THE PRINCE MEETS MISS GUILE
Later on R. Schmidt sat alone in a sheltered corner of the promenade
deck, where chairs had been secured by the forehanded Hobbs. The thin
drizzle now aspired to something more definite in the shape of a steady
downpour, and the decks were almost deserted, save for the few who
huddled in the unexposed nooks where the sweep and swish of the rain
failed to penetrate. There was a faraway look in the young man's eyes,
as of one who dreams pleasantly, with little effort but excellent
effect. His pipe had gone out, so his dream must have been long and
uninterrupted. Eight bells sounded, but what is time to a dreamer? Then
came one bell and two, and now his eyes were closed.
Two women came and stood over him, but little did they suspect that his
dream was of one of them: the one with the lovely eyes and the soft
brown hair. They surveyed him, whispering, the one with a little
perplexed frown on her brow, the other with distinct signs of annoyance
in her face. The girl was not more than twenty, her companion quite old
enough to be her mother: a considerate if not complimentary estimate,
for a girl's mother may be either forty, fifty or even fifty-five, when
you come to think of it.
They were looking for something. That was quite clear. And it was
deplorably clear that whatever it was, R. Schmidt was sitting upon it.
They saw that he was asleep, which made the search if not the actual
recovery quite out of the question. The older woman was on the point of
poking the sleeper with the toe of her shoe, being a matter-of-fact
sort of person, when the girl imperatively shook her head and frowned
upon the lady in a way to prove that even though she was old enough to
be the mother of a girl of twenty she was by no means the mother of
this one.
At that very instant, R. Schmidt opened his eyes. It must have been a
kindly poke by the god of sleep that aroused him so opportunely, but
even so, the toe of a shoe could not have created a graver catastrophe
than that which immediately befell him. He completely lost his head. If
one had suddenly asked what had become of it, he couldn't have told,
not for the life of him. For that matter, he couldn't have put his
finger, so to speak, on any part of his person and proclaimed with
confidence that it belonged to R. Schmidt of Vienna. He was looking
directly up into a pair of dark, startled eyes, in which there was a
very pretty confusion and a far from impervious blink.
"I beg your pardon," said the older woman, without the faintest trace
of embarrassment,--indeed, with some asperity,--"I think you are
occupying one of our chairs."
He scrambled out of the steamer rug and came to his feet, blushing to
the roots of his hair.
"I beg your pardon," he stammered, and found his awkwardness rewarded
by an extremely sweet smile--in the eyes of the one he addressed.
"We were looking for a letter that I am quite sure was left in my
chair," said she.
"A letter?" he murmured vaguely, and at once began to search with his
eyes.
"From her father," volunteered the elderly one, as if it were a
necessary bit of information. Then she jerked the rug away and three
pairs of eyes examined the place where R. Schmidt had been reclining.
"That's odd. Did you happen to see it when you sat down, sir?"
"I am confident that there was no letter--" began he, and then allowed
his gaze to rest on the name-card at the top of the chair. "This
happens to be _my_ chair, madam," he went on, pointing to the card.
"'R. Schmidt.' I am very sorry."
"The steward must have put that card there while you were at luncheon,
dear. What right has he to sell our chairs over again? I shall report
this to the Captain--"
"I am quite positive that this is my chair, sir," said the girl, a spot
of red in each cheek. "It was engaged two days ago. I have been
occupying it since--but it really doesn't matter. It has your name on
it now, so I suppose I shall have to--"
"Not at all," he made haste to say. "It's yours. There has been some
miserable mistake. These deck stewards are always messing things up.
Still, it is rather a mystery about the letter. I assure you I saw no--"
"No doubt the steward who changed the cards had sufficient intelligence
to remove all incriminating evidence," said she coolly. "We shall find
it among the lost, strayed and stolen articles, no doubt. Pray retain
the chair, Mr.--" She peered at the name-card--"Mr. Schmidt."
Her cool insolence succeeded in nettling a nature that was usually most
gentle. He spoke with characteristic directness.
"Thank you, I shall do so. We thereby manage to strike a fair average.
I seize your deck chair, you seize my table. We are quits."
She smiled faintly. "R. Schmidt did not sound young and gentle, but old
and hateful. That is why I seized the table. I expected to find R.
Schmidt a fat, old German with very bad manners. Instead, you are
neither fat, old, nor disagreeable. You took it very nicely, Mr.
Schmidt, and I am undone. Won't you permit me to restore your table to
you?"
The elderly lady was tapping the deck with a most impatient foot.
"Really my dear, we were quite within our rights in approaching the
head waiter. He--"
"He said it was engaged," interrupted the young lady. "R. Schmidt was
the name he gave and I informed him it meant nothing to me. I am very
sorry, Mr. Schmidt. I suppose it was all because I am so accustomed to
having my own way."
