Angela May sat in her chair on the promenade-deck of the _Adriatic_ and
felt peacefully conscious that she was resting body and brain.
The ship was not crowded, for it was spring, and the great tide of travel
had turned in the opposite direction--toward Europe. On either side of her
chair were several which were unoccupied, and a soothing silence hovered
round her, through which she could listen to the whisper of the sea as the
ship glided on to the land of hope.
Loneliness gave a real joy to Angela; for, young as she was, she had lived
through an ordeal, and had taken a step which meant high nervous tension
leading up to a supreme decision. She was glad all was over, and well
over; desperately glad that her courage had not failed.
"Oh, how thankful I am!" she said again and again, under her breath.
Still, she vaguely envied some of the family parties on the ship, who
appeared happy and united. Not that she wanted them to talk to her. Witty,
lively people could be very nice when you were in the mood for them, but
agonizing when you were not; and since it wasn't permissible to cover
human beings up like canaries when you had tired of them, or send them
away like children when they had prattled enough, Angela cuddled down
among her cushions and rugs, glad to be let alone for the first time in
her life. But there was a young mother with a small imp of a curly-haired
girl, who fascinated her, and made her think. Once, when the imp fell on
the deck, to be caught up and kissed until a wail ended in a laugh, Angela
said to herself, "If my mother had been like that, everything would have
been different for me."
Saunterers for exercise or flirtation often turned for a glance at Angela.
What they saw was a slim girl, with pearly fair skin, big gray eyes,
quantities of wavy hair of so pale a yellow-brown that it was like gold
under the mourning hat she wore. Her low black collar made the slender
throat that rose out of it white as a lily. The oval of her face was
perfect, and when she read or closed her eyes, as she sometimes did, the
long lashes, many shades darker than her hair, and the delicate arch of
the brown eyebrows, gave her the soft, sweet look of a child asleep.
Always the glances were more admiring than curious; but they were curious,
too, for every one was wondering who she was. In spite of her youth, there
was something of pride and distinction about her which made it seem that
she could not be an ordinary sort of person you had never heard of; a mere
Miss Smith or Mrs. Brown. Yet all the "swells" on board had been duly
accounted for and recognized. She was not one of them.
"What a pretty girl!" people said. "And she seems to be travelling alone,
unless her friends are too sick to come out of their cabins. Apparently
she hasn't even brought a maid--yet what lovely clothes she has, though so
simple, and all black. Perhaps she's in mourning for her father or her
mother, or some near relation. She's too young to be a widow!"
Angela did not much mind these glances, or this gentle curiosity, for no
normal woman objects to being thought pretty. But it was delightful to
feel sure that no one knew who she was. If she were on the passenger-list
as the Princess di Sereno she would be more stared at and bothered than
that poor, fat Duchess of Dorsetshire, who was too near-sighted to
recognize her at a distance, thank goodness. Each glance thrown her way
would have been an annoyance, for there would have been nothing flattering
in any spice of interest her title gave. Some silly creatures might have
stared at her because she was a princess; but--far worse--others would
have looked because they knew all about her.
These would have buzzed: "Why, that's the Princess di Sereno, don't you
know, the only child of the California millionaire who died about ten
years ago, so suddenly while his wife and little daughter were in Europe!
The girl married that Roman prince, Paolo di Sereno, who used to make such
a sensation going about in an aeroplane, and gambling high at Monte
Carlo--awfully handsome man, a lot older than she. He must have been
nearly forty, and she seventeen, when she married him. Her mother made the
match, of course: girl just out of school--the wedding wasn't six weeks
after she was presented in England. The prince met her there, has English
relations, like most of the Roman nobility. But the interesting part of
the story is this: they never lived together as husband and wife. The
bride either found out some secret the prince had kept from her (which is
what people believe), or else there was a mysterious row the first hour
after the wedding. Anyhow, something happened; he went off the same day
and left her with her mother. Afterward, he came back; but it was an open
secret that the two were no more than strangers, or, you might say, polite
acquaintances, though they lived at opposite ends of his palace in Rome,
which her money restored, and his country place near Frascati. There was
never the least scandal, only wild curiosity. Now she has cut the whole
thing. Apparently couldn't stand the empty sort of life, or else he did
something worse than usual, at which she drew the line."
Angela did not much care whether people in Rome knew the truth or not.
