A New Sensation Part 33

She was very sober and though she was able to sit upright I saw that her strength was returning but slowly. She would not go down to lunch when the bell rang, and I sent her up a little toast and tea, which she barely touched. As the evening approached I asked if she felt able to drive, but she said if I did not mind she would rather I would go alone, and I complied with her suggestion. On my return two hours later, she was up and about, with a little of the old color in her face. I connected her improved state, in a certain way, with information that I received later from Mr. Armstrong, that Edgerly had left the island on a steamer bound directly for New York. Her anxiety lest he and I should come again into collision was thus abated. In fact, I had never seen her so bright at dinner as she was that day, her appet.i.te good and her manner actually vivacious.

The next day being Sunday we went to a church not far from the hotel, where I was struck as before by the devotional bearing of my companion.

Not being an Episcopalian, I have always considered it quite a feat to know just when to kneel and to rise, to find the place in the prayer book, to stand and sit at the right places. I watched Miss May carefully, doing exactly as she did, though, I am afraid, the effort detracted from the religious effect on my mind. When the affair was over we walked back to the Marine and went over to the little Park, called for some unknown reason "Hastings Rocks," the entrance of which is guarded by a black Cerberus who demands a penny from each visitor. Here we sat and looked out on the sea, and my mind reverted to Edgerly, now a hundred miles or so to the north of us.

If Wesson had only accompanied him, I thought, there would be nothing to disturb the even tenor of my life. Why did he continue to remain at the hotel?

He could not hope to rob us again; and he must know that the promise I had given him would not tie my tongue if any other guest of the house should report that his valuables were missing. Perhaps he was waiting now for some steamer bound to South America or Colon. I sincerely hoped that, if this was so, the boat would arrive at an early date.

Monday I rose very early, and in pursuance to an arrangement made the previous night, took a carriage before breakfast with Miss May. We drove in our bathing suits and bath robes to a beach about a mile up the road, where we had a delicious bath in the surf. The sight of her again in that attire aroused all the masculine forces in me and made me resolve anew that I would win her for my life mate if there was any possibility of so doing. A more exquisite shape it has never been my fortune to meet, and I must confess I am not exactly an amateur at that business.

She seemed wholly oblivious of the effect her charms created, but declared with bright eyes that there was no pleasure in the world half as great as bathing in salt water of that temperature.

After breakfast the typewriting machine was put in use again and that day, urged on by Miss May's statement that she was just in the trim for work, we accomplished what are catalogued as the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of the book you are reading.

Marjorie was plainly interested to a high degree now in every word that I gave her to write. The tale of the excited night I pa.s.sed after first meeting her, my half-formed resolves to give up the plan of taking a companion on my voyage, the celerity with which I changed my mind the following morning, upon awakening, the reception of the next letter she sent me, with my comments thereon, kept her as entertained as if the story had indeed been fiction. She laughed a little when I admitted starting the letter in reply beginning "My Darling, I cannot breathe until once more I am in your loved presence," and paused to remark that she had never known a man so excitable and uncontrollable. My meeting with Statia on Broadway seemed to affect her strongly. All her sympathies were evidently with that young lady, for she shook her head and uttered several sighs as I told how we parted after her withdrawal of the invitation to call at her house.

Then came the chapter in which my amanuensis had said at last, "I am going, of course," with the stipulations she had made, her cheeks blushing, as to the conduct she would demand from me. Marjorie smiled again at the letter I wrote to Alice Brazier, in which I tried to describe my "secretary," and the dream I had that night, but she grew as sober as possible when I read the second letter from Miss Brazier, adjuring me to treat my fellow voyager with courtesy and honor. The solemn resolutions I made to comply with this request pleased her, as did the story of Tom Barton's visit to my rooms and his plan for a _modus vivendi_ between Statia and me. Then she had to copy, at my dictation, her own long letter explaining why, if she was to travel as my relation, more money than I had given her would be required.

At the end she commented aloud on what she called the mercenary tone of that note.

"You had a good many doubts of me, first and last," she added.

"First only," I reply, "not last. I'd like to know what could make me doubt you now."

The chapter ended (the ninth chapter) with the sentence before the one that now closes it and Miss May rose from her long task with a sigh of relief.

Tuesday, both of us being still in excellent trim, the dictation was resumed. That day she finished the tenth, eleventh and twelfth chapters, smiling at the right places and looking pensive when there was occasion.

Once she interpolated, "I like that Tom Barton--he is made of true metal," which naturally pleased me. The nervous wait I had at her rooms made her shake her head in a way that meant much, and the excessive joy with which I greeted her when she did come sobered her considerably.

"Have you not drawn the long bow a little here?" she asked, pausing.

"You need not think it necessary to stretch your sensations just because the object of them happens to be their recorder."

"If anything I have understated them," I replied, "Language is wholly inadequate to describe the constant anxiety I felt till you were actually on board the Madiana. But proceed. If I get on that strain I shall never be able to finish."

My account of our shopping, with our subsequent visit to the restaurant, made her remark that I was a close observer. She said there was not a thought in her head that I had not photographed.

"Who but a born novelist," she said, "would have deemed it worth while to tell that I objected to having the door of our little dining-room locked?"

"It is merely to show the reader another proof of your excessively proper conduct," I replied, "and give him an opportunity to appreciate your true character."

"You have mistaken your vocation, after all," she said. "You would make a splendid detective. Not even the smallest thing escapes you. You make me think of a hunter on a trail. A broken twig, a nearly indiscernible print on the moss, a leaf brushed aside, show you where the creature has pa.s.sed."

"The only wild creatures I have ever hunted were 'dears,'" I answered, laughing. "Don't you think such earnestness in the chase deserves its full reward?"

