The _Leofric_ was three days out, and therefore half-way over the
ocean, for she was a fast boat, but so far Griggs had not been called
upon to hinder Mr. Van Torp from annoying Margaret. Mr. Van Torp had
not been on deck; in fact, he had not been seen at all since he had
disappeared into his cabin a quarter of an hour before the steamer had
left the pier. There was a good deal of curiosity about him amongst
the passengers, as there would have been about the famous Primadonna
if she had not come punctually to every meal, and if she had not been
equally regular in spending a certain number of hours on deck every
day.
At first every one was anxious to have what people call a 'good look'
at her, because all the usual legends were already repeated about her
wherever she went. It was said that she was really an ugly woman of
thirty-five who had been married to a Spanish count of twice that
age, and that he had died leaving her penniless, so that she had been
obliged to support herself by singing. Others were equally sure that
she was a beautiful escaped nun, who had been forced to take the veil
in a convent in Seville by cruel parents, but who had succeeded in
getting herself carried off by a Polish nobleman disguised as a
priest. Every one remembered the marvellous voice that used to sing so
high above all the other nuns, behind the lattice on Sunday afternoons
at the church of the Dominican Convent. That had been the voice of
Margarita da Cordova, and she could never go back to Spain, for if she
did the Inquisition would seize upon her, and she would be tortured
and probably burnt alive to encourage the other nuns.
This was very romantic, but unfortunately there was a man who said he
knew the plain truth about her, and that she was just a good-looking
Irish girl whose father used to play the flute at a theatre in Dublin,
and whose mother kept a sweetshop in Queen Street. The man who knew
this had often seen the shop, which was conclusive.
Margaret showed herself daily and the myths lost value, for every
one saw that she was neither an escaped Spanish nun nor the gifted
offspring of a Dublin flute-player and a female retailer of
bull's-eyes and butterscotch, but just a handsome, healthy,
well-brought-up young Englishwoman, who called herself Miss Donne in
private life.
But gossip, finding no hold upon her, turned and rent Mr. Van Torp,
who dwelt within his tent like Achilles, but whether brooding or
sea-sick no one was ever to know. The difference of opinion about him
was amazing. Some said he had no heart, since he had not even waited
for the funeral of the poor girl who was to have been his wife.
Others, on the contrary, said that he was broken-hearted, and that
his doctor had insisted upon his going abroad at once, doubtless
considering, as the best practitioners often do, that it is wisest
to send a patient who is in a dangerous condition to distant shores,
where some other doctor will get the credit of having killed him or
driven him mad. Some said that Mr. Van Torp was concerned in the
affair of that Chinese loan, which of course explained why he was
forced to go to Europe in spite of the dreadful misfortune that had
happened to him. The man who knew everything hinted darkly that Mr.
Van Torp was not really solvent, and that he had perhaps left the
country just at the right moment.
'That is nonsense,' said Miss More to Margaret in an undertone, for
they had both heard what had just been said.
Miss More was the lady in charge of the pretty deaf child, and the
latter was curled up in the next chair with a little piece of crochet
work. Margaret had soon found out that Miss More was a very nice
woman, after her own taste, who was given neither to flattery nor to
prying, the two faults from which celebrities are generally made to
suffer most by fellow-travellers who make their acquaintance. Miss
More was evidently delighted to find herself placed on deck next to
the famous singer, and Margaret was so well satisfied that the deck
steward had already received a preliminary tip, with instructions to
keep the chairs together during the voyage.
'Yes,' said Margaret, in answer to Miss More's remark. 'I don't
believe there is the least reason for thinking that Mr. Van Torp is
not immensely rich. Do you know him?'
'Yes.'
Miss More did not seem inclined to enlarge upon the fact, and her face
was thoughtful after she had said the one word; so was Margaret's tone
when she answered:
'So do I.'
Each of the young women understood that the other did not care to
talk of Mr. Van Torp. Margaret glanced sideways at her neighbour and
wondered vaguely whether the latter's experience had been at all like
her own, but she could not see anything to make her think so. Miss
More had a singularly pleasant expression and a face that made one
trust her at once, but she was far from beautiful, and would hardly
pass for pretty beside such a good-looking woman as Margaret, who
after all was not what people call an out-and-out beauty. It was odd
that the quiet lady-like teacher should have answered monosyllabically
in that tone. She felt Margaret's sidelong look of inquiry, and turned
half round after glancing at little Ida, who was very busy with her
crochet.
'I'm afraid you may have misunderstood me,' she said, smiling. 'If I
did not say any more it is because he himself does not wish people to
talk of what he does.'
'I assure you, I'm not curious,' Margaret answered, smiling too. 'I'm
sorry if I looked as if I were.'
'No--you misunderstood me, and it was a little my fault. Mr. Van Torp
is doing something very, very kind which it was impossible that I
should not know of, and he has asked me not to tell any one.'