That no longer greatly mattered to her, because she meant never, never to
go back to Rome, or to see Paolo di Sereno, or any of his friends--who had
never really been her friends. But she did not want people on the ship to
know, because she was tired of being talked about, and her hope was to
begin a new and different life. For herself, she had nothing to conceal;
but, she had never felt any pride or pleasure in being a princess, and
after the flatteries and disillusions, the miseries and foolish
extravagances of the last hateful, brilliant six years, everything
connected with them, and the historic title her dead father's money had
bought, was being eagerly obliterated by Franklin Merriam's daughter. She
knew little about her forebears on her father's side, except that they
were English, whereas Paolo had centuries behind him crammed full of
glorious ancestors whose deeds were celebrated on tapestries of great
beauty and value. Her one tolerable memory of Paolo was that he had never
touched her hand since their marriage; but the memory of her father was
sacred. She adored him, and was never weary of recalling things he had
said to her, pleasures he had planned for her as a child, and, above all,
his stories of California, whither she was now bound.
Angela had taken the name of "Mrs. May"; May, because May was her
birth-month, and also her middle name given by her father, whereas Angela
had been her mother's choice. Therefore she was just superstitious enough
to feel that "May" might bring happiness, since her father's memory was
the single unshadowed spot in her life of twenty-three years. A brilliant
life it would have seemed to most women, one to be envied; but Angela
could not see why.
The lashes which shaded her slate-gray eyes had that upward curl which
shows an undying sense of humour, and she had been a merry little girl,
with flashes of wit which had enchanted Franklin Merriam before she was
snatched away to Europe at eleven, never to see him again. Even at school
where she had been "dumped" (as Mrs. Merriam's intimate enemies put it),
Angela had kept the girls laughing. Now, though she had imagined her gay
spirit dead with childhood, she began to be visited by its ghost. She
amused herself on shipboard with a thousand things, and a thousand
thoughts which made her feel the best of "chums" with her new friend and
companion, Angela May. "I've come back from twenty-three to seventeen,"
she thought, and pretended that there had never been an Angela di Sereno,
that scornful young person who had forbidden the prince to come near her
on learning that there was another whom he should have married instead of
Millionaire Merriam's daughter.
When she was a little girl in Boston (where Mrs. Merriam had insisted upon
living), Angela used to sit on her father's knee; and as he curled her
yellow hair over his fingers he wove romances of the Golden West,
reluctantly deserted for his wife's sake; and though many illusions had
broken like bright bubbles, this ideal still glittered before Angela's
eyes. She had been promised by her father that she should visit California
with him, when "Mother brought her back from Europe"; but he had died, and
mother had not brought her back; so now she was going to make the
pilgrimage alone. Not only did she intend to see the places her father had
described, but when she had seen all and could choose, she meant to buy
land and make a home for herself, her first real home.
Wherever she decided to live, the house must be like the one where her
father had been born--long and low built of adobe; there must be a patio,
with a fountain in the middle; and the rooms must be kept cool by the roof
of a veranda, shading the windows like a great overhanging eyelid. Lovely
flowers she would have, of course, but the garden must be as unlike an
Italian garden as possible. Italy was beautiful, but she did not wish to
be reminded of that country, or any other in Europe where she had wandered
in search of forgetfulness.
She had little fear that ghosts of the past would come to haunt her in her
new home, for though the Prince di Sereno had once cared for her in his
way, she had struck at his pride and made him hate her in the end. At last
he had been glad to let her go out of his life, for she had made
arrangements by which he kept more than half her money. There was no
danger that he would try to snatch her back again; and as for European
friends and acquaintances, it was unlikely that such worldly persons would
care to come to the place she meant to select. It would be far from the
paths of tourists.
The eight-day voyage passed pleasantly for Angela. She had spoken to no
one except stewards and stewardesses for, taking her meals on deck, she
had not come into contact with other passengers. The mourning she wore for
her mother, who had died four months before in London, seemed to set her
apart from others, though had it not been for the cause of her mourning,
probably she would not now be on her way to America. It was a few weeks
after Mrs. Merriam's death, when she had recovered from the shock which
was hardly sorrow, that Angela said to herself: "Now she is beyond being
grieved by anything I do, and I can go away--for good." For the girl had
been under the frail cold woman's sway, as the strong man, Franklin
Merriam, had been in his time; and Mrs. Merriam had derived such pleasure
from having a daughter who was a Princess di Sereno that Angela could
hardly have found courage to deprive her of it.
At home, both in the country and at her palace in Rome, the Princess had
been waited on by two French maids, one of whom dressed her, while the
other kept her belongings in order. When she travelled, as she often did,
one or both went with her; to Egypt; to Algeria; to Russia; to Paris; or
to England. But "Mrs. May" had no maid; and, landing in New York, it
seemed that she was the only person who did not meet with a welcome from
friends on the dock.
