The Second Latchkey Part 35

"I--am afraid we must wait for another time," said Annesley. "My husband has business. He can't waste a day----"

"Surely you won't turn your back on New York the day you arrive, the first time you've ever seen it!" cried the New York woman. "Why, it's sacrilege! You must stay with us one night. If you could see the _darling_ new room we'll put you in: old rose and pearl gray, and Cupids holding up the bed curtains!"

In desperation the girl stuck to her point, no longer daring to look at Knight.

"Indeed we mustn't stay, even for one night. If there's a train the same afternoon----"

"There's a lovely train," Mrs. Waldo admitted, unable to resist praising the American railway system. "We call it the 'Limited.' You can have a beautiful stateroom, and run right through to Chicago without changing.

If they must go, we'll see them off, won't we, Steve?" with a glance for the silent husband, "and bring them books and chocolates and flowers?"

What was left for Annesley to say? Short of informing the kindly couple that they were not wanted and had better mind their own business, and refusing to decide upon a train, she could do nothing except thank Mrs.

Waldo.

"Perhaps," she thought, "they will forget, and things will settle themselves between now and then. Or else I shall patch up some excuse."

When the invitation was given, the _Minnewanda_ was still four days distant from New York; but the four days, though seeming long, were not long enough to produce the prayed-for inspiration. Mrs. Waldo referred to the journey whenever she saw Annesley, so there was no hope of her scheme being forgotten; and the nearer loomed the new world, the more clearly the girl was forced to see the thing to which a few hasty words had committed her.

She and Knight had staterooms adjoining, with a door between. That was to save appearances, and it was no one's business that the door was never opened. In reality, they might as well have had the length of the ship between their cabins.

Annesley kept to her own quarters as constantly as her jangled nerves would allow; but the sea was provokingly smooth, and she proved to be a good sailor. She felt as if she might become hysterical, and perhaps do something foolish, if she tried the experiment of shutting herself up from morning to night. She paced the deck, therefore, and was dimly grateful to Knight because he seemed always to be in the smoking room when she took her walks.

At meals, however, unless she ate in her stateroom, they could not avoid each other; and again she felt cause for grat.i.tude because Knight had accepted the Waldos' suggestion that they should take a table for four.

In spite of the Waldos' unwelcome attentions, their society was preferable--infinitely preferable--to a duet with Knight.

They talked on such occasions; and the sharpest-eared scandal mongers could have guessed at nothing strange from their manner. But, save at these luncheons and these dinners, they scarcely spoke to each other.

Knight took his cue from Annesley. After the night when he had knelt at her feet and begged her forgiveness he had never forced himself upon his wife. He seemed to have a dread of being thought an intruder, and even withdrew his eyes guiltily if the girl caught him looking at her with the old wistful gaze to whose mystery she had now a tragic clue.

Annesley hoped that, before they landed, Knight might make some opportunity to discuss ways and means of getting out of the dilemma created by the Waldos. But he never attempted to begin a conversation with her, and she put off the evil moment from day to day, telling herself that there was time yet, and he had probably solved the problem--he, who was a specialist in solving problems.

Loving the man no longer, her heart seeming to die anew whenever she even thought of him, there remained still a ghost of her old trust; an almost resentful confidence that he who was so clever, so hideously clever, would be capable of overcoming any difficulty.

"I told him that I'd go with him on the ship, and that then we must part," she a.s.sured herself, lying awake at night, wondering feverishly what was to happen in New York. "He said we'd see about all that later, but he must know by the way I act that I haven't changed my mind. He will have to get me out of the trouble about the train."

The girl, in mapping the future, had thought of herself as being a governess for American children. She did not know many things which governesses ought to know, but if the children were small enough, she did not see why she mightn't do very well.

She could sing and play as nine girls out of ten could. She had been told that she had quite a Parisian accent in French; and as for arithmetic and geography and other alarming things which children ought to know and grown-up people forget, one could teach them with the proper books.

Besides, she had heard that Americans liked to have English governesses for their children; it was considered "smart."

She would go to an agent, and it ought to be easy to find a place in the country or suburbs. It must not be New York, for fear of some chance meeting with the Waldos. But if worst came to worst, and because of those everlasting Waldos she had to get into the train with Knight, she would get out again at the first good-sized place where it stopped. There must be agencies for governesses and companions in every large town. One would serve as well as another.

As for money, she knew that she must have some to go on with until she could begin to earn. So far she had been forced to let Knight pay her way, as he said, out of the "good" fund. Her coming with him had been for his sake, and to spare him from gossip. For herself, she was in no mood to care what people said.