'I see,' Margaret answered. 'Thank you for telling me. I am glad to
know that he--'
She checked herself. She detested and feared the man, for reasons of
her own, and she found it hard to believe that he could do something
'very, very kind' and yet not wish it to be known. He did not strike
her as being the kind of person who would go out of his way to hide
his light under a bushel. Yet Miss More's tone had been quiet and
earnest. Perhaps he had employed her to teach some poor deaf and dumb
child, like little Ida. Her words seemed to imply this, for she had
said that it had been impossible that she should not know; that is,
he had been forced to ask her advice or help, and her help and advice
could only be considered indispensable where her profession as a
teacher of the deaf and dumb was concerned.
Miss More was too discreet to ask the question which Margaret's
unfinished sentence suggested, but she would not let the speech pass
quite unanswered.
'He is often misjudged,' she said. 'In business he may be what many
people say he is. I don't understand business! But I have known him to
help people who needed help badly and who never guessed that he even
knew their names.'
'You must be right,' Margaret answered.
She remembered the last words of the girl who had died in the
manager's room at the theatre. There had been a secret. The secret
was that Mr. Van Torp had done the thing, whatever it was. She had
probably not known what she was saying, but it had been on her mind to
say that Mr. Van Torp had done it, the man she was to have married.
Margaret's first impression had been that the thing done must have
been something very bad, because she herself disliked the man so
much; but Miss More knew him, and since he often did 'very, very kind
things,' it was possible that the particular action of which the dying
girl was thinking might have been a charitable one; possibly he had
confided the secret to her. Margaret smiled rather cruelly at her own
superior knowledge of the world--yes, he had told the girl about that
'secret' charity in order to make a good impression on her! Perhaps
that was his favourite method of interesting women; if it was, he
had not invented it. Margaret thought she could have told Miss More
something which would have thrown another light on Mr. Van Torp's
character.
Her reflections had led her back to the painful scene at the theatre,
and she remembered the account of it the next day, and the fact that
the girl's name had been Ida. To change the subject she asked her
neighbour an idle question.
'What is the little girl's full name?' she inquired.
'Ida Moon,' answered Miss More.
'Moon?' Margaret turned her head sharply. 'May I ask if she is any
relation of the California Senator who died last year?'
'She is his daughter,' said Miss More quietly.
Margaret laid one hand on the arm of her chair and leaned forward a
little, so as to see the child better.
'Really!' she exclaimed, rather deliberately, as if she had chosen
that particular word out of a number that suggested themselves.
'Really!' she repeated, still more slowly, and then leaned back again
and looked at the grey waves.
She remembered the notice of Miss Bamberger's death. It had described
the deceased as the only child of Hannah Moon by her former marriage
with Isidore Bamberger. But Hannah Moon, as Margaret happened to know,
was now the widow of Senator Alvah Moon. Therefore the little deaf
child was the half-sister of the girl who had died at the theatre in
Margaret's arms and had been christened by the same name. Therefore,
also, she was related to Margaret, whose mother had been the
California magnate's cousin.
'How small the world is!' Margaret said in a low voice as she looked
at the grey waves.
She wondered whether little Ida had ever heard of her half-sister, and
what Miss More knew about it all.
'How old is Mrs. Moon?' she asked.
'I fancy she must be forty, or near that. I know that she was nearly
thirty years younger than the Senator, but I never saw her.'
'You never saw her?' Margaret was surprised.
'No,' Miss More answered. 'She is insane, you know. She went quite
mad soon after the little girl was born. It was very painful for
the Senator. Her delusion was that he was her divorced husband, Mr.
Bamberger, and when the child came into the world she insisted that
it should be called Ida, and that she had no other. Mr. Bamberger's
daughter was Ida, you know. It was very strange. Mrs. Moon was
convinced that she was forced to live her life over again, year by
year, as an expiation for something she had done. The doctors say it
is a hopeless case. I really think it shortened the Senator's life.'
Margaret did not think that the world had any cause to complain of
Mrs. Moon on that account.
'So this child is quite alone in the world,' she said.
'Yes. Her father is dead and her mother is in an asylum.'
'Poor little thing!'
The two young women were leaning back in their chairs, their faces
turned towards each other as they talked, and Ida was still busy with
her crochet.
'Luckily she has a sunny nature,' said Miss More. 'She is interested
in everything she sees and hears.' She laughed a little. 'I always
speak of it as hearing,' she added, 'for it is quite as quick, when
there is light enough. You know that, since you have talked with her.'
'Yes. But in the dark, how do you make her understand?'
'She can generally read what I say by laying her hand on my lips; but
besides that, we have the deaf and dumb alphabet, and she can feel my
fingers as I make the letters.'
'You have been with her a long time, I suppose,' Margaret said.
'Since she was three years old.'
'California is a beautiful country, isn't it?' asked Margaret after a
pause.
She put the question idly, for she was thinking how hard it must be to
teach deaf and dumb children. Miss More's answer surprised her.
'I have never been there.'
'But, surely, Senator Moon lived in San Francisco,' Margaret said.
'Yes. But the child was sent to New England when she was three,
and never went back again. We have been living in the country near
Boston.'