Suddenly, she ceased to enjoy her isolation. For the first time since
leaving Rome "on a long visit to relatives in America" (according to
newspaper paragraphs), the Princess di Sereno did not hug her loneliness
and her secret. She hardly knew what to do as she stood under the big
letter "M" waiting to have her luggage examined. Her fellow "M's" as well
as all the other letters appeared to be having desperate trouble with the
custom-house men, who clawed out the contents of their trunks and then
calmly left the cowed owners to stuff everything back as best they could.
Angela's heart beat fast when her turn came, and she wished for
long-nosed, hard-voiced Josephine as a bulwark; but the ordeal was not as
bad as she expected. She looked at her inquisitor with the air of a hunted
child who had got lost and hardly hoped ever to be found; so the
protective instincts were aroused, and the wind was tempered to the shorn
lamb. In half an hour after the ship had docked, Mrs. May was inquiring of
a large, obliging Irishman (who had a vast store of knowledge concerning
all useful subjects) how on earth she was to secure a cab.
Her hotel was decided upon, and rooms engaged. An old friend of Mrs.
Merriam, a cosmopolitan American woman, had once praised the Hotel
Valmont, Angela had remembered; and driving from Twenty-third Street up
into the Forties, New York was almost as strange to her as if she had
never seen it before. Indeed, she had seen little of it, for the Merriams
had lived in Boston, and Angela was only eleven when she bade her father
and America good-bye. How vividly that day came back to her now! She
could see her father, and feel his kisses as he said, "Never mind, little
girl. When mother brings you back then we'll have the time of our
lives--just you and I--in California together."
But that day did not bear thinking of. And, by and by, rattling through
the bright, busy streets, in the vivifying sunshine, she began to feel
happy again, as well as very young and eager.
"This is the gate of my future, and I'm driving into it," she thought.
The Hotel Valmont, which Mrs. Corning had said was small, loomed imposing
to Angela's eyes, as her taxicab stopped before the ever-revolving glass
wheel of the Fifth Avenue door. The building towered to a height of
sixteen or seventeen storeys at least, and appeared only a lesser mountain
among mountains.
A polite man in livery bowed her through the swift whirl of the glass
wheel, and she found herself in a large hall with floor and walls of
marble. Formally cut laurel-trees grew in huge pots, and the gilded
ceiling was higher than those of the Palazzo di Sereno.
There were many desks, and she explained to one of a dozen clerks that she
was Mrs. A.V. May, who had cabled for a bedroom and sitting-room.
She was expected, and her suite was ready. Would she kindly register? And
the young man, admiring the face framed in gold hair and black straw,
pushed forward a ponderous volume that lay open on the counter. As Angela
pulled off her glove and took the pen, she laid down a gold chain-bag
which she always carried hanging on her arm. Angela was used to it, and
she had no idea that it might be considered ostentatious in travelling. It
was convenient as well as pretty, which was all she thought of; nor did
she notice that several persons grouped near the desks looked at her, and
at the bag, which was edged with diamonds and sapphires.
A diamond or two, and a sapphire or two, sparkled and gleamed on her
fingers as she wrote; but except for her rings and a small, plain brooch,
she had no jewellery which was meant to show. Under the black chiffon of
her blouse, however, there was a glimmer of pearls which she wore night
and day for safety.
"Mrs. A. V. May," she wrote, then paused before giving herself a
habitation. Everybody else on the page was placed as well as named. London
was as good a background as any for an unknown Mrs. May, so she provided
herself with it, and then, moving her arm abruptly, her gold bag fell on
the floor. Naturally, a man who had been leaning on the counter, looking
at Angela, sprang to pick it up. But another man was before him. Pulling
off a wide-brimmed gray hat which had been pushed to the back of his head,
he held out the gold bag a little awkwardly.
"I guess you dropped this, lady," he said.
Angela was on the point of laughing. She was used to dropping her bag a
dozen times a day, and having some one pick it up for her, but it had been
funny to see it snapped away by this tall, oddly clad fellow, from under
the dapper gentleman's rather sharp nose. Of course, she did not laugh,
but smiled gratefully instead, and she could not help staring a little at
the retriever of her lost property. So, also, did the other and smaller
man stare. This person was well dressed, and had a slight, pointed
moustache, like a German officer's.
