A New Sensation Part 22

"Then I know you have. Tell me, is he living? is he still single? do you expect to marry him?"

She closed her mouth tightly and I knew no way to open it.

"I am such a foolish fellow!" I added. "Does it surprise you to learn that? I don't want you to love any one, or even to think of any one while you are with me. I want you to like me very much indeed."

She turned her face toward me and surveyed me leisurely with those blue-gray eyes.

"I do like you," she said, kindly, "but--"

"You think I demand too much for my twenty dollars a week," I said, with an attempt to be merry. "I know I do. I realize that my contract with you was for typewriting services. There is no doubt you can hold me to that bond if you so elect. All I want to say is, I am like most contractors--and mean to better my bargain, if I can."

"What do you want?" she asked, in clear, distinct tones. "We have agreed not to lie to each other. What do you want?"

I rose and looked out upon the sea. A tiny sail was visible in the distance.

"I want a closer friendship with you," I replied, after studying the form of words.

"I think we are pretty close friends already," she said. "I would not have believed, had I been told by some fortune-teller in New York, that in ten days we would be on such perfectly intimate terms."

I resumed my seat and stretched my arms above my head.

"Why, this--this is nothing!" I said.

"I was afraid you would take that view of it," she answered, soberly, "and I hope you will permit me to resume the position called for in what you term our 'contract.'"

I was alarmed by her words and the way she spoke them. She might take a notion to carry that idea into effect, and what a dull existence I would have then.

"You certainly agreed to act as a 'companion' to me," I reminded her.

"And though I have been much more than that, you are still discontented!

I have acted as if I had known you for years; in fact, that is exactly the way I feel. You may think me forward--I fear you do--but I have only tried to be natural. You talk to me as to a friend; I reply in the same strain. You take my hand in yours; I do not withdraw it. You call me to arrange a tie; I come as freely as if you were my brother. My head aches; I ask you into my chamber, lie down and submit to your manipulations with the cologne. If all this means nothing to you, as you say, it means very much to me. It means that I like you, trust you, believe you what you claimed to be--when you first told me of this plan--a gentleman."

She had put me in the dock and was reading a sort of left-handed indictment, to which I had no intention of pleading guilty.

"Listen, Marjorie," I replied. "You must not misunderstand. If any cloud comes between us it will not originate with me, knowingly. If you knew the life I have led hitherto--which you never will--you would realize what an ungovernable chap I am, and how much forbearance you are going to need. I am perfectly contented. If I can make you happy on this journey my greatest object will be accomplished. Tell me how I can best secure that result?"

"By not talking about it," she said, with a smile. "And by remembering at all times that the greatest chivalry is due a woman who has placed herself absolutely in your power--to make or mar her life."

"If you would only give me one kiss when you say that so prettily," I began--

"Breaking the rules already?" said Miss May, with an admonishing finger.

"Oh, this naughty boy! what shall be done with him?"

CHAPTER XV.

WESSON BECOMES A NUISANCE.

It did not seem as if we were likely to have any serious trouble. After a couple of days we actually got down to work on the family tree and began to make some progress. Miss May showed an astonishing apt.i.tude on the unfamiliar instrument, as well as a grasp of the subject we were trying to put into shape. Her white fingers flew over the keys, her quick mind suggested improvements in my phraseology, and she never exhibited the slightest sign of fatigue. Once at it we made a regular thing of working from seven in the morning till eleven, except for a fifteen minute rest, and made the progress that such devotion warranted, to the immense satisfaction of us both.

Those days were much alike. We always rose in time to take our ocean plunge at five and the bath never grew less exhilarating. We took coffee at half past five, breakfast at half past six, lunch at twelve, slept from one till four; strolled about the grounds or up to the town--or took a boat ride till seven; dined; talked nonsense on the veranda or played a game of whist with Eggert and his wife till ten, and then went to bed.

On Sunday we went to church, for Miss May wanted to go and I could not let her go alone. She had a nice little prayer book which she carried in a most becoming way and she was certainly the prettiest woman in the house. Wesson was there and looked devotional, though his eyes wandered in our direction more than I liked. I began to have an incipient jealousy of the man.