'And the Senator used to pay you a visit now and then, of course, when
he was alive. He must have been immensely pleased by the success of
your teaching.'
Though Margaret felt that she was growing more curious about little
Ida than she often was about any one, it did not occur to her that the
question she now suggested, rather than asked, was an indiscreet one,
and she was surprised by her companion's silence. She had already
discovered that Miss More was one of those literally truthful people
who never let an inaccurate statement pass their lips, and who will
be obstinately silent rather than answer a leading question, quite
regardless of the fact that silence is sometimes the most direct
answer that can be given. On the present occasion Miss More said
nothing and turned her eyes to the sea, leaving Margaret to make any
deduction she pleased; but only one suggested itself, namely, that the
deceased Senator had taken very little interest in the child of his
old age, and had felt no affection for her. Margaret wondered whether
he had left her rich, but Miss More's silence told her that she had
already asked too many questions.
She glanced down the long line of passengers beyond Miss More and Ida.
Men, women, and children lay side by side in their chairs, wrapped and
propped like a row of stuffed specimens in a museum. They were not
interesting, Margaret thought; for those who were awake all looked
discontented, and those who were asleep looked either ill or
apoplectic. Perhaps half of them were crossing because they were
obliged to go to Europe for one reason or another; the other half were
going in an aimless way, because they had got into the habit while
they were young, or had been told that it was the right thing to do,
or because their doctors sent them abroad to get rid of them. The grey
light from the waves was reflected on the immaculate and shiny white
paint, and shed a cold glare on the commonplace faces and on the
plaid rugs, and on the vivid magazines which many of the people were
reading, or pretending to read; for most persons only look at the
pictures nowadays, and read the advertisements. A steward in a very
short jacket was serving perfectly unnecessary cups of weak broth on a
big tray, and a great number of the passengers took some, with a vague
idea that the Company's feelings might be hurt if they did not, or
else that they would not be getting their money's worth.
Between the railing and the feet of the passengers, which stuck out
over the foot-rests of their chairs to different lengths according
to the height of the possessors, certain energetic people walked
ceaselessly up and down the deck, sometimes flattening themselves
against the railing to let others who met them pass by, and sometimes,
when the ship rolled a little, stumbling against an outstretched foot
or two without making any elaborate apology for doing so.
Margaret only glanced at the familiar sight, but she made a little
movement of annoyance almost directly, and took up the book that lay
open and face downwards on her knee; she became absorbed in it so
suddenly as to convey the impression that she was not really reading
at all.
She had seen Mr. Van Torp and Paul Griggs walking together and coming
towards her.
The millionaire was shorter than his companion and more clumsily made,
though not by any means a stout man. Though he did not look like a
soldier he had about him the very combative air which belongs to so
many modern financiers of the Christian breed. There was the bull-dog
jaw, the iron mouth, and the aggressive blue eye of the man who takes
and keeps by force rather than by astuteness. Though his face had
lines in it and his complexion was far from brilliant he looked
scarcely forty years of age, and his short, rough, sandy hair had not
yet begun to turn grey.
He was not ugly, but Margaret had always seen something in his face
that repelled her. It was some lack of proportion somewhere, which
she could not precisely define; it was something that was out of
the common type of faces, but that was disquieting rather than
interesting. Instead of wondering what it meant, those who noticed it
wished it were not there.
Margaret was sure she could distinguish his heavy step from Griggs's
when he was near her, but she would not look up from her book till he
stopped and spoke to her.
'Good-morning, Madame Cordova; how are you this morning?' he inquired,
holding out his hand. 'You didn't expect to see me on board, did you?'
His tone was hard and business-like, but he lifted his yachting cap
politely as he held out his hand. Margaret hesitated a moment before
taking it, and when she moved her own he was already holding his out
to Miss More.
'Good-morning, Miss More; how are you this morning?'
Miss More leaned forward and put down one foot as if she would have
risen in the presence of the great man, but he pushed her back by her
hand which he held, and proceeded to shake hands with the little girl.
'Good-morning, Miss Ida; how are you this morning?'
Margaret felt sure that if he had shaken hands with a hundred people
he would have repeated the same words to each without any variation.
She looked at Griggs imploringly, and glanced at his vacant chair on
her right side. He did not answer by sitting down, because the action
would have been too like deliberately telling Mr. Van Torp to go away,
but he began to fold up the chair as if he were going to take it away,
and then he seemed to find that there was something wrong with one of
its joints, and altogether it gave him a good deal of trouble, and
made it quite impossible for the great man to get any nearer to
Margaret.
Little Ida had taken Mr. Van Torp's proffered hand, and had watched
his hard lips when he spoke. She answered quite clearly and rather
slowly, in the somewhat monotonous voice of those born deaf who have
learned to speak.
'I'm very well, thank you, Mr. Van Torp. I hope you are quite well.'
Margaret heard, and saw the child's face, and at once decided that, if
the little girl knew of her own relationship to Ida Bamberger, she was
certainly ignorant of the fact that her half-sister had been engaged
to Mr. Van Torp, when she had died so suddenly less than a week ago.