"Yes. It's mine. Thank you very much," said Angela. And she thought: "What
an extraordinary-looking man. But how handsome! He might be dressed for a
play--only, somehow, he doesn't look like an actor. Whatever he is, he's
the real thing."
The wide gray sombrero remained in the young man's hand. He was so tall
that he made most of those standing near look insignificant. Yet they, on
the other hand, made him conspicuous.
It was a long way up to his face, but when Angela's eyes had climbed to
that height, she saw that it was attractive, and the eyes splendid, even
compelling, so that it was difficult to remove hers at once and discreetly
from their influence.
The type of man was new to her, and the look which he gave her was new,
somehow. His was a wild, uncivilized kind of handsomeness, she thought,
like that of a noble, untamed creature of the forest, changed by
enchantment into a man and thrust into modern clothes. Yet the look he
gave her was not uncivilized, only surprised, rather boyish, and as if the
brilliant eyes had suddenly lit upon something good which they had been
seeking. Very odd, and a little exciting, Angela found the look.
If the young man's clothes were modern, they were far from being
fashionable; not at all the sort of clothes to suit the background of a
marble hall in a New York hotel. His shirt was of some soft white material
which did not seem to be starched, and a low collar was turned down over
a black, loosely tied cravat like a sailor's. Instead of a waistcoat he
wore a leather belt, of the sort in which one would quite expect to see a
knife or revolver sticking out. His blue serge suit was of a country cut,
the trousers rather short and tight for the long, straight legs; and the
shoes were wide in the toe, thick in the sole.
All these details Angela noted in one quick glance; and admiring the tall
brown eccentricity as she might have admired a fine bronze statue out of
place, in the wrong surroundings, she wondered from what sort of niche the
statue had transplanted itself. In her mind there was no room whatever for
the little man with the pointed moustache, so she forgot his existence.
"Mighty pleased to--do any service for you, lady," stammered the bronze
statue, and though his voice was pleasant, it had not the cultured accent
to which Angela was accustomed. Besides, it was quaint to be addressed as
"lady." London cabbies and beggars called one "lidy"; but they were a law
unto themselves. Still it sounded rather nice as he said it: "pleased to
do any service for you, lady."
She nodded politely as she moved away, following the bellboy who had the
key of her rooms, and as she reached the lift, something made her glance
back. The sombrero was on the dark head again, and the head was bent over
the hotel register, where Mrs. May had written her name. The man was
either looking at that or writing his own. Angela inclined to the latter
supposition. Probably this wild creature of forests had just arrived in
New York from somewhere very far away, perhaps from her father's Golden
West, the country of the sun. As the lift flashed her with horrifying
swiftness up to the twelfth floor, she still seemed to hear the echo of
the pleasant voice, saying "Pleased to do any service for you, lady." A
few minutes later, however, she forgot the incident of the dropped bag in
admiring her pretty suite of white and green rooms, the bath, and the
cedar-lined wardrobes in the wall, which she remembered as typically
American. She felt like a child examining a new playhouse. Suddenly she
was sure that she would get on well with Americans, that she would like
them, and they her, though until to-day she had been afraid that her
country-people, in their own land, would seem to her like strangers.
Although she had not made up her mind how long she would stay in New York
before going West, she unpacked a great many things without stopping to
think that perhaps she was giving herself useless trouble. Then, when she
had scattered quantities of dresses, petticoats, hats, and cloaks in both
rooms, she paused bewildered. Everything she had taken out on shipboard
looked wrinkled and rather haggard. She wished, after all, that she had
brought Josephine, though she had not been fond of her, or of the others.
She did not know what to do with the things, and never could she get them
all back again when it should be time to leave the hotel! It was as
Josephine had prophesied. How the Frenchwoman would enjoy saying, "It is
as I warned Madame la Princesse!"
"Perhaps a servant of the hotel would help me," she thought; and a call
through the telephone brought to the door a tall, dark, Irish girl, who
would have been pretty if her eyes and cheeks had not been stained with
crying. At first glance Angela was interested, for she was beginning to
be happy, and could not bear to think that any one who came near her was
miserable. At all times, too, she had quick sympathies, and could read the
secrets of sad or happy eyes in a flash, as she passed them in the street,
though less sensitive persons saw nothing noteworthy; and often she longed
to hurry back to some stranger, as if a voice had cried after her which
she could not let cry in vain. Now, as she talked to the maid about the
unpacking, unspoken sympathy went out from her in a magnetic current which
the Irish girl felt. Her tear-blurred blue eyes fixed themselves on the
young lady in black, and she had a strong, exciting impression that some
blessing hovered near her, which she could take hold of if only she had
courage.