It got to be almost a regular thing that he came out to breakfast.

Sometimes he stayed and talked with Eggert for an hour after Miss May and I had fastened ourselves down to work. Eggert liked him, which was natural, for he was always bringing something for the children. He had a cigar case, too, that was at anybody's call, filled with Havanas that were mighty good and had paid no duty, St. Thomas being a free port.

Then, of course, he paid for his breakfasts, no doubt liberally. One evening when I walked up to town alone, I found him on my return chatting with Miss May in altogether too confidential a manner.

I wondered how long he intended to stay at St. Thomas. He acted quite as if he had been naturalized there. Well, we should certainly see the last of him on February 6th, when the "Pretoria" would arrive and bear us away.

Wesson stayed to dinner, though I don't know that any one invited him--probably he found the item in his bill. But he went early to town, which was better than nothing.

That evening something strange happened. I was looking over a small stock of books that Eggert kept in a case. There was not much choice, for the subjects were mostly dry ones, though I don't know as he will thank me for saying so. I happened to light on the only modern work in the lot, after a long hunt, and brought it to the lamp.

It was ent.i.tled "Our Rival, the Rascal," if I do not mistake, and was made up of letter-press and ill.u.s.trations relating to prominent criminals of the day, the work of some heads of a police department, I believe. On the principle of any port in a storm it was worth spending a half hour over. I asked Eggert where he got it and he said it had been given him by a quarantined American not many months before. He looked over my shoulder for awhile as I turned the leaves, and commented openly on the villainy in the great world outside his quarantine fence and little lighthouse, with an air of simplicity that was charming. There were the lineaments of bank robbers, murderers, sneak thieves, shoplifters, etc., by the score, evidently photographed in some cases against their will, with a sketch of the career that ent.i.tled each to this dizzy seat of fame. Once in awhile I recognized a name, that had appeared in the newspapers, but the majority were rascals with whom I was wholly unfamiliar.

Marjorie was working with a needle at the other end of the room, talking in a low tone with Mrs. Eggert. It occurred to me presently that the book might interest her, and I asked her to come to me. Mrs. Eggert went to see about some household duty and Miss May and I were left quite alone.

"Are you interested in criminology?" I asked my companion, as she took the chair by my side. "If you are, here is entertainment for you."

She stared at me vacantly, and when I turned one of the pages to her she caught at her throat as if choking.

"Oh, this is awful!" she gurgled. "How could you show a thing like that to me?"

"My darling," I protested, soothingly, "I did not know you would feel that way. This is a book that Eggert has just lent me and I thought it might interest you."

"It is horrible!" she said, going to the open door as if for air. "The one glance I took was quite enough. What good can it do to print the faces of those unhappy people? It seems like catching a rat in a trap and bringing it out for dogs to tear."

She shut her eyes and stood there, still panting. What a nervous organism she had, to be sure!

"I will put it back on the shelf," I said, "and you shall never think of it again. I seem fated to wound your tender feelings. Dear little girl, you know I do not mean to."

But it was she who would not drop the subject.

"It is shameful to print such a book," she repeated. "It is like a proposal made just before we left America, to publish the names on the pension roll."

I had an opinion on the latter suggestion, decidedly in its favor. So I explained that it was feared there were names on the list that ought not to be there and believed that a publication of the roll would result in weeding these out.

"And at the same time expose the honest poverty of half a million brave men!" she said. "All my people were on the Southern side, but I admire courage and devotion, wherever it is found. To expose the recipient of these pensions merely in the hope of detecting a few dishonest ones is shameful! So with that awful book. Some of the men pictured there may be trying to redeem themselves. What chance will they have with their faces exhibited everywhere? Oh, Don, Don! You seem a tender hearted man. How can you endorse such a wicked, cruel thing?"

I said I did not wish to argue the matter, but I understood from the preface that only persons belonging to the criminal cla.s.s by profession were pictured in the book. The miserable man who had made his one error was not in the list at all.

"But who can tell," she said, growing earnest, "that even some you mention have not repented of their acts and are trying to redeem themselves? Did you never read these words of Shakespeare?

"Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once, And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy!"