Little Ida's manner strengthened the impression in Margaret's mind
that the millionaire was having her educated by Miss More. Yet it
seemed impossible that the rich old Senator should not have left her
well provided.
'I see you've made friends with Madame Cordova,' said Mr. Van Torp.
'I'm very glad, for she's quite an old friend of mine too.'
Margaret made a slight movement, but said nothing. Miss More saw her
annoyance and intervened by speaking to the financier.
'We began to fear that we might not see you at all on the voyage,' she
said, in a tone of some concern. 'I hope you have not been suffering
again.'
Margaret wondered whether she meant to ask if he had been sea-sick;
what she said sounded like an inquiry about some more or less frequent
indisposition, though Mr. Van Torp looked as strong as a ploughman.
In answer to the question he glanced sharply at Miss More, and shook
his head.
'I've been too busy to come on deck,' he said, rather curtly, and he
turned to Margaret again.
'Will you take a little walk with me, Madame Cordova?' he asked.
Not having any valid excuse for refusing, Margaret smiled, for the
first time since she had seen him on deck.
'I'm so comfortable!' she answered. 'Don't make me get out of my rug!'
'If you'll take a little walk with me, I'll give you a pretty
present,' said Mr. Van Torp playfully.
Margaret thought it best to laugh and shake her head at this singular
offer. Little Ida had been watching them both.
'You'd better go with him,' said the child gravely. 'He makes lovely
presents.'
'Does he?' Margaret laughed again.
'"A fortress that parleys, or a woman who listens, is lost,'" put in
Griggs, quoting an old French proverb.
'Then I won't listen,' Margaret said.
Mr. Van Torp planted himself more firmly on his sturdy legs, for the
ship was rolling a little.
'I'll give you a book, Madame Cordova,' he said.
His habit of constantly repeating the name of the person with whom
he was talking irritated her extremely. She was not smiling when she
answered.
'Thank you. I have more books than I can possibly read.'
'Yes. But you have not the one I will give you, and it happens to be
the only one you want.'
'But I don't want any book at all! I don't want to read!'
'Yes, you do, Madame Cordova. You want to read this one, and it's the
only copy on board, and if you'll take a little walk with me I'll give
it to you.'
As he spoke he very slowly drew a new book from the depths of the wide
pocket in his overcoat, but only far enough to show Margaret the first
words of the title, and he kept his aggressive blue eyes fixed on her
face. A faint blush came into her cheeks at once and he let the volume
slip back. Griggs, being on his other side, had not seen it, and it
meant nothing to Miss More. To the latter's surprise Margaret pushed
her heavy rug from her knees and let her feet slip from the chair to
the ground. Her eyes met Griggs's as she rose, and seeing that his
look asked her whether he was to carry out her previous instructions
and walk beside her, she shook her head.
'Nine times out of ten, proverbs are true,' he said in a tone of
amusement.
Mr. Van Torp's hard face expressed no triumph when Margaret stood
beside him, ready to walk. She had yielded, as he had been sure she
would; he turned from the other passengers to go round to the weather
side of the ship, and she went with him submissively. Just at the
point where the wind and the fine spray would have met them if they
had gone on, he stopped in the lee of a big ventilator. There was no
one in sight of them now.
'Excuse me for making you get up,' he said. 'I wanted to see you alone
for a moment.'
Margaret said nothing in answer to this apology, and she met his fixed
eyes coldly.
'You were with Miss Bamberger when she died,' he said.
Margaret bent her head gravely in assent. His face was as
expressionless as a stone.
'I thought she might have mentioned me before she died,' he said
slowly.
'Yes,' Margaret answered after a moment's pause; 'she did.'
'What did she say?'
'She told me that it was a secret, but that I was to tell you what she
said, if I thought it best.'
'Are you going to tell me?'
It was impossible to guess whether he was controlling any emotion or
not; but if the men with whom he had done business where large sums
were involved had seen him now and had heard his voice, they would
have recognised the tone and the expression.
'She said, "he did it,"' Margaret answered slowly, after a moment's
thought.
'Was that all she said?'
'That was all. A moment later she was dead. Before she said it, she
told me it was a secret, and she made me promise solemnly never to
tell any one but you.'
'It's not much of a secret, is it?' As he spoke, Mr. Van Torp turned
his eyes from Margaret's at last and looked at the grey sea beyond the
ventilator.
'Such as it is, I have told it to you because she wished me to,'
answered Margaret. 'But I shall never tell any one else. It will be
all the easier to be silent, as I have not the least idea what she
meant.'
'She meant our engagement,' said Mr. Van Torp in a matter-of-fact
tone. 'We had broken it off that afternoon. She meant that it was I
who did it, and so it was. Perhaps she did not like to think that when
she was dead people might call her heartless and say she had thrown me
over; and no one would ever know the truth except me, unless I chose
to tell--me and her father.'
'Then you were not to be married after all!' Margaret showed her
surprise.
'No. I had broken it off. We were going to let it be known the next
day.'
'On the very eve of the wedding!'
