. Henderson is not a clerk bound down to office hours. He’s an official high up in one of the big insurance companies, and gets a simply tremendous salary.”
“Really? Does he talk as well as Jack Lamont did?”
“He talks less like the Troy Technical Institute, and more like the ‘Home Journal’ than poor Prince Jack did, and then he has a much greater sense of humor. When I told him that the oath of an insurance man should be ‘bet your life!’ he laughed. Now, Jack would never have seen the point of that. Anyhow, the hour is too late, and I am too sleepy, to worry about young men, or jokes either. Good-night!”
Next morning’s mail brought Dorothy a bulky letter decorated with English stamps. She locked the door, tore open the envelope, and found many sheets of thin paper bearing the heading of the Bluewater Club, Pall Mall.
“I am reminded of an old adage,” she read, “to the effect that one should never cross a bridge before arriving at it. Since I bade good-by to you, up to this very evening, I have been plodding over a bridge that didn’t exist, much to my own discomfort. You were with me when I received the message ordering me home to England, and I don’t know whether or not I succeeded in suppressing all signs of my own perturbation, but we have in the Navy now a man who does not hesitate to overturn a court martial, and so I feared a re-opening of the Rock in the Baltic question, which might have meant the wrecking of my career. I had quite made up my mind, if the worst came to the worst, to go out West and become a cow-boy, but a passenger with whom I became acquainted on the ‘Enthusiana’ informed me, to my regret, that the cow-boy is largely a being of the past, to be met with only in the writings of Stewart Edward White, Owen Wister, and several other famous men whom he named. So you see, I went across the ocean tolerably depressed, finding my present occupation threatened, and my future uncertain.
“When I arrived in London I took a room at this Club, of which I have been a member for some years, and reported immediately at the Admiralty. But there, in spite of all diligence on my part, I was quite unable to learn what was wanted of me. Of course, I could have gone to my Uncle, who is in the government, and perhaps he might have enlightened me, although he has nothing to do with the Navy, but I rather like to avoid Uncle Metgurne. He brought me up since I was a small boy, and seems unnecessarily ashamed of the result. It is his son who is the attache’ in St. Petersburg that I spoke to you about.”
Dorothy ceased reading for a moment.
“Metgurne, Metgurne,” she said to herself. “Surely I know that name?”
She laid down the letter, pressed the electric button, and unlocked the door. When the servant came, she said:
“Will you ask at the office if they have any biographical book of reference relating to Great Britain, and if so, please bring it to me.”
The servant appeared shortly after with a red book which proved to be an English “Who’s Who” dated two years back. Turning the pages she came to Metgurne.
“Metgurne, twelfth Duke of, created 1681, Herbert George Alan.” Here followed a number of other titles, the information that the son and heir was Marquis of Thaxted, and belonged to the Diplomatic Service, that Lord Metgurne was H. M. Secretary of State for Royal Dependencies; finally a list of residences and clubs. She put down the book and resumed the letter.
“I think I ought to have told you that when I reach St. Petersburg I shall be as anxious to avoid my cousin Thaxted as I am to steer clear of his father in London. So I sat in my club, and read the papers. Dear me, this is evidently going to be a very long letter. I hope you won’t mind. I think perhaps you may be interested in learning how they do things over here.
“After two or three days of anxious waiting there came a crushing communication from the Admiralty which confirmed my worst fears and set me at crossing the bridge again. I was ordered to report next morning at eleven, at Committee Room 5, in the Admiralty, and bring with me full particulars pertaining to the firing of gun number so-and-so of the ‘Consternation’s’ equipment on such a date. I wonder since that I did not take to drink. We have every facility for that sort of thing in this club. However, at eleven next day, I presented myself at the Committee Room and found in session the grimmest looking five men I have ever yet been called upon to face. Collectively they were about ten times worse in appearance than the court-martial I had previously encountered. Four of the men I did not know, but the fifth I recognized at once, having often seen his portrait. He is Admiral Sir John Pendergest, popularly known in the service as ‘Old Grouch,’ a blue terror who knows absolutely nothing of mercy. The lads in the service say he looks so disagreeable because he is sorry he wasn’t born a hanging judge. Picture a face as cleanly cut as that of some severe old Roman Senator; a face as hard as marble, quite as cold, and nearly as white, rescued from the appearance of a death mask by a pair of piercing eyes that glitter like steel. When looking at him it is quite impossible to believe that such a personage has ever been a boy who played pranks on his masters. Indeed, Admiral Sir John Pendergest seems to have sprung, fully uniformed and forbidding, from the earth, like those soldiers of mythology. I was so taken aback at confronting such a man that I never noticed my old friend, Billy Richardson, seated at the table as one of the minor officials of the Committee. Billy tells me I looked rather white about the lips when I realized what was ahead of me, and I daresay he was right. My consolation is that I didn’t get red, as is my disconcerting habit. I was accommodated with a chair, and then a ferrety-faced little man began asking me questions, consulting every now and then a foolscap sheet of paper which was before him. Others were ready to note down the answers.
“‘When did you fire the new gun from the “Consternation” in the Baltic?’
“Dear Miss Amhurst, I have confessed to you that I am not brilliant, and, indeed, such confession was quite unnecessary, for you must speedily have recognized the fact, but here let me boast for a line or two of my one accomplishment, which is mathematical accuracy. When I make experiments I don’t note the result by rule of thumb. My answer to the ferret-faced man was prompt and complete.
