mentor to the men, while they took their way across the Quay Rosaglio
and along the narrow Rue Paglione. They came out soon upon the Promenade
des Anglais, thronged, in spite of the time of year, with foreigners of
many nationalities. Delicate French ladies in the latest fashions from
Paris, were here escorted by anæmic gentlemen looking absurdly out of
place in evening dress; vulgar Teutons in baggy trousers with impossibly
dowdy wives, legitimate evolutions from generations of sauerkraut and
beer; now and then an unmistakable "remittance man" from England, with
puffy eye-sockets and brutal face, accompanied by the companion paid by
some noble family to take charge of the prodigal till he drank himself
into a dishonored grave; the British cleric, too, with the inevitable
string of hopelessly dull daughters tagging after him like bobs on a
kite; swarthy Roumanians or Swabians; Russians deep-eyed and surrounded
by an almost palpable atmosphere of haughtiness; in a word, the
cosmopolitan crowd of a fashionable promenade of Southern Europe.
Through such a throng Jack and Jerry made their way toward the centre of
the foreign element of the better sort, the Hôtel des Anglais.
As they reached their destination, Jack became visibly excited, and made
his way to the office with an air of determination vastly amusing to his
companion. He was on the point of asking for Mrs. Fairhew when he was
startled by a voice behind him.
"Why, Mr. Castleport!"
Her voice! Jack spun around like a teetotum.
"Katrine--Miss Marchfield!" he cried. "How do you do? I--I-- You know, I
came here--this minute--I was just going to ask if you were here."
"Well," laughed the lady, whose heightened color and shining eyes were
evidences of a pleasant excitement, "you see I am.--Oh, Mr. Taberman,
how do you do? I'm delighted to see you."
"How are you?" responded Jerry, taking her slim hand in his own hard
paw. "It's awfully jolly to see you here. How's Mrs. Fairhew? Well, I
hope."
"Yes, thank you," answered Katrine. "She's never better than when she's
traveling, you know."
Miss Katrine Marchfield was one of those girls who, though not
beautiful, are more than pretty. She was too attractive to be fairly
disposed of by being credited with mere prettiness; yet she had not
fully that quality, august and indefinable, which confers upon the
fortunate possessor real beauty. She was slightly above medium height,
and could now, having been out for a couple of winters, carry herself
exquisitely. A beautiful figure could not have been denied her by the
most envious rival; and her fairly broad shoulders, always drawn well
back, gave her a charming air of delicately athletic power. Her face, at
first merely piquant,--perhaps from the slight arching of her eyebrows
and the wholly delightful way in which she carried her head,--showed at
a second glance, by the height of the forehead, the clear chiseling of
the features, and the intelligent sympathy of the gray eyes, a true and
sensitive nobility of nature which gave to her countenance a charm at
once fine and abiding. Her eyes Jack--and for that matter a score of
adoring youths--considered her greatest beauty. They were at times
thoughtful, at others sparkling with vivacity. Now and then they might
be surprised in a quickly vanishing expression wistful or even almost
sad, as if some deeper self looked out but did not will to be seen. A
mouth small, the upper lip a trifle fuller than the under; a nose almost
Greek; and above the high forehead a cloud of dusky brown hair,--these
physical attributes, with a sympathetic temperament and a mind sensible
yet deliciously feminine, a pleasant voice and a delightful laugh, had
won for Katrine Marchfield more conquests than could be boasted by many
an older woman of really marked beauty.
Her relations with Jack Castleport, whether she had admitted it to
herself or not, had for some time been greatly different from those she
held with any one else. They had met at a dinner shortly after Katrine,
for two years doubly orphaned, had come from Philadelphia to live with
her widowed aunt, Mrs. Fairhew, in Boston. After meeting Katrine,
Castleport had taken to calling at Mrs. Fairhew's, at first nominally to
see the aunt and later frankly to see the niece. He was at this time a
Junior at Harvard, and a popular man on both sides of the river; the
acquaintance during his Senior year had ripened into friendship, and the
most important feature of Class Day for Jack was the presence of Miss
Marchfield; he had thought more of her in the audience than of the
dignitaries on the platform when on Commencement Day he had taken his
degree; and what with dancing with Katrine, driving with Katrine, and
dreaming of Katrine for the winter which lay between Harvard and this
summer, he had come to measure the uses of life chiefly as they might
help to make her care for him or to reveal to him what were her feelings
toward him.
For a moment or two the three Americans stood talking near the desk of
the hotel. Then Miss Marchfield stepped forward and dropped into the
mail-box some letters she was carrying.
"If you'll excuse me one minute," she said, "I'll send for Aunt Anne,
and see about dinner. Of course you'll stay to dine?"