'Yes.' Mr. Van Torp fixed his eyes on Margaret's again. 'On the very
eve of the wedding,' he said, repeating her words.
He spoke very slowly and without emphasis, but with the greatest
possible distinctness. Margaret had once been taken to see a motor-car
manufactory and she remembered a machine that clipped bits off the
end of an iron bar, inch by inch, smoothly and deliberately. Mr. Van
Torp's lips made her think of that; they seemed to cut the hard words
one by one, in lengths.
'Poor girl!' she sighed, and looked away.
The man's face did not change, and if his next words echoed the
sympathy she expressed his tone did not.
'I was a good deal cut up myself,' he observed coolly. 'Here's your
book, Madame Cordova.'
'No,' Margaret answered with a little burst of indignation, 'I don't
want it. I won't take it from you!'
'What's the matter now?' asked Mr. Van Torp without the least change
of manner. 'It's your friend Mr. Lushington's latest, you know, and it
won't be out for ten days. I thought you would like to see it, so I
got an advance copy before it was published.'
He held the volume out to her, but she would not even look at it, nor
answer him.
'How you hate me! Don't you, Madame Cordova?'
Margaret still said nothing. She was considering how she could best
get rid of him. If she simply brushed past him and went back to her
chair on the lee side, he would follow her and go on talking to her as
if nothing had happened; and she knew that in that case she would lose
control of herself before Griggs and Miss More.
'Oh, well,' he went on, 'if you don't want the book, I don't. I can't
read novels myself, and I daresay it's trash anyhow.'
Thereupon, with a quick movement of his arm and hand, he sent Mr.
Lushington's latest novel flying over the lee rail, fully thirty feet
away, and it dropped out of sight into the grey waves. He had been a
good baseball pitcher in his youth.
Margaret bit her lip and her eyes flashed.
'You are quite the most disgustingly brutal person I ever met,' she
said, no longer able to keep down her anger.
'No,' he answered calmly. 'I'm not brutal; I'm only logical. I took a
great deal of trouble to get that book for you because I thought
it would give you pleasure, and it wasn't a particularly legal
transaction by which I got it either. Since you didn't want it, I
wasn't going to let anybody else have the satisfaction of reading it
before it was published, so I just threw it away because it is safer
in the sea than knocking about in my cabin. If you hadn't seen me
throw it overboard you would never have believed that I had. You're
not much given to believing me, anyway. I've noticed that. Are you,
now?'
'Oh, it was not the book!'
Margaret turned from him and made a step forward so that she faced the
sharp wind. It cut her face and she felt that the little pain was
a relief. He came and stood beside her with his hands deep in the
pockets of his overcoat.
'If you think I'm a brute on account of what I told you about
Miss Bamberger,' he said, 'that's not quite fair. I broke off our
engagement because I found out that we were going to make each other
miserable and we should have had to divorce in six months; and if half
the people who are just going to get married would do the same thing
there would be a lot more happy women in the world, not to say men!
That's all, and she knew it, poor girl, and was just as glad as I was
when the thing was done. Now what is there so brutal in that, Madame
Cordova?'
Margaret turned on him almost fiercely.
'Why do you tell me all this?' she asked. 'For heaven's sake let poor
Miss Bamberger rest in her grave!'
'Since you ask me why,' answered Mr. Van Torp, unmoved, 'I tell you
all this because I want you to know more about me than you do. If you
did, you'd hate me less. That's the plain truth. You know very well
that there's nobody like you, and that if I'd judged I had the
slightest chance of getting you I would no more have thought of
marrying Miss Bamberger than of throwing a million dollars into the
sea after that book, or ten million, and that's a great deal of
money.'
'I ought to be flattered,' said Margaret with scorn, still facing the
wind.
'No. I'm not given to flattery, and money means something real to me,
because I've fought for it, and got it. Your regular young lover will
always call you his precious treasure, and I don't see much difference
between a precious treasure and several million dollars. I'm logical,
you see. I tell you I'm logical, that's all.'
'I daresay. I think we have been talking here long enough. Shall we go
back?'
She had got her anger under again. She detested Mr. Van Torp, but she
was honest enough to realise that for the present she had resented his
saying that Lushington's book was probably trash, much more than what
he had told her of his broken engagement. She turned and came back to
the ventilator, meaning to go around to her chair, but he stopped her.
'Don't go yet, please!' he said, keeping beside her. 'Call me a
disgusting brute if you like. I sha'n't mind it, and I daresay it's
true in a kind of way. Business isn't very refining, you know, and it
was the only education I got after I was sixteen. I'm sorry I called
that book rubbish, for I'm sure it's not. I've met Mr. Lushington in
England several times; he's very clever, and he's got a first-rate
position. But you see I didn't like your refusing the book, after I'd
taken so much trouble to get it for you. Perhaps if I hadn't thrown it
overboard you'd take it, now that I've apologised. Would you?'
His tone had changed at last, as she had known it to change before in
the course of an acquaintance that had lasted more than a year. He put
the question almost humbly.