"The reward is all very well for the hunter," she said, solemnly, "but for the deer there is only the bullet and the knife."

She had cornered me there. Instead of trying to straighten out the muddle I went on with my work. Miss May was plainly affected when I told of the remorse I had felt for my ill-spent life, after reading the note she had left on the typewriting machine at her first visit to my rooms.

The concluding paragraph of the tenth chapter, as it now appears, had not been written then.

Wednesday we did but one chapter--the eleventh. I noticed that my companion appeared fatigued when it was finished and I refused to let her continue. She was intensely surprised when I identified Miss Howes.

I detected a repellant shrug of the shoulders as she realized the kind of woman who had occupied the stateroom with her during her voyage from New York to St. Thomas. She showed great interest when I described my fellow pa.s.sengers at table, and grew white when I came to the point of the larceny of her earrings. Fearing that I would excite some unpleasant memory I made no comment whatever on the occurrence beyond what was in the MS. she was writing.

She wanted very much to continue her work, but I would not listen. She was too evidently ill. There is a limit to what even the best natured amanuensis can perform with impunity.

When we went on, the next day, I tried to give out my dictation in a slower manner, to conserve Marjorie's force, but it was a difficult thing to do. Her speed was naturally great and I had got into the habit of speaking in much my ordinary manner. She told me twenty times that I might dictate more rapidly, and her fingers flew over the keys at a speed that astonished me. All she would consent to do was to let me order a gla.s.s of wine, from which she sipped occasionally. She declared that my "novel" was so diverting that she was anxious to get as far along as possible.

The description of my games of cards with Edgerly caused her to have frequent recourse to the wine, but the meeting with Eggert and his family came to relieve the strain. She grew uneasy again when I told of sitting by her bed and bathing her forehead; and reddened like a peony when I remarked how lovely she appeared in her bathing costume that morning we took our first bath on the beach of the Quarantine Station.

"Must you put in such things as that?" she asked, pleadingly. "I think it spoils what was getting to be a very entertaining story."

"I can leave out nothing," I answered. "Really, Marjorie, you cannot conceive how rapturously beautiful--"

She shivered as if a cold wind had blown on her.

"Are you dictating?" she asked. "I think we had best keep to the text."

"Then do not attempt to go outside your path and province," I said.

"Once more, this is my story, not yours, remember. Here is something that will interest you."

I gave her the concluding paragraph of that chapter--the one recording the sudden and unexpected appearance of Mr. Wesson.

She went on very quietly after that, though the frequent allusions to my growing affection disturbed her visibly.

Every evening after our work we went for a drive. On most of these occasions we met somewhere on the road a blue-eyed man and a brown-eyed woman, riding in a cart, drawn by two horses, hitched tandem. I often wonder what has become of them; whether they have decided to go through the world tandem--one in front of the other--or side by side, as I used to see them there. Sometimes they rode bicycles, which they handled equally well. When the darkness settled their lamps were lit, according to the local laws, and the lanterns looked like fireflies as they spun along the hard roads. Perhaps that is what Froude saw which made him say in his book that there are fireflies in Barbados--who can tell? The woman was rather handsome, with a well rounded form, and a mouth made for kisses, though she a.s.sured me once that none had ever rested there.

If true, it is a sad case of luscious fruit going to waste on a tree well worth climbing.

With the exception of the following Sunday we worked every day. Miss May was getting more and more used to hearing her every act recorded and made few interruptions. I warned her when I came to the episode of the book on criminology and she steadied her nerves and went through it like a heroine. She did demur a little--hesitating and flashing an appealing look at me--when I came to her admission that she wanted to kiss me quite as much as I wished her to do so, and she breathed heavily when I told what had caused me to decide that, even if permitted, I must refuse the boon. When I reached the place where I had to admit reading the letter she wrote to her friend Helen she stopped short and we looked for some seconds at each other.

"That is the only really dishonorable thing I have known of you," she said, reproachfully.

"I do not defend it," was my reply; "but I would not give up the happiness it caused me for all the world."

"You surely cannot remember that letter, word for word!"

"I believe I can give it literally."

"If you have any doubt, I will get the original for you," she said.

"When I came to read it over I thought it wiser not to send it. I wrote another in its stead and kept the one you saw--as a warning for the future."

She arose, went to her bedroom, procured the letter, and brought it to me.

"But it came from your heart, my love," I said, bending toward her.

"That is what gives it value. And all this time you have been pretending that my slightest sentiment of affection must be repelled. Have you forgotten our compact, dear one? We were only to lie to outsiders, never to each other. Marjorie, once more, listen to me. I love you! I want you for my wife. Here, with this confession before us, need we go on longer without a definite understanding? Why not say that little word that will make me the happiest man who breathes?"

I had not uttered all this without many attempts on her part to stop the flow of words. When I finished she turned her chair directly toward me and spoke with firmness, though her face was as white as I had ever seen it.

"Mr. Camran, you are taking an unfair advantage. Having violated the privacy of my room and read the letter I wrote to an intimate friend, you now seek to make that act the basis for renewing a suit I have told you more than once cannot succeed. Ah, no! There are reasons stronger than I care to make known why I cannot be your wife. I beg you do not give me the pain of compelling me to say this again. I will repeat, if you desire, the words I wrote to my friend: 'It is all I can do to prevent myself falling head over ears in love with this man.'

"Yes," she continued, "that was true--that is true. It is all I can do; but I can do it, I have done it, I shall continue to do it! Mr. Camran, I esteem you beyond the power of language to express. Your kindness, your consideration, your generosity have affected me wonderfully. Some day you will know to what extent. But there can be no relation between us nearer than the one we now occupy. Never, never, never!"