“‘At twenty-three minutes, seventeen seconds past ten, A.M., on May the third of this year,’ was my reply.
“The five high officials remained perfectly impassive, but the two stenographers seemed somewhat taken by surprise, and one of them whispered, ‘Did you say fifteen seconds, sir?’
“‘He said seventeen,’ growled Sir John Pendergest, in a voice that seemed to come out of a sepulchre.
“‘Who sighted the gun?’
“‘I did, sir.’
“‘Why did not the regular gunner do that?’
“‘He did, sir, but I also took observations, and raised the muzzle .000327 of an inch.’
“‘Was your gunner inaccurate, then, to that extent?’
“‘No, sir, but I had weighed the ammunition, and found it short by two ounces and thirty-seven grains.’
“I must not bore you with all the questions and answers. I merely give these as samples. They questioned me about the recoil, the action of the gun, the state of this, that and the other after firing, and luckily I was able to answer to a dot every query put to me. At the finish one of the judges asked me to give in my own words my opinion of the gun. Admiral Sir John glared at him as he put this question, for of course to any expert the answers I had furnished, all taken together, gave an accurate verdict on the gun, assuming my statements to have been correct, which I maintain they were. However, as Sir John made no verbal comment, I offered my opinion as tersely as I could.
“‘Thank you, Lieutenant Drummond,’ rumbled Sir John in his deep voice, as if he were pronouncing sentence, and, my testimony completed, the Committee rose.
“I was out in the street before Billy Richardson overtook me, and then he called himself to my attention by a resounding slap on the shoulder.
“‘Alan, my boy,’ he cried, ‘you have done yourself proud. Your fortune’s made.’
“‘As how?’ I asked, shaking him by the hand.
“‘Why, we’ve been for weeks holding an inquiry on this blessed gun, and the question is whether or not a lot more of them are to be made. You know what an opinionated beast Old Grouch is. Well, my boy, you have corroborated his opinion of the gun in every detail. He is such a brow-beating, tyrannical brute that the rest of the Committee would rather like to go against him if they dared, but you have put a spoke in their wheel. Why, Sir John never said “thank you” to a human being since he was born until twenty-seven minutes and fifteen seconds after eleven this morning, as you would have put it,’ and at the time of writing this letter this surmise of Billy’s appears to be justified, for the tape in the club just now announced that the Committee has unanimously decided in favor of the gun, and adds that this is regarded as a triumph for the chairman, Admiral Sir John Pendergest, with various letters after his name.
“Dear Miss Amhurst, this letter, as I feared, has turned out intolerably long, and like our first conversation, it is all about myself. But then, you see, you are the only one on the other side of the water to whom I have confided my selfish worries, and I believe you to be so kind-hearted that I am sure you will not censure me for this once exceeding the limits of friendly correspondence. Having been deeply depressed during all the previous long days, the sudden reaction urges me to go out into Pall Mall, fling my cap in the air, and whoop, which action is quite evidently a remnant of my former cow-boy aspirations. Truth to tell, the Russian business seems already forgotten, except by my stout old Captain on the ‘Consternation,’ or my Uncle. The strenuous Sir John has had me haled across the ocean merely to give testimony, lasting about thirty-five minutes, when with a little patience he might have waited till the ‘Consternation’ herself arrived, or else have cabled for us to try the gun at Bar Harbor. I suppose, however, that after my unfortunate contretemps with Russia our government was afraid I’d chip a corner off the United States, and that they’d have to pay for it. So perhaps after all it was greater economy to bring me across on the liner ‘Enthusiana.’
“By the way, I learned yesterday that the ‘Consternation’ has been ordered home, and so I expect to see Jack Lamont before many days are past. The ship will be paid off at Portsmouth, and then I suppose he and I will have our freedom for six months. I am rather looking forward to Jack’s cooking me some weird but tasteful Russian dishes when we reach his blacksmith’s shop in St. Petersburg. If I get on in Russia as I hope and expect, I shall spend the rest of my leave over in the States. I saw very little indeed of that great country, and am extremely anxious to see more. When one is on duty aboard ship one can only take very short excursions ashore. I should like to visit Niagara. It seems ridiculous that one should have been all along the American coast from Canada to New York, and never have got far enough inland to view the great Falls.
“Russia is rather dilatory in her methods, but I surely should know within two or three weeks whether I am going to succeed or not. If not, then there is no use in waiting there. I shall try to persuade the Prince to accompany me to America. During the weeks I am waiting in St. Petersburg I shall continually impress upon him the utter futility of a life which has not investigated the great electrical power plant at Niagara Falls. And then he is interested in the educational system of the United States. While we were going to the station early that morning he told me that the United States educational system must be the most wonderful in the world, because he found that your friend, Miss Katherine Kempt, knew more about electricity, metallurgy, natural philosophy and a great number of other things he is interested in, than all the ladies he has met in Europe put together. He thinks that’s the right sort of education for girls, and all this rather astonished me, because, although your friend was most charming, she said nothing during my very short acquaintance with her to lead me to suspect that she had received a scientific training.
“Dear Miss Amhurst, I am looking every day for a letter from you, but none has yet been received by the Admiralty, who, when they get one, will forward it to whatever part of the world I happen to be in.”