'I don't know,' Margaret answered, relenting a little in spite of
herself. 'At all events I'm sorry I was so rude. I lost my temper.'
'It was very natural,' said Mr. Van Torp meekly, but not looking at
her, 'and I know I deserved it. You really would let me give you the
book now, if it were possible, wouldn't you?'
'Perhaps.' She thought that as there was no such possibility it was
safe to say as much as that.
'I should feel so much better if you would,' he answered. 'I should
feel as if you'd accepted my apology. Won't you say it, Madame
Cordova?'
'Well--yes--since you wish it so much,' Margaret replied, feeling that
she risked nothing.
'Here it is, then,' he said, to her amazement, producing the new novel
from the pocket of his overcoat, and enjoying her surprise as he put
it into her hand.
It looked like a trick of sleight of hand, and she took the book and
stared at him, as a child stares at the conjuror who produces an apple
out of its ear.
'But I saw you throw it away,' she said in a puzzled tone.
'I got two while I was about it,' said Mr. Van Torp, smiling without
showing his teeth. 'It was just as easy and it didn't cost me any
more.'
'I see! Thank you very much.'
She knew that she could not but keep the volume now, and in her heart
she was glad to have it, for Lushington had written to her about it
several times since she had been in America.
'Well, I'll leave you now,' said the millionaire, resuming his stony
expression. 'I hope I've not kept you too long.'
Before Margaret had realised the idiotic conventionality of the last
words her companion had disappeared and she was left alone. He had not
gone back in the direction whence they had come, but had taken the
deserted windward side of the ship, doubtless with the intention of
avoiding the crowd.
Margaret stood still for some time in the lee of the ventilator,
holding the novel in her hand and thinking. She wondered whether Mr.
Van Torp had planned the whole scene, including the sacrifice of the
novel. If he had not, it was certainly strange that he should have had
the second copy ready in his pocket. Lushington had once told her that
great politicians and great financiers were always great comedians,
and now that she remembered the saying it occurred to her that Mr. Van
Torp reminded her of a certain type of American actor, a type that
has a heavy jaw and an aggressive eye, and strongly resembles the
portraits of Daniel Webster. Now Daniel Webster had a wide reputation
as a politician, but there is reason to believe that the numerous
persons who lent him money and never got it back thought him a
financier of undoubted ability, if not a comedian of talent. There
were giants in those days.
The English girl, breathing the clean air of the ocean, felt as if
something had left a bad taste in her mouth; and the famous young
singer, who had seen in two years what a normal Englishwoman would
neither see, nor guess at, nor wish to imagine in a lifetime, thought
she understood tolerably well what the bad taste meant. Moreover,
Margaret Donne was ashamed of what Margarita da Cordova knew, and
Cordova had moments of sharp regret when she thought of the girl who
had been herself, and had lived under good Mrs. Rushmore's protection,
like a flower in a glass house.
She remembered, too, how Lushington and Mrs. Rushmore had warned her
and entreated her not to become an opera-singer. She had taken her
future into her own hands and had soon found out what it meant to be
a celebrity on the stage; and she had seen only too clearly where
she was classed by the women who would have been her companions and
friends if she had kept out of the profession. She had learned by
experience, too, how little real consideration she could expect from
men of the world, and how very little she could really exact from such
people as Mr. Van Torp; still less could she expect to get it from
persons like Schreiermeyer, who looked upon the gifted men and women
he engaged to sing as so many head of cattle, to be driven more or
less hard according to their value, and to be turned out to starve the
moment they were broken-winded. That fate is sure to overtake the best
of them sooner or later. The career of a great opera-singer is rarely
more than half as long as that of a great tragedian, and even when a
primadonna or a tenor makes a fortune, the decline of their glory is
far more sudden and sad than that of actors generally is. Lady Macbeth
is as great a part as Juliet for an actress of genius, but there are
no 'old parts' for singers; the soprano dare not turn into a contralto
with advancing years, nor does the unapproachable Parsifal of
eight-and-twenty turn into an incomparable Amfortas at fifty. For the
actor, it often happens that the first sign of age is fatigue; in the
singer's day, the first shadow is an eclipse, the first false note is
disaster, the first breakdown is often a heart-rending failure that
brings real tears to the eyes of younger comrades. The exquisite voice
does not grow weak and pathetic and ethereal by degrees, so that we
still love to hear it, even to the end; far more often it is suddenly
flat or sharp by a quarter of a tone throughout whole acts, or it
breaks on one note in a discordant shriek that is the end. Down goes
the curtain then, in the middle of the great opera, and down goes the
great singer for ever into tears and silence. Some of us have seen
that happen, many have heard of it; few can think without real
sympathy of such mortal suffering and distress.
Margaret realised all this, without any illusion, but there was
another side to the question. There was success, glorious and
far-reaching, and beyond her brightest dreams; there was the certainty
that she was amongst the very first, for the deafening ring of
universal applause was in her ears; and, above all, there was youth.