"Delighted," Jack said. "That is," he added, "if it's all right for us
in these clothes. You see, we stupidly came off without evening togs."
"That's all right," Katrine returned; and went away smiling.
Jack looked after her with an expression which made Jerry smile.
"Gad! She's looking ten times better than when she left home," Tab said
in an undertone.
"She always does," the captain responded with fervent fatuousness. "She
can't help it, you know. God bless me," he added with equal fervor and
absurdity, "it's worth coming over steerage just to hear her voice!"
"Well, you _are_ hit!" commented his friend; and then, seeing a shade
come over Jack's face, he laid his hand on his friend's shoulder, and
added: "Don't mind my chaff, old man. I really wish you all kinds of
luck."
Jack gave him a flash of sympathy and understanding, and then turned his
head aside.
"Pity we haven't got evening slops," Jerry remarked, by way of changing
the conversation; "but I suppose we'll do, seeing the way we came over,
and all that."
"I'm not worrying about clothes," returned the captain of the Merle.
"Men wear all sorts of things traveling. I'm thinking what Mrs.
Fairhew'll say about our being here in the yacht without Uncle
Randolph."
"What's your game if we're quizzed about the President?"
"I'm hanged if I really know," Jack returned; "but I've got to pull it
through somehow, and you'll have to follow my lead."
He had time to say no more, for Katrine came forward to rejoin them, and
before she had reached the friends, Mrs. Fairhew appeared.
Mrs. Fairhew was a striking woman of some forty years, of medium
height, with quick and alert bearing, with the unmistakable air of a
well-bred woman of the world. A widow of some six years, she still,
except upon occasions of particular state, wore black,--from devotional
feeling, according to her friends, and, according to the captious,
because it so well became her. Between her and her niece existed a
subtle and baffling likeness, but in what it consisted one would have
found it well-nigh impossible to say. Of good birth, perfect breeding,
and a wide social experience, she possessed also an intellect naturally
good and improved by careful training; while for her rare good taste she
was perhaps equally indebted to nature and to a somewhat old-fashioned
training in whatever is best in the English classics. With these good
gifts and graces and a perfect poise, she combined whatever is most
admirable in the best type of American gentlewoman.
"Mr. Castleport," she said, giving that gentleman her hand with gracious
cordiality, "this is an unexpected pleasure! How do you do, Mr.
Taberman. I am very glad to see you both."
Greetings were exchanged, and then, after a moment's chatting, the men
gave over their hats to an attendant, and the party went into the
dining-room. On account of the season, the number of people at the
hotel was comparatively small, and the huge _salle à manger_, with its
slim pilasters and its long French windows, its tubs of palmetto and
oleander, might have impressed Jack and Jerry as rather barn-like and
forsaken had either been in the mood to find anything in their
surroundings unsatisfactory. The four made their way to a small square
table in an alcove, behind which stood a tall, round-shouldered waiter
in an antediluvian dress-suit. Jack put Katrine into her chair and was
placed next her, and with much pleasant talk the party began dinner.
The fish was served before any mention was made of the President. Then
Jack suddenly found himself in dangerous waters, owing to a random
remark from Mrs. Fairhew.
"And Mr. Drake?" she asked. "What a pity he didn't come too. I suppose
he couldn't get away."
"Not on the Merle," responded Jack. "It takes a long time to cross on
such a small boat."
Jerry watched his friend closely to detect signs of embarrassment, but
was able to perceive nothing more than a faint flush in the brown
cheeks. He recalled the captain's words about following his lead, and at
this point, in his own picturesque phraseology, "shoved in his oar."
"Besides," he said glibly, with a secret mischievous glee at feeling
Jack's anxious eye upon him, "it's so hard to get the President away
from his everlasting bridge,--_Pons Asinorum_, I call it. When we left
North Haven he was so absorbed in his game that he didn't even see us
off."
"I didn't know he was so attached to cards," Mrs. Fairhew commented,
with a smile. "As you have the yacht, Mr. Taberman, you should at least
speak well of the bridge that has brought you over."
"Did Mr. Drake put you two in charge of his sailing-master, Mr.
Taberman?" asked Katrine, with a suspicion of a glance at Jack, as if
she meant to tease him.
"No," returned Jerrold. "Jack and I did the navigating; he's a past
master, I assure you."
"Yes," rejoined Katrine, "but I should have fancied he would have had
some one that was--Well, some one with a professional experience, you
know."
"If the idea struck him he didn't mention it," put in Jack. "If it
occurred to him after we left, I can't tell, as I haven't heard from
him."