"In that case, it is all very easy to understand," said he, "for I have
always longed to be in a position where I could have my own way. I am
sure that if I could have it, I would be a most overbearing, selfish
person."
"We must enquire at the office for the letter, my dear, before--"
"It may have dropped behind the chair," said the girl.
"Right!" cried R. Schmidt, dragging the chair away and pointing in
triumph at the missing letter. He stooped to recover the missive, but
she was quick to forestall him. With a little gasp she pounced upon it
and, like a child proceeded to hold it behind her back. He stiffened.
"I remember that you said it was from your father."
She hesitated an instant and then held it forth for his inspection,
rather adroitly concealing the postmark with her thumb. It was
addressed to "Miss B. Guile, S. S. _Jupiter_, New York City, N. Y.,"
and type-written.
"It is only fair that we should be quits in every particular," she
said, with a frank smile.
He bowed. "A letter of introduction," he said, "in the strictest sense
of the word. You have already had my card thrust upon you, so
everything is quite regular. And now it is only right and proper that I
should see what has become of your chairs. Permit me--"
"Really, Miss Guile," interposed her companion, "this is quite
irregular. I may say it is unusual. Pray allow me to suggest--"
"I think it is only right that Mr. Schmidt should return good for
evil," interrupted the girl gaily. "Please enquire, Mr. Schmidt. No
doubt the deck steward will know."
Again the Prince bowed, but this time there was amusement instead of
uncertainty in his eyes. It was the first time that any one had ever
urged him, even by inference, to "fetch and carry." Moreover, she was
extremely cool about it, as one who exacts much of young men in serge
suits and outing-caps. He found himself wondering what she would say if
he were to suddenly announce that he was the Prince of Graustark. The
thought tickled his fancy, accounting, no doubt, for the even deeper
bow that he gave her.
"They can't be very far away," he observed quite meekly. "Oh, I say,
steward! One moment, here." A deck steward approached with alacrity.
"What has become of Miss Guile's chair?"
The man touched his cap and beamed joyously upon the fair young lady.
"Ach! See how I have forgot! It is here! The best place on the deck--on
any deck. See! Two--side by side,--above the door, away from the
draft--see, in the corner, ha, ha! Yes! Two by side. The very best.
Miss Guile complains of the draft from the door. I exchanged the
chairs. See! But I forgot to speak. Yes! See!"
And, sure enough, there were the chairs of Miss Guile and her companion
snugly stowed away in the corner, standing at right angles to the long
row that lined the deck, the foot rests pointed directly at the chair
R. Schmidt had just vacated, not more than a yard and a half away.
"How stupid!" exclaimed Miss Guile. "Thank you, steward. This is much
better. So sorry, Mr. Schmidt, to have disturbed you. I abhor drafts,
don't you?"
"Not to the extent that I shall move out of this one," he replied
gallantly, "now that I've got an undisputed claim to it. I intend to
stand up for my rights, Miss Guile, even though you find me at your
feet."
"How perfectly love--" began Miss Guile, a gleam of real enthusiasm in
her eyes. A sharp, horrified look from her companion served as a check,
and she became at once the coolly indifferent creature who exacts
everything. "Thank you, Mr. Schmidt, for being so nice when we were
trying so hard to be horrid."
"But you don't know how nice you are when you are trying to be horrid,"
he remarked. "Are you not going to sit down, now that we've captured
the disappearing chair?"
"No," she said, and he fancied he saw regret in her eyes. "I am going
to my room,--if I can find it. No doubt it also is lost. This seems to
be a day for misplacing things."
"At any rate, permit me to thank you for discovering me, Miss Guile."
"Oh, I daresay I shall misplace you, too, Mr. Schmidt." She said it so
insolently that he flushed as he drew himself up and stepped aside to
allow her to pass. For an instant their eyes met, and the sign of the
humble was not to be found in the expression of either.
"Even _that_ will be something for me to look forward to, Miss Guile,"
said he. Far from being vexed, she favoured him with a faint smile
of--was it wonder or admiration?
Then she moved away, followed by the uneasy lady--who was old enough to
be her mother and wasn't.
Robin remained standing for a moment, looking after her, and somehow he
felt that his dream was not yet ended. She turned the corner of the
deck building and was lost to sight. He sat down, only to arise almost
instantly, moved by a livelier curiosity than he ever had felt before.
Conscious of a certain feeling of stealth, he scrutinised the cards in
the backs of the two chairs. The steward was collecting the discarded
steamer-rugs farther down the deck, and the few passengers who occupied
chairs, appeared to be snoozing,--all of which he took in with his
first appraising glance. "Miss Guile" and "Mrs. Gaston" were the names
he read.
