A Rock in the Baltic Part 9

"I think, perhaps, you are too sensitive, and notice slights where nothing of the kind is meant," said the girl.

Chesham returned and handed Drummond a letter.

"Will you excuse me a moment?" he said, and as she looked at him he flattered himself that he noticed a trace of anxiety in her eyes. He tore open the missive.

"By Jove!" he cried.

"What is it?" she could not prevent herself from saying, leaning forward.

"I am ordered home. The Admiralty commands me to take the first steamer for England."

"Is that serious?"

He laughed with well-feigned hilarity.

"Oh, no, not serious; it's just their way of doing things. They might easily have allowed me to come home in my own ship. My only fear is I shall have to take the train for New York early to-morrow morning. But,"

he said, holding out his hands, "it is not serious if you allow me to write to you, and if you will permit me to hope that I may receive an answer."

She placed her hand in his, this time without hesitation.

"You may write," she said, "and I will reply. I trust it is not serious."

CHAPTER V --AFTER THE OPERA IS OVER

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 antic.i.p.ating 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 a.s.semblage 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 princ.i.p.ality 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 pa.s.ses 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?"