"Haven't heard from him!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairhew in mild surprise.
"Haven't you been to your bankers?"
"Haven't been anywhere except at this hotel," Jack returned sturdily;
and then added: "It was after bank hours when we came ashore."
"Of course you cabled him your arrival?"
"Mercy! I might have done that, mightn't I? Upon my word, it never
occurred to me."
"Thoughtful of you," Katrine commented demurely.
"Well, I did get some letters ready to send to him," Jack protested,
while Jerry grinned broadly.
"Got them ready! How like a man!" laughed Mrs. Fairhew. "A woman would
have had them ready before she saw land, and had them mailed by the time
the anchor was down."
"So did Jack have them ready," put in Jerry imperturbably.
"Then it's doubly dreadful that they are not posted," retorted Mrs.
Fairhew.
Jack leaned forward and settled a pink candle-shade that threatened a
conflagration, and by a comment on the inflammability of these table
ornaments managed to bring the conversation into safer channels.
In the course of the talk it transpired that the ladies had no very
definite plans, except that Mrs. Fairhew had determined, despite the
heat of the Italian summer, to visit an old school friend, whose
husband was vice-consul at Naples.
"I fancy," she said, "that we shall go straight to Genoa. I'm going to
make Katrine work, and to see that she does her duty by the galleries
and things,--Florence and all the Tuscan cities, you know. Then Rome and
the Campagna. It will be dreadfully hard on us both, I dare say, but we
shall be upheld by the proud consciousness of doing our best."
She made a little gesture of comical despair, and her niece laughed.
"It would doubtless be intolerable to either of you without the other,"
said Jerry in one of his boyishly elaborate attempts to be gallant.
Mrs. Fairhew regarded him with a glance well-bred though quizzical, but
evidently perceived that he was completely sincere in his desire to say
something agreeable, and smiled, although less broadly than Katrine, who
showed in her amusement a row of beautiful teeth.
"Won't it be pretty hot in the south?" asked Jack. "I've never been in
Naples in summer, nor south of Rome, in fact; but I've always been told
that it is too torrid for foreigners."
"Oh, we are used to it," Mrs. Fairhew returned. "Besides, it is after
all the English that have spread the stories about Italy's being so
hot. They've been kept at so low a temperature all their lives by their
horrid fogs that they're the greatest babies imaginable about climate."
"I fancy you're right," assented Jack. "At all events, as you are used
to all climates, and as Miss Marchfield comes from Philadelphia"--
"Oh, but I've never been there in summer," Katrine broke in. "And,
besides, I've lived in Boston so long that"--
"That you can stand anything?" interrupted Jerry in turn.
"I think I can," laughed Katrine.
Mrs. Fairhew toyed with her coffee-spoon thoughtfully a moment; then she
looked up at Jack.
"Where are you bound, Mr. Castleport?" she asked.
"I don't know," Jack answered quite frankly. "I think we shall probably
coast along--Monaco, Bordighera, and Mentone, you know; and then go to
Genoa. Then perhaps we'll see Elba and Naples and Capri. After that we
must start for home. Nothing is settled with us."
"I detest Monaco," Mrs. Fairhew said, with some irrelevance.
"Why?" inquired Jack, with a smile. "Does the gambling offend the
Puritan that is in every Bostonian?"
"It certainly does," was the reply, "though my aversion isn't entirely a
matter of conscience. I bought it on the spot for a thousand francs."
"That was awfully dear," remarked Jerry. "It would have been much
cheaper to be born with it."
"As in your case?" asked the lady, raising her eyebrows a little and
smiling.
"Oh, one can't inherit all the virtues!" responded Taberman with the
greatest seriousness.
"Most certainly not," laughed Mrs. Fairhew. "At least I had not that
good fortune."
"Nature left you one to get for yourself, because she knew you'd do it
so easily," Tab said gallantly.
"Really," cried the lady, "you are evidently determined to overwhelm me,
Mr. Taberman. Compliments drop from your lips like the traditional
showers of pearls."
"There are frogs too in that fairy story," suggested Jack.
"Oh, Mr. Castleport," declared Katrine, coming to the rescue of Jerry,
"that is simply brutal."
"Of course it's brutal," retorted Jack, willfully twisting her meaning,
"but he keeps it up all the same."
Jerry tried to defend himself by charging Jack with never being able to
appreciate a compliment unless he were himself the subject, and so they
drifted lightly from one bit of good-natured raillery to another. Now
and then a more serious note was struck, and through it all the spirit
of the party was more kindly and friendly than could be pictured by any
words in which they might have tried to express it.