But now, in sailing to America as his wife, she had done all that she had ever promised to do. He would have to arrange things as best he could.

Somehow the right time did not come to ask him what he intended to do; for at the table, or if occasionally they were on deck together, they were never alone.

The ship docked late in the morning, and Knight was busy with the custom-house men. It was noon when their luggage had been examined and could be sent away; and the Waldos, under letter "W," were released at the same moment that the Nelson Smiths, under "S," were able to escape.

"Let's have lunch at the dear old Waldorf, our pet place and almost namesake," proposed Mrs. Waldo. "You _owe_ us that, after all the times you entertained us in London; and you really see New York in the restaurant. You've nothing to do till your train goes this afternoon, and your husband can get your reservations right there in the hotel."

Annesley's eyes went doubtfully to Knight's, and met a steady look which seemed to say that he had made up his mind to some course.

"Very well, we shall be delighted," she said, resignedly. "Shall we meet at the--Waldorf--is it?--at luncheon time?"

"Oh, _my_, no!" exclaimed the older woman, radiant in the joy of home coming. "It'll be lunch time in an hour. You _must_ taxi up to Sixty-first Street with us, and just _glance_ at the house, or we shall be _so_ hurt. Then we'll spin you down to the hotel again in no time. I wish we could feed you at home, but nothing will be in shape there till to-night."

There was still no chance for Annesley to ask Knight the long-delayed question. They saw and duly admired the Waldos' house, and took another taxi to the hotel, the Nelson Smiths' luggage having been "expressed"

to the Grand Central, to await them. Steve Waldo tried to engage his favourite table, and Mrs. Waldo suggested that it would be a good moment to get the reservations.

Again Annesley's startled glance turned to Knight. Again his eyes answered with decision. This time there was no longer any doubt in the girl's mind. The Waldos, persistent to the last, would compel her to leave New York with her husband.

But whatever happened she would part with him forever before darkness fell. "At the first big town," she told herself once more.

They were at the desired table, which Steve had secured, when Knight rejoined them, announcing that he had his tickets.

"I hope you were able to get a nice stateroom?" fussed Mrs. Waldo. "Such a _long_ journey, and Mrs. Smith's first day in our country!"

"Yes. Everything satisfactory," said Knight, in the calm way which Annesley had once admired.

Mrs. Waldo would have asked more questions if at that moment her eyes had not lighted upon a couple at an adjacent table.

"_Well_, of all _things_!" she cried, jumping up to meet a pretty girl and a spruce young man, who had also jumped up. "George and Kitty Mason!

What a coincidence!"

There were kissings and handshakings. Then Mr. and Mrs. Mason were introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. They, it seemed, had been married in the early winter, just as Knight and Annesley had been. And to add to the strangeness of the coincidence, which drew birdlike exclamations from Jean Waldo, George and Kitty were starting for Kansas City that afternoon. They were going by the same train in which the Nelson Smiths would travel.

"Why, you'll be together for _two days_!" shrieked Jean. "For goodness'

sake, look at your reservations, and see if you're in the same car!"

George Mason pulled out his tickets. "We're in a boudoir car all the way," he said. "We start in one called 'Elena.' After Chicago we're in 'Alvarado.'" Knight followed suit, not ungraciously, though without enthusiasm. Annesley's heart was tapping like a hammer in her breast. She felt giddy. There was a mist before her eyes; yet she saw clearly enough to see that there were two railway tickets, alike in every way, even to what seemed their extraordinary length. A flashing glance gave her the name of the last station, at the end. It was in Texas.

And their two staterooms were also in "Elena" and "Alvarado."

CHAPTER XXIII

THE THIN WALL

"How _dared_ he buy a ticket for me all the way to Texas!" Annesley asked herself. "But I might have known how it would be," she thought. "Why expect a man like him to keep a promise?"

Yet she _had_ expected it. She constantly found herself expecting to find truth and greatness in the man who was a thief--who had been a thief for half his life. It was strange. But everything about him was strange; and stranger than the rest was his silent power over all who came near him, even over herself, who knew now what he was. It would have seemed that after his confession there would be no further room for disappointment concerning his character; yet she was disappointed that his "plan," on which she had been counting, had been nothing more original than to break his word and "see what she would do."

After luncheon, when the Waldos and Masons became absorbed for a few minutes in talk, she turned a look on her husband. "I saw the tickets,"

she said.