"Indeed, miss, I'll love to help you," she said. "'Twill be a rale
pleasure--and not many comes my way, these days."
"I'm sorry for that," Angela told her. "Perhaps you're homesick. I think
you must have come not long ago from a green island which every one
loves."
"You're right, miss." The Irish eyes brimmed over. "And I'm homesick
enough to die, but not so much fur Oireland, as fur a place I niver set
eyes on."
Angela was interested. "You're homesick for a place you never set eyes on?
Then some one you love must be there."
This time the tears could not be kept back. The young woman had begun her
work of gathering up Angela's belongings, and lest the tears should fall
on a lace nightgown she was folding, she laid it on a chair, to search
wildly for her handkerchief. "Do excuse me, if ye can, miss," she choked.
"I've no right to make a fool o' meself in front of you, but you're that
kind, I got filled up like. It's the State of Oregon I'm thinkin' of, for
the man I crossed the say to marry is there, and now I don't know when we
shall ever see one another."
"Oregon's a long way off," said Angela. "I know that, though I've lived in
Europe most of my life. Only the other day I looked at it on the map."
"Have ye got that map by you, miss?"
"Yes. We'll find it presently, in this mass of books in my cabin trunk.
But I was going to say, though Oregon's ever so far West, the man you came
from Ireland to marry will surely send for you. Then how happy you'll be,
by and by."
"A long by and by, I'm afraid, miss."
"Oh, why? Isn't there money enough?" Angela began to plan how she might
make the course of true love run smooth; though in these days she was not
as rich as she had been.
"There was, to begin with," the girl answered. "You see, miss, he sent for
me to meet him in New York, and 'twas he paid me way over. He'd bought
land in Oregon, and irritated it, as they calls it--and was doin'
wonderful. The idea was he should meet me at the ship, and we'd get
married and go West, man and wife. But his partner cheated him out of his
eyes, and the trick only come out when I was on the water. So instead o'
findin' me Tim I found a letter. The poor boy's had to start all over
again; and I tuk service, waitin' till he can scrape up the money to fetch
me out."
"I may be going quite near Oregon myself before long," said Angela
impulsively. "Do you think you could learn to be my maid, and would you
like to go with me?"
"Like it!" the girl echoed, turning white and then red. "'Twould be
heaven. I'm not too happy here. The housekeeper's got a 'clow' on me. And
indade, I've done a bit of maidin' to a lady in the ould country. I'd work
early and late to please ye, miss!"
"I feel sure you would," Angela said. "But you know, if you're going to be
my maid, you must give up calling me 'miss,' for I am--Mrs. May."
"I beg your pardon, I'm sure, ma'am. But 'twas because ye look so young,
it never entered me head ye could be married, and perhaps even a widow."
Angela did not speak, and at once the girl made sure that she had hit upon
the truth with her last words. The lovely lady was in black for her
husband, to whom she must have been married when almost a child. "My
name's Kate McGinnis, ma'am," she went quickly on, "and though I've got no
recommendations in writin', because I thought to take a husband and not
service, I can get a good word from the priest, and----"
"Your face tells me enough," Angela broke in. "I know you're a good girl,
and that you'll be a comfort to me on the journey. But if you go, you
mustn't expect to get out to Oregon immediately. I mean to travel to
California, and I should like you to stay with me until I settle
somewhere. Then I'll send you to the place where your _fiancé_ lives."
"That's what I'd like best of anything," exclaimed Kate. "Tim ain't ready
yet, but he will be soon--now the worry about payin' the big price of me
railway ticket will be off our minds. Oh, but doesn't it seem too good to
be true?"
"Why not say too good _not_ to be true?" asked Angela, whose optimism
to-day was ready to triumph over past stumbling-blocks. "It's settled,
then--if the hotel will let you off."
"I've giv' in me notice, miss--madam, I mean," replied the girl hastily.
"There's some things I don't think Tim would like about me bein' in a
hotel, and I was lookin' out for a private place. Me time's up here day
after to-morrow. But, oh, ma'am, there's a thing I haven't told
ye--indade, 'twas because I forgot, not that I meant to desave. Maybe,
when ye know what it is ye'll change yer mind about havin' me--and I
couldn't blame ye."
Angela's clear eyes looked full into the clear eyes of the Irish girl. "I
don't believe you can have anything to tell me which will make me want not
to have you. Is it serious?"
"Yes, ma'am, very serious." Kate paused, swallowing heavily. "It's--it's a
cat."