When dinner was over, they went for a short stroll on the promenade. It
naturally happened that Mrs. Fairhew walked with Taberman, and that Jack
and Katrine strolled on together some little distance behind.
"You don't know," said Jack, for the fourth or fifth time that evening,
but with an evident sincerity which might have excused even further
repetition, "how good it is to see you again."
"Yes," Katrine responded with a carelessness too complete to be entirely
genuine, "I suppose that it must be pleasant for you to see any one
after being cooped up in a boat for five or six weeks."
"That's not at all what I meant," he returned pointedly, and with a
little vexation.
"Perhaps not; but it's practically what you said."
"I said it gave me pleasure to see you," Jack insisted, with a daring
emphasis on the final pronoun.
"Oh, a compliment!" she exclaimed, as if the thought had just struck
her.
"You may take it as such," he replied rather grumpily. "It's the
feminine attitude toward everything."
Katrine was silent a moment, examining with an appearance of the
greatest interest the ground at her feet.
"How queer you are this evening," she said at length.
"Am I?" he retorted. "Well, I suppose if I'm only amusing into the
bargain that's all that's necessary."
Another brief interval of silence intervened, and then he remarked
blunderingly:--
"I suppose it makes very little difference to you whether you see any
one while you're here."
"What an atrocious reflection on my efforts to be entertaining," she
laughed.
"Oh," he said savagely, "that's a nice meaning to twist out of my words!
You know I don't mean that."
"You seem to have some difficulty in saying what you do mean this
evening," Katrine commented mockingly.
Jack laughed uneasily, with that absurdly tragic air possible only to a
young man much in love.
"See here," he asked explosively, "why do you think I came over here?"
"I'm sure I can't say, Mr. Castleport," she replied, with a touch of
coolness. "I never was good at riddles. Don't you think we had better
catch up with Aunt Anne and Mr. Taberman?"
And greatly to his own disgust, and perhaps, could he but have known the
truth, to the secret disappointment of Katrine, Jack acted upon her
suggestion without a word more.
As they were taking leave of the ladies at the hotel a little later,
Jerry broke out with a clumsily worded invitation that they should on
the morrow go for a sail on the Merle.
"You are really very good, Mr. Taberman," Mrs. Fairhew said, "but I 'm
afraid it's only half an invitation, for Mr. Castleport doesn't second
it."
"I certainly do," Jack responded. "I was hesitating only because I
didn't think the yacht, just in from an ocean voyage, was exactly in
trim. I wasn't sure it was fair to invite you."
"I think we can put up with anything that is amiss in that line," Mrs.
Fairhew answered, smiling. "What do you say, Katrine? Would you like to
go?"
"Very much, Aunt Anne," her niece said, with a quick little glance at
Jack, a sort of bird-twinkle of the eyes, "if we shall not be too
intrusive."
"Capital!" cried Jack, whose good nature had returned, and who was
anxious to make amends for his fit of pique. "I'll call for you in the
morning at about noon, if that will suit you. We shall want a little
time to get the yacht in trim."
"Any time after ten will do for us," Mrs. Fairhew answered. "Don't, I
beg, bother too much about making things neat. I know how necessary
disorder is to the real happiness of you men."
[Illustration: Decoration]
Chapter Seven
LUNCHEON ABOARD
Noon.
The famous promenade was deserted, and all the foreigners who were able
were safe in the coolest retirement of their little pink and white
villas. A warm off-shore breeze wandered through the silent streets of
Nice, came to the water-front, and there, as if alarmed by the noise and
bustle of the few sailors and fishermen whom the heat had not driven
from the quays, grew brisker and fled away southward over the sea.
Down one of the smaller streets between the Hôtel des Anglais and the
Porta Vecchia, Mrs. Fairhew and her niece, escorted by Jack, were making
their way. Miss Marchfield, dressed in a simple gown of white, looked
deliciously rosy under her red sunshade. Mrs. Fairhew walked in the
narrow strip of shadow next the wall; Katrine was between her and Jack,
who, owing to the straitness of the sidewalk, picked his way--to the
evident amusement of Miss Marchfield--along the kennel. As Katrine was
fond of him, she paradoxically took unfailing delight in seeing him
humiliated, always provided, of course, that no one other than herself
was the author of the discomfort. The three were nearing the water-front
when the elder lady broke a silence of some minutes' duration.
"I hope the yacht is not very much farther, Mr. Castleport," she
ventured.
"No," Jack answered, "she's at the foot of the next street. 'Twas
awfully stupid of me not to have got hold of a fiacre, but it seems so
short a distance for me to walk that I didn't think."
"I wonder why a yacht is always _she_ and _her_," observed Katrine. "Why
not _it_?"
