Quaint Courtships Part 28

"So when the Angel of the Darker Drink At last shall find you by the River-brink, And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul Forth to your Lips to quaff--you shall not shrink."

To these melancholy mutterings, the liner, insouciant, and not caring a peg for any philosophy--save that of the open road--shouldered along through jewel-green waves, and remarked, "Chug-chug, chug-chug!"

Mr. Payne was inclined to quarrel with the Tent-Maker on one score only.

He did not think that he was to-day what he was yesterday.

Yesterday--figuratively speaking--he had hope. He was conscious of his youth. A fine, buoyant egotism sustained him, and he believed that he was about to be crowned with a beautiful joy.

He had sauntered up to his joy, so to speak, c.o.c.ksure, hands in pockets, and as he smiled with easy a.s.surance, behold the joy turned into a sorrow. The face of the dryad smiling through the young grape leaves was that of a withered hag, and the leaves of the vine were dead and flapped on sapless stems!

Well, well, there was always a sorry fatalism to comfort one in joy's despite.

"Then to the rolling Heav'n itself, I cried, Asking, 'What Lamp had Destiny to guide Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?'"

The answer was old as patience--as old as courage. But to theorize about it was really superfluous! Why think at all? Why not say chug-chug like the liner?

"We are no other than a moving row Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go--"

Dinner! Was it possible? The day had been a blur! Well, probably all the rest of life would be a blur. Anyway, one could still dine, and he recollected that the puree of tomatoes at last night's dinner had been rather to his liking. He seated himself deliberately at the board, congratulating himself that he would be allowed to go through the duty of eating without interruption. The place at his right had been vacant ever since they left Southampton. At his left was a gentleman of uncertain hearing and a bullet-proof frown.

As the seat at his right had been vacant so long, he took the liberty of laying it his gloves, his sea-gla.s.s, a book with uncut leaves, and a crimson silk neck-scarf.

"I beg your pardon," said the waiter, "but the lady who is to sit here is coming, sir."

"The devil she is!" thought Payne. "Will the creature expect me to talk?

Will she require me to look after her in the matter of pepper and salt?

Why couldn't I have been left in peace?"

He gathered up his possessions, and arose gravely with an automatic courtesy, and lifted eyes with a wooden expression to stare at the intruder.

He faced the one person in the world whom it was most of pain and happiness to meet--the woman between whom and himself he meant to put a good half of the round world; and he read in her troubled gray eyes the confession that if there was anything or anybody from which she would willingly have been protected it was he--Chalmers Payne.

Conscious of their neighbors, they bowed. Payne saw her comfortably seated. He sat down and slowly emptied his gla.s.s of ice-water. He preserved his wooden expression of countenance and turned towards her.

"The old man on my right is deaf," he said.

"So am I," she retorted.

"Not so deaf, I hope, that you won't hear me explain that I had no more notion of your being on this ship than of Sappho being here!"

"You refer to--the Greek Sappho, Mr. Payne?"

"a.s.suredly. You told me--'fore Heaven, why are women so inconsistent?--you told me you were going anywhere rather than to America--that you were at the beginning of your journeyings--that you had an engagement with some Mahatmas on the top of the Himal--"

"And you--you were going to South Africa."

"I said nothing of the sort. I--"

"Well, I couldn't go about another day. No matter whether I was consistent or inconsistent! I was worn out and ill. I've been seeing too much--"

"You told me you could never see enough!"

"Well, never mind all that. I acted impulsively, I confess. My aunt was shocked. She thought I was ungrateful--particularly when I openly rejoiced that she was not able to find a chaperon for me."

"It's none of my business, anyway. I was stupid to show my surprise. I ought never to be surprised at anything you do, I know that. As for me, I'm tired of imitating the Wandering Jew. Besides, my father's old partner--mine he is now, I suppose, though I can't get used to that idea--wants me to come home. He says I'm needed. So I'm rolling up my sleeves, figuratively speaking. But I should certainly have delayed my journey if I had guessed you were to be on this boat."