"A cat!" Angela burst out laughing. "How can a cat come between us?"
"A black cat, ma'am named Timmy after me own Tim, who give him to me, a
kitten, three years ago, before he left the ould country. I promised be
this and be that I'd niver part with the crature till Tim and me was made
wan, and I niver have. Neither will I, if I have to starve. But I pay fur
his kape in the hotel, out o' me wages, as if he was a Christian, and so
he is, pretty near. There's nothin' he doesn't know; but I don't suppose
ye'd allow him to travel in the trains--and I couldn't lave him."
To have a travelling cat, and a maid named McGinnis! The idea was
preposterous, but Angela was in a mood to do preposterous things, and
enjoy doing them. "I like you for your loyalty," she said, "and I shall
like Timmy, too. Cats are misunderstood people. They can be splendid
friends. And black cats are supposed to bring luck."
"I should love to have Timmy bring _you_ some, ma'am," said Kate. "Not
that ye need it, of course."
"But I do," Angela answered. "As for you, I shall call you by your first
name. Kate, as if you were a French maid. I like it better than McGinnis."
"Thank you, so do I, ma'am. But it's me Tim has the fine name, which he'll
give me when the right time comes. It's Moriarty, and to my mind there's
none with more music in it. Oh, if ye only knew how happy ye've made me! I
was afraid me name would be as black in yer eyes as the cat, so that's why
I broke it to ye gently, and now I'm rewarded for everything."
Angela laughed again. "I fancied I was all alone in the world," she said
to herself, "and here I am collecting a family."
She had luncheon brought to her own sitting-room, when Kate had put away
everything and gone. Quantities of flowers she ordered, too--American
Beauty roses, which looked extraordinarily intelligent and companionable,
she thought. Then, most of the afternoon she spent in poring over maps,
planning what she called her "pilgrimage"; and a little before six she was
ready to go down and buy her ticket West, at the travel bureau which, she
heard, existed in the hotel. Afterward she meant to take a stroll, and see
Fifth Avenue by sunset.
Not once since entering her rooms had she consciously remembered the
"bronze statue." In the marble hall, however, she recalled him, and
thought most likely he was out amusing himself and seeing New York. But
no; there he was, sitting rather dejectedly in a large rocking-chair; and
as her eyes found him, his found her. Instantly his whole aspect changed.
The statue came to life. His listless expression brightened to the
puzzling intentness with which he had looked at her in the morning. As she
passed near him, on her way to the travel bureau, he got up and stood like
a soldier at attention. Seeing this Angela went by quickly without seeming
to glance at him, for she was afraid that he meant to speak, and she hoped
that he would not, for she did not want to snub him. She need not have
feared, however. He made no sign, but looked at her as if she were a
passing queen, for whom it was a man's duty and pleasure to get to his
feet.
Angela would have bowed in recognition of the morning's courtesy, but
dared not, lest after all he should be encouraged to speak; for his type
was so new to her that she did not understand it in the least. It was,
however, rather an agreeable mystery, and she saw him feature by feature,
without appearing to lift her eyes. It was too bad that he had been
foolish enough to discard his becoming costume of the morning for a
conventional suit of clothes, which, it was painfully certain, he must
have bought ready-made. The things did not fit too well, though they had
probably cost a good deal, and they were astonishingly like advertisements
of men's clothes which Angela had seen in American magazines on shipboard.
They did their best to give him his money's worth, by spoiling his
splendid looks and turning him into something different from what nature
had intended. His broad shoulders were increased in size by the padded
cutaway coat, until they seemed out of proportion. His collar was an inch
too high, and he was evidently wretched in it. Also he had the look in his
eyes of a man whose boots are so tight that he wishes to die. His fancy
waistcoat and maroon necktie must have been forced upon him by a ruthless
salesman who would stop at no crime in the way of trade, and the
consciousness of these atrocities and the largeness of his scarf-pin had
reduced the poor fellow to the depths of gloom. In one hand he held a pair
of yellowish kid gloves which hung limp and feeble, like the dead bodies
of small animals, and on the floor near his feet, as if drawing attention
to the brilliance of his patent-leather shoes, was the latest extravagance
in silk hats.
"My spoilt statue!" Angela thought. "I believe he is as sorry for himself
as I am for him. Who knows, though? Perhaps I'm mistaken, and he's as
proud as Punch. In that case, I give him up!"
But she would not have believed any one who had told her that she, and she
alone, was the cause of the tragic change. He had wished to appear well in
her eyes, and had gone about it in the way that seemed best.
V