Sometimes it seemed to her that she had almost too much, and that some
dreadful thing must happen to her; yet if there were moments when she
faintly regretted the calmer, sweeter life she might have led, she
knew that she would have given that life up, over and over again, for
the splendid joy of holding thousands spellbound while she sang. She
had the real lyric artist's temperament, for that breathless silence
of the many while her voice rang out alone, and trilled and died away
to a delicate musical echo, was more to her than the roar of applause
that could be heard through the walls and closed doors in the street
outside. To such a moment as that Faustus himself would have cried
'Stay!' though the price of satisfied desire were his soul. And there
had been many such moments in Cordova's life. They satisfied something
much deeper than greedy vanity and stronger than hungry ambition. Call
it what you will, according to the worth you set on such art, it is
a longing which only artists feel, and to which only something in
themselves can answer. To listen to perfect music is a feast for gods,
but to be the living instrument beyond compare is to be a god oneself.
Of our five senses, sight calls up visions, divine as well as earthly,
but hearing alone can link body, mind, and soul with higher things, by
the word and by the word made song. The mere memory of hearing when it
is lost is still enough for the ends of genius; for the poet and the
composer touch the blind most deeply, perhaps, when other senses do
not count at all; but a painter who loses his sight is as helpless in
the world of art as a dismasted ship in the middle of the ocean.
Some of these thoughts passed through Margaret's brain as she stood
beside the ventilator with her friend's new book in her hand, and,
although her reflections were not new to her, it was the first time
she clearly understood that her life had made two natures out of her
original self, and that the two did not always agree. She felt that
she was not halved by the process, but doubled. She was two women
instead of one, and each woman was complete in herself. She had not
found this out by any elaborate self-study, for healthy people do not
study themselves. She simply felt it, and she was sure it was true,
because she knew that each of her two selves was able to do, suffer,
and enjoy as much as any one woman could. The one might like what the
other disliked and feared, but the contradiction was open and natural,
not secret or morbid. The two women were called respectively Madame
Cordova and Miss Donne. Miss Donne thought Madame Cordova very showy,
and much too tolerant of vulgar things and people, if not a little
touched with vulgarity herself. On the other hand, the brilliantly
successful Cordova thought Margaret Donne a good girl, but rather
silly. Miss Donne was very fond of Edmund Lushington, the writer, but
the Primadonna had a distinct weakness for Constantine Logotheti, the
Greek financier who lived in Paris, and who wore too many rubies and
diamonds.
On two points, at least, the singer and the modest English girl
agreed, for they both detested Rufus Van Torp, and each had positive
proof that he was in love with her, if what he felt deserved the name.
For in very different ways she was really loved by Lushington and by
Logotheti; and since she had been famous she had made the acquaintance
of a good many very high and imposing personages, whose names are to
be found in the first and second part of the _Almanack de Gotha_, in
the Olympian circle of the reigning or the supernal regions of the
Serene Mediatized, far above the common herd of dukes and princes;
they had offered her a share in the overflowing abundance of their
admirative protection; and then had seemed surprised, if not deeply
moved, by the independence she showed in declining their intimacy.
Some of them were frankly and contentedly cynical; some were of a
brutality compared with which the tastes and manners of a bargee would
have seemed ladylike; some were as refined and sensitive as English
old maids, though less scrupulous and much less shy; the one was
as generous as an Irish sailor, the next was as mean as a Normandy
peasant; some had offered her rivers of rubies, and some had proposed
to take her incognito for a drive in a cab, because it would be so
amusing--and so inexpensive. Yet in their families and varieties
they were all of the same species, all human and all subject to the
ordinary laws of attraction and repulsion. Rufus Van Torp was not like
them.
Neither of Margaret's selves could look upon him as a normal human
being. At first sight there was nothing so very unusual in his face,
certainly nothing that suggested a monster; and yet, whatever mood she
chanced to be in, she could not be with him five minutes without being
aware of something undefinable that always disturbed her profoundly,
and sometimes became positively terrifying. She always felt the
sensation coming upon her after a few moments, and when it had
actually come she could hardly hide her repulsion till she felt, as
to-day, that she must run from him, without the least consideration
of pride or dignity. She might have fled like that before a fire or a
flood, or from the scene of an earthquake, and more than once nothing
had kept her in her place but her strong will and healthy nerves. She
knew that it was like the panic that seizes people in the presence of
an appalling disturbance of nature.
Doubtless, when she had talked with Mr. Van Torp just now, she had
been disgusted by the indifferent way in which he spoke of poor Miss
Bamberger's sudden death; it was still more certain that what he said
about the book, and his very ungentlemanly behaviour in throwing it
into the sea, had roused her justifiable anger. But she would have
smiled at the thought that an exhibition of heartlessness, or the most
utter lack of manners, could have made her wish to run away from any
other man. Her life had accustomed her to people who had no more
feeling than Schreiermeyer, and no better manners than Pompeo
Stromboli. Van Torp might have been on his very best behaviour that
morning, or at any of her previous chance meetings with him; sooner
or later she would have felt that same absurd and unreasoning fear
of him, and would have found it very hard not to turn and make her
escape. His face was so stony and his eyes were so aggressive; he was
always like something dreadful that was just going to happen.