"It's very annoying altogether," she said, with open vexation. "It looks so silly! What will my aunt say?"

"I don't think she'll say anything. You are on an Atlantic liner, with nine hundred and ninety-nine souls who are nothing to you, and one who is less than nothing. I believe that was the expression you used the other day--less than nothing?"

The girl's delicate face flushed hotly.

"I'm not so strong," she murmured. "It's true that I am worn out, and my voyage has done nothing so far towards restoring me. On the contrary, I have been suffering. I fainted again and again yesterday, and it took a great deal of courage for me to venture out to-day. So you must be merciful for a little while. Your enemy is down, you see."

"My enemy!" He gave the words an accent at once bitter and humorous.

"I'll not say another personal word," he murmured, contritely. "Tell me if you feel faint at any moment, and let me help you. Please treat me as if I were your--your uncle!"

She smiled faintly.

"You are asking a great deal," she couldn't help saying, somewhat coquettishly, and then he remembered how he had seen her hanging about her uncle's neck, and he flushed too.

There was quite a long silence. She picked at her food delicately, and Payne suggested some claret. Her face showed that she would have preferred not to accept any favor from him, no matter how trifling, but she evidently considered it puerile to refuse.

"It _is_ mighty awkward for you!" he burst out, suddenly, "my being here. I suppose you actually find it hard to believe that it was an accident--"

"I haven't the least occasion to doubt your word, Mr. Payne. Have I ever done anything to make you suppose that I didn't respect you?"

"Oh, I didn't mean that! Heavens! what a cad you must think me! I have a faculty for being stupid when you are around, you know. It's my misfortune. But--behold my generosity!--I shall have a talk with the purser, Miss Curtis, and get him to change my place for me. Some good-natured person will consent to make the alteration."

"You mean you will put some one else here in your place beside me?"

"It's the least I can do, isn't it? Now, whom would you suggest? Pick out somebody. There's that motherly-looking German woman over there.

She's a baroness--"

"She? She'll tell me twice every meal that American girls are not brought up with a knowledge of cooking. She will tell me how she has met them at Kaffeeklatsches, and how they confessed that they didn't cook!

No, no; you must try another one!"

"Well, if you object to her, there's that quiet gentleman who is eating his ice with the aid of two pairs of spectacles. That gentleman is a specialist in bacilli. He has little steel-bound bottles in his room which, if you were to break them among this ship-load of pa.s.sengers, would depopulate the ship. I think he is taking home the bacilli of the bubonic plague as a present to our country. Remember, if you got on the right side of him, that you would have a vengeance beyond the dreams of the Borgias at your command!"

"Oh, the terrible creature! Mr. Payne, how could you mention him? What if he were to take me for a guinea-pig or a rabbit? No, I prefer the English-looking mummy over there."

"Who? Miss Hull? She's not half bad. She's a great traveller. She has been almost everywhere, and is now hastening to make it everywhere. She carries her own tea with her, and steeps it at five exactly every afternoon. She tells me that once, being shipwrecked, she grasped her tea-caddy, her alcohol-stove, and a large bottle of alcohol, and prepared for the worst. They drifted four days on a raft, and she made five-o'clock tea every day, to the great encouragement of the unfortunates. Miss Hull is an English spinster, who has a fortune and no household, and who is going about to see how other folks keep house--Feejee-Islanders, and Tagals, and Kafirs. She likes them all, I believe. Indeed, she says she likes everything--except the snug English village where she was brought up. She says that when she lived there she did exactly the same thing between sunup and sundown for eight years.

For example, she had the curate to tea every Wednesday evening during that entire time, and when possible she had periwinkles."

"And nothing came of it?"

"Oh yes, an enormous consumption of tea-biscuits-nothing more. Then it occurred to her to travel. So she went to the next shire, and liked it so well that she plunged off to London, then to the Hebrides. After that there was no stopping her. She likes the islands better than the continents, and is collecting hats made of sea-gra.s.s. She already has five hundred and forty-two varieties. Really, you would not find her half so bad."

Helen Curtis finished her coffee, and laid her napkin beside her plate.