Jacob's Ladder Part 42

"You needn't come the heavy brother," the latter replied. "Your sister and I broke our engagement mutually, some time ago. I can a.s.sure you, and she will tell you the same, that her feelings towards me have changed far more completely even than mine towards her."

"Well, I'm jiggered!" Lord Felixstowe exclaimed.

"Where did you and Captain Penhaven meet?" Jacob asked miserably.

"I used to go in, as you know, and play Lady Mary's accompaniments,"

Sybil explained. "Captain Penhaven was often there and used to take me home sometimes. From my own observation," she went on, "I can confirm what Maurice has just said about the relations between Lady Mary and himself. For some reason or other she became absolutely indifferent to him about that time."

"So, according to you two, n.o.body's got a grievance," Felixstowe observed. "If my new employer's satisfied--well, I suppose that's an end of it."

"Your what?" Sybil demanded.

The young man waved his hand genially towards Jacob.

"He's taken me on as secretary," he announced. "First job, trip out to America to visit sick brother and look after business complications.

We've dealt with weighty affairs already this morning."

"What's become of your Mr. Dauncey, then?" Sybil enquired.

"I have made him secretary of the Cropstone Wood Estates Company,"

Jacob told her. "He has my affairs to look after as well while I am away."

A sound familiar to the nautical ears of Lord Felixstowe reached them from the bows of the ship.

"Sun's over the yardarm," he announced. "How are you feeling now, old--Mr. Pratt?"

"You order," Jacob replied.

It was a moderately cheerful little party who drank the health of the bride and bridegroom. Afterwards, however, Jacob pa.s.sed a day of curiously tangled sensations. The summons to New York had been too peremptory for him to delay even an hour, but he had sent a note to Miss Bultiwell at the address in Belgrave Square, asking for a few minutes' interview before he left. Naturally he had received no answer. Now he was face to face with absolute and accomplished failure in one of the fixed purposes of his life. He was an obstinate person, used to success,--so used to it, in fact, that the present situation left him dazed. His first determination, when success had smiled upon him, had been to marry Sybil Bultiwell. He had never flinched from that purpose. He had even, in his heart, considered himself engaged. Any thoughts which might have come to him of any other woman he had pushed away as a species of infidelity. And now there wasn't any Sybil Bultiwell. She was married and out of his reach. He felt that the proper thing for him to do was to go down to his cabin and nurse his broken heart; instead of which he drank champagne for dinner, found a few kindred spirits who liked a mild game of poker, and went to bed whistling at two o'clock in the morning. His young companion, who had won a fiver and was in a most beatific state, came and sat on his bunk whilst he undressed.

"Jacob, my well-beloved," he said, "you are taking this little setback like a hero."

"What setback?" Jacob asked.

"Little affair of Miss Bultiwell," Felixstowe replied, gazing admiringly at Jacob's well-suspended silk socks. "Mary told me all about it."

Jacob sighed heavily.

"Nasty knock for me," he admitted, with a curiously unconvincing note of gloom in his tone.

"And Mary, poor old girl, is in the same boat," Felixstowe went on reflectively. "Still, she never cared much for Maurice ... led him an awful dance, the last few months. And you were head over heels in love with Miss Bultiwell, weren't you?"

"I adored her," Jacob declared, taking a long gulp of the whisky and soda which he had brought in for a nightcap. "Worshipped her," he added, finishing it with much satisfaction.

Felixstowe sighed sympathetically.

"Rotten luck for you, having 'em on board, honeymooning," he observed.

"Never mind, keep a stiff upper lip, old thing. Let me know if I can b.u.t.t in any time on the right side. You'll perhaps stay in your stateroom to-morrow?"

"Not I!" was the hasty reply. "I shall face it out."

"Hero!" his companion murmured. "Don't you brood over this thing, Jacob. Close your eyes and try and count sheep, or something of that sort. Call me in if you get very melancholy during the night, and I'll read to you."

"You needn't worry," Jacob a.s.sured him. "I have an iron will. And don't be so long in the bath to-morrow morning."

"Tap three times on the door," the young man enjoined, "and I will remember that it is my master's voice."

CHAPTER XXV

They steamed slowly past the Statue of Liberty, early in the afternoon a few days later. Jacob and his young companion were leaning over the rail, watching the great, tangled city slowly define itself through a shroud of mist.

"One good thing about this voyage," the latter remarked sympathetically, "it's taken your mind off yourself--made you forget your troubles, in a kind of way."

"You mean about poor Sam?"

"I'm afraid I wasn't thinking about your brother," Felixstowe confessed. "I was thinking of the other little affair. Of course, it's been rather a bad egg for you, so to speak, having her pop up every minute or two, but there's something about life on one of these great liners--I don't know what it is, but you seem to be able to shove all sorts of things out of your mind, eh?"

Jacob felt for a moment rather ashamed of himself. It was not like him to be inconstant in anything, and he would not for a moment admit that what he had regarded as the pa.s.sion of his life had been merely a fantasy. At the same time, he could not ignore the fact that during the last few days he had been conscious of a sense of freedom which was altogether pleasant.

"I have conquered that," he declared proudly. "For me it is finished.

You must have observed my indifference at dinner last night. I find myself able to converse with her now without the slightest emotion."

"Fine!" was the enthusiastic rejoinder. "You must have a will of iron.

Those things do pull you about a bit, though. I remember an affair of my own with little Kitty Bond--second from the left in the front row of the Gaiety, you know. For three days she was simply dropping sugarplums down my throat, never took her eyes off me all through the show, welcome at any hour to the flat, though mother was in the country visiting the parson uncle--all the usual sort of slush, you know. And then one day some one told her about dad and figured out what my income was likely to be. Little Johnny in the rubber market it was. I shall never forget the night Kitty introduced me and then went off to supper with him in his coupe. Fairly gave me the pip."

"I beg," Jacob said with dignity, "that you will not compare your calf love for a picture-postcard young lady with what might easily have been a great pa.s.sion."

Felixstowe tapped a cigarette upon the rail and lit it.

"It took me more than three days to get over it, at any rate," he remarked pointedly.

A grave-looking, clean-shaven young man, very neatly dressed and wearing thin, gold-rimmed spectacles, met them as they stepped off the steamer.

"Mr. Jacob Pratt, I am sure?" he said. "My name is Morse--Sydney H.

Morse. I am your brother's secretary."

"How is Sam?" Jacob enquired eagerly.

"He is in precisely the same condition of coma," the secretary replied. "The physician says that he may remain so for days."

"Shall I be able to see him?"

"Doctor Bardolf will discuss that with you, Mr. Pratt. In the meantime, one of your brother's servants is here to see after all the luggage and pa.s.s it through the Customs, if you will hand him the list. I have a car here for you and--and--"