"Americans," he mused. "Young lady and chaperone, that's it. A real
American beauty! And Blithers loudly boasts that his daughter is the
prettiest girl in America! Shades of Venus! Can there be such a thing
on earth as a prettier girl than this one? Can nature have performed
the impossible? Is America so full of lovely girls that this one must
take second place to a daughter of Blithers? I wonder if she knows the
imperial Maud. I'll make it a point to inquire."
Moved by a sudden restlessness, he decided that he was in need of
exercise. A walk would do him good. The same spirit of restlessness, no
doubt, urged him to walk rather rapidly in the direction opposite to
that taken by the lovely Miss Guile. After completely circling the deck
once he decided that he did not need the exercise after all. His walk
had not benefitted him in the least. She _had_ gone to her room. He
returned to his chair, conscious of having been defeated but without
really knowing why or how. As he turned into the dry, snug corner, he
came to an abrupt stop and stared. Miss Guile was sitting in her chair,
neatly encased in a mummy-like sheath of grey that covered her slim
body to the waist.
She was quite alone in her nook, and reading. Evidently the book
interested her, for she failed to look up when he clumsily slid into
his chair and threw the rug over his legs--dreadfully long,
uninteresting legs, he thought, as he stretched them out and found that
his feet protruded like a pair of white obelisks.
Naturally he looked seaward, but in his mind's eye he saw her as he had
seen her not more than ten minutes before: a slim, tall girl in a smart
buff coat, with a limp white hat drawn down over her hair by means of a
bright green veil; he had had a glimpse of staunch tan walking-shoes.
He found himself wondering how he had missed her in the turn about the
deck, and how she could have ensconced herself so snugly during his
brief evacuation of the spot. Suddenly it occurred to him that she had
returned to the chair only after discovering that his was vacant. It
wasn't a very gratifying conclusion.
An astonishing intrepidity induced him to speak to her after a lapse of
five or six minutes, and so surprising was the impulse that he blurted
out his question without preamble.
"How did you manage to get back so quickly?" he inquired.
She looked up, and for an instant there was something like alarm in her
lovely eyes, as of one caught in the perpetration of a guilty act.
"I beg your pardon," she said, rather indistinctly.
"I was away less than eight minutes," he declared, and she was
confronted by the wonderfully frank smile that never failed to work its
charm. To his surprise, a shy smile grew in her eyes, and her warm red
lips twitched uncertainly. He had expected a cold rebuff. "You must
have dropped through the awning."
"Your imagination is superior to that employed by the author of this
book," she said, "and that is saying a good deal, Mr.--Mr.--"
"Schmidt," he supplied cheerfully. "May I inquire what book you are
reading?"
"You would not be interested. It is by an American."
"I have read a great many American novels," said he stiffly. "My father
was an American. Awfully jolly books, most of them."
"I looked you up in the passenger list a moment ago," she said coolly.
"Your home is in Vienna. I like Vienna."
He was looking rather intently at the book, now partly lowered. "Isn't
that the passenger list you have concealed in that book?" he demanded.
"It is," she replied promptly. "You will pardon a natural curiosity? I
wanted to see whether you were from New York."
"May I look at it, please?"
She closed the book. "It isn't necessary. I _am_ from New York."
"By the way, do you happen to know a Miss Blithers,--Maud Blithers?"
Miss Guile frowned reflectively. "Blithers? The name is a familiar one.
Maud Blithers? What is she like?"
"She's supposed to be very good-looking. I've never seen her."
"How queer to be asking me if I know her, then. Why _do_ you ask?"
"I've heard so much about her lately. She is the daughter of William
Blithers, the great capitalist."
"Oh, I know who he is," she exclaimed. "Perfect roodles of money,
hasn't he?"
"Roodles?"
"Loads, if it means more to you. I forgot that you are a foreigner. He
gave that wonderful ball last week for the Prince of--of--Oh, some
insignificant little place over in Europe. There are such a lot of
queer little duchies and principalities, don't you know; it is quite
impossible to tell one from the other. They don't even appear on the
maps."
He took it with a perfectly straight face, though secretly annoyed. "It
was the talk of the town, that ball. It must have cost roodles of
money. Is that right?"
"Yes, but it doesn't sound right when you say it. Naturally one doesn't
say roodles in Vienna."
"We say noodles," said he. "I am very fond of them. But to resume; I
supposed every one in New York knew Miss Blithers. She's quite the
rage, I'm told."
"Indeed? I should think she might be, Mr. Schmidt, with all those
lovely millions behind her."
He smiled introspectively. "Yes; and I am told that, in spite of them,
she is the prettiest girl in New York."
She appeared to lose interest in the topic. "Oh, indeed?"
"But," he supplemented gracefully, "it isn't true."
"What isn't true?"
"The statement that she is the prettiest girl in New York."
"How can you say that, when you admit you've never seen her?"
"I can say it with a perfectly clear conscience, Miss Guile," said he,
and was filled with delight when she bit her lip as a sign of
acknowledgment.