"Oh, the reason's plain enough," was Jack's answer. "Yachts have two
characteristics that are thoroughly feminine,--caprice and beauty."
"It is good of you to temper the aspersion on my sex with a compliment,"
Katrine returned.
"It is obliging in me," Jack assented; "but politeness requires that I
should stretch a point, since you are my guest."
"I am sorry to put you to the inconvenience," she said.
"Of being polite? Thank you!"
"Do you know, I'm sorry that your uncle is not here, Mr. Castleport,"
said Mrs. Fairhew, as they turned the corner. "It is all very well to
have an old woman for a chaperon, but it is rather hard on you and Mr.
Taberman not to have some older man to talk to me."
"Oh, you mustn't depreciate your charm at the expense of your age," Jack
cried.
"Very pretty," laughed Mrs. Fairhew; "but your uncle"--
"Ouch!" exclaimed Jack, making a fine show of stubbing the toe of his
rubber-soled shoe against a projecting paving-stone.
"What did you say?" inquired Katrine, with an air of mild interest.
"Nothing. I stubbed my toe on that beastly stone," answered Jack, with a
feeling of satisfaction that the President was once more shelved. "Now,"
he added, "the boat is just here."
A small but motley crowd was scattered along the water-front: bronzed
fishermen, with close-cropped hair and long earrings, carrying osier
baskets of shining sardines from their boats to their little carts; fat,
raucous-voiced women, with red or yellow scarves pinned across their
bosoms; lean-shanked 'longshoremen, too old for the sea this many a day;
brown sailors, picking their way among the piles of iridescent
fish,--liver-colored squid and flabby octopi; half-naked boys,
outrageous and beautiful; with a miscellaneous sprinkling of human
flotsam and jetsam, as if the sea had cast them up battered and damaged.
Over all floated a distracting hubbub, made up of the rattling of
cart-wheels on the flags, the shrill cries of the venders, the calls of
the lads, the songs of the fishermen, and a medley of oaths, jests,
curses, directions, questions, and all sorts of vociferous shoutings.
Both the ladies drew closer to Jack, who, masterfully making his way
through the press, piloted them across the quay. At the landing-steps
they found Jerry and the Merle's cutter, the object of the staring
curiosity and admiration of the wharf-rats and the loungers of the
docks.
"Good-morning, Mr. Taberman. Have we kept you waiting long?" asked Mrs.
Fairhew.
Tab had been broiling for half an hour, but was too courteous to say so.
He responded cheerily, then helped the ladies aboard, and established
them in the sheets. Jack took the tiller-lines, word was given, and the
men fell to pulling. The breeze was fresher and cooler on the water; it
made the ripples dance and glitter in the sunshine, and kept playfully
curling the ensign at the stern of the cutter about Jack's head.
According to previous instructions, the watch on the Merle got up anchor
on seeing the cutter leave the quay, and were now holding the yacht in
the wind's eye. When the boat came alongside, the ladies were handed
aboard, the guest-salute was fired, the cutter was hoisted to the
davits, and the yacht was paid off.
They ran out past the old battery and the lighthouse on the outer mole,
and coasted along to the westward. In the bright sunlight the numerous
dwellings--villas, hotels, and _pensions_--showing among the green
foliage of the trees looked very gay and attractive. The sea was dimpled
with laughter. The breeze, although it gave promise of freshening, was
now only strong enough to make the schooner, which was carrying all
sail, heel gracefully as she slipped along. The day was perfect for
light sailing.
At one o'clock old Gonzague, his linen jacket dazzling in its whiteness
and his snowy hair brushed back from his high forehead, served luncheon.
Jack sat by Mrs. Fairhew on the starboard side, with Katrine and Jerry
opposite. Gonzague had outdone himself for the occasion. A Provençal by
birth, he knew the culinary value of all the wares--to foreign eyes so
puzzlingly useless and hopelessly inedible--displayed in Mediterranean
markets. The dishes which appeared on the table made Jack and Tab stare:
fresh sardines broiled and served with some mysterious sauce of which
they tried in vain to guess the ingredients; something which Katrine
pronounced delicious until she discovered it to be cuttlefish, and then
could not be prevailed upon to taste further; a salad which had lettuce
as its obvious foundation, but which was fragrant with a dozen strange
and piquant herbs; ripe citrons and limes; figs and bullaces; and a
wonderful fruity sherbet for dessert.
"Do you generally fare like this on board the Merle?" Mrs. Fairhew
inquired. "If you do, I should like to come here to board while you are
in harbor."
"Not much," returned Jerry bluntly. "This is all Gonzague's gallantry to
you ladies. As a rule he gives us only pork and beans."