Yet Margarita da Cordova was a brave woman, and had lately been called
a heroine because she had gone on singing after that explosion till
the people were quiet again; and Margaret Donne was a sensible girl,
justly confident of being able to take care of herself where men were
concerned. She stood still and wondered what there was about Mr. Van
Torp that could frighten her so dreadfully.
After a little while she went quietly back to her chair, and sat down
between Griggs and Miss More. The elderly man rose and packed her
neatly in her plaid, and she thanked him. Miss More looked at her and
smiled vaguely, as even the most intelligent people do sometimes. Then
Griggs got into his own chair again and took up his book.
'Was that right of me?' he asked presently, so low that Miss More did
not hear him speak.
'Yes,' Margaret answered, under her breath, 'but don't let me do it
again, please.'
They both began to read, but after a time Margaret spoke to him again
without turning her eyes.
'He wanted to ask me about that girl who died at the theatre,' she
said, just audibly.
'Oh--yes!'
Griggs seemed so vague that Margaret glanced at him. He was looking at
the inside of his right hand in a meditative way, as if it recalled
something. If he had shown more interest in what she said she would
have told him what she had just learned, about the breaking off of the
engagement, but he was evidently absorbed in thought, while he slowly
rubbed that particular spot on his hand, and looked at it again and
again as if it recalled something.
Margaret did not resent his indifference, for he was much more than
old enough to be her father; he was a man whom all younger writers
looked upon as a veteran, he had always been most kind and courteous
to her when she had met him, and she freely conceded him the right to
be occupied with his own thoughts and not with hers. With him she was
always Margaret Donne, and he seldom talked to her about music, or of
her own work. Indeed, he so rarely mentioned music that she fancied he
did not really care for it, and she wondered why he was so often in
the house when she sang.
Mr. Van Torp did not show himself at luncheon, and Margaret began to
hope that he would not appear on deck again till the next day. In
the afternoon the wind dropped, the clouds broke, and the sun shone
brightly. Little Ida, who was tired of doing crochet work, and had
looked at all the books that had pictures, came and begged Margaret to
walk round the ship with her. It would please her small child's vanity
to show everybody that the great singer was willing to be seen walking
up and down with her, although she was quite deaf, and could not hope
ever to hear music. It was her greatest delight to be treated before
every one as if she were just like other girls, and her cleverness in
watching the lips of the person with her, without seeming too intent,
was wonderful.
They went the whole length of the promenade deck, as if they were
reviewing the passengers, bundled and packed in their chairs, and the
passengers looked at them both with so much interest that the child
made Margaret come all the way back again.
'The sea has a voice, too, hasn't it?' Ida asked, as they paused and
looked over the rail.
She glanced up quickly for the answer, but Margaret did not find one
at once.
'Because I've read poetry about the voices of the sea,' Ida explained.
'And in books they talk of the music of the waves, and then they say
the sea roars, and thunders in a storm. I can hear thunder, you know.
Did you know that I could hear thunder?'
Margaret smiled and looked interested.
'It bangs in the back of my head,' said the child gravely. 'But I
should like to hear the sea thunder. I often watch the waves on the
beach, as if they were lips moving, and I try to understand what they
say. Of course, it's play, because one can't, can one? But I can only
make out "Boom, ta-ta-ta-ta," getting quicker and weaker to the end,
you know, as the ripples run up the sand.'
'It's very like what I hear,' Margaret answered.
'Is it really?' Little Ida was delighted. 'Perhaps it's a language
after all, and I shall make it out some day. You see, until I know the
language people are speaking, their lips look as if they were talking
nonsense. But I'm sure the sea could not really talk nonsense all day
for thousands of years.'
'No, I'm sure it couldn't!' Margaret was amused. 'But the sea is not
alive,' she added.
'Everything that moves is alive,' the child said, 'and everything that
is alive can make a noise, and the noise must mean something. If it
didn't, it would be of no use, and everything is of some use. So
there!'
Delighted with her own argument, the beautiful child laughed and
showed her even teeth in the sun.
They were standing at the end of the promenade deck, which extended
twenty feet abaft the smoking-room, and took the whole beam; above
the latter, as in most modern ships, there was the boat deck, to the
after-part of which passengers had access. Standing below, it was easy
to see and talk with any one who looked over the upper rail.
Ida threw her head back and looked up as she laughed, and Margaret
laughed good-naturedly with her, thinking how pretty she was. But
suddenly the child's expression changed, her face grew grave, and her
eyes fixed themselves intently on some point above. Margaret looked in
the same direction, and saw that Mr. Van Torp was standing alone up
there, leaning against the railing and evidently not seeing her, for
he gazed fixedly into the distance; and as he stood there, his lips
moved as if he were talking to himself.
Margaret gave a little start of surprise when she saw him, but the
child watched him steadily, and a look of fear stole over her face.
Suddenly she grasped Margaret's arm.
'Come away! Come away!' she cried in a low tone of terror.