"Oh, here comes the tea," she cried, with a strange eagerness in her
voice. "I am so glad." She scrambled gracefully out of her rug and
arose to her feet.
"Aren't you going to have some?" he cried.
"Yes," she said, quite pointedly. "In my room, Mr. Schmidt," and before
he could get to his feet she was moving away without so much as a nod
or smile for him. Indeed, she appeared to have dismissed him from her
thoughts quite as completely as from her vision. He experienced a queer
sensation of shrivelling.
At dinner that night, she failed to look in his direction, a
circumstance that may not appear extraordinary when it is stated that
she purposely or inadvertently exchanged seats with Mrs. Gaston and sat
with her back to the table occupied by R. Schmidt and his friends. He
had to be content with a view of the most exquisite back and shoulders
that good fortune had ever allowed him to gaze upon. And then there was
the way that her soft brown hair grew above the slender neck, to say
nothing of--but Mrs. Gaston was watching him with most unfriendly eyes,
so the feast was spoiled.
The following day was as unlike its predecessor as black is like white.
During the night the smooth grey pond had been transformed into a
turbulent, storm-threshed ocean; the once gentle wind was now a howling
gale that swept the decks with a merciless lash in its grip and whipped
into submission all who vaingloriously sought to defy its chill
dominion. Not rain, but spray from huge, swashing billows, clouded the
decks, biting and cutting like countless needles, each drop with the
sting of a hornet behind it. Now the end of the world seemed far away,
and the jumping off place was a rickety wall of white and black,
leaning against a cold, drear sky.
Only the hardiest of the passengers ventured on deck; the exhilaration
they professed was but another name for bravado. They shivered and
gasped for breath as they forged their bitter way into the gale, and
few were they who took more than a single turn of the deck. Like beaten
cowards they soon slunk into the sheltered spots, or sought even less
heroic means of surrender by tumbling into bed with the considerate
help of unsmiling stewards. The great ship went up and the great ship
came down: when up so high that the sky seemed to be startlingly near
and down so horribly low that the bottom of the ocean was even nearer.
And it creaked and groaned and sighed even above the wild monody of the
wind, like a thing in misery, yet all the while holding its sides to
keep from bursting with laughter over the plight of the little creature
whom God made after His own image but not until after all of the big
things of the universe had been designed.
R. Schmidt, being a good sailor and a hardy young chap, albeit a prince
of royal blood, was abroad early, after a breakfast that staggered the
few who remained unstaggered up to that particular crisis. A genial
sailor-man and an equally ungenial deck swabber advised him, in totally
different styles of address, to stay below if he knew what was good for
him, only to be thanked with all the blitheness of a man who jolly well
knows what is good for him, or who doesn't care whether it is good for
him or not so long as he is doing the thing that he wants to do.
He took two turns about the deck, and each time as he passed the spot
he sent a covert glance into the corner where Miss Guile's chair was
standing. Of course he did not expect to find her there in weather like
this, but--well, he looked and that is the end to the argument. The
going was extremely treacherous and unpleasant he was free to confess
to the genial sailor-man after the second breathless turn, and gave
that worthy a bright silver dollar upon receiving a further bit of
advice: to sit down somewhere out of the wind, sir.
Quinnox and Dank were hopelessly bed-ridden, so to speak. They were
very disagreeable, cross and unpleasant, and somehow he felt that they
hated their cheerful, happy-faced Prince. Never before had Count
Quinnox scowled at him, no matter how mad his pranks as a child or how
silly his actions as a youth. Never before had any one told him to go
to the devil. He rather liked it. And he rather admired poor Dank for
ordering him out of his cabin, with a perfectly astounding oath as a
climax to the command. Moreover, he thought considerably better of the
faithful Hobbs for an amazing exposition of human equality in the
matter of a pair of boots that he desired to wear that morning but
which happened to be stowed away in a cabin trunk. He told Hobbs to go
to the devil and Hobbs repeated the injunction, with especial heat, to
the boots, when he bumped his head in hauling them out of the trunk.
Whereupon R. Schmidt said to Hobbs: "Good for you. Hobbs. Go on,
please. Don't mind me. It was quite a thump, wasn't it?" And Hobbs
managed, between other words, to say that it was a whacking thump, and
one he would not forget to his dying day--(if he lived through this
one!).
"And you'd do well to sit in the smoke-room, sir," further advised the
sailor-man, clinging to the rail with one hand and pocketing the coin
with the other.
"No," said R. Schmidt resolutely. "I don't like the air in the
smoke-room."
"There's quite a bit of air out 'ere, sir."
"I need quite a bit."
"I should think you might, sir, being a 'ealthy, strappin' sort of a
chap, sir. 'Elp yourself. All the chairs is yours if you'll unpile 'em."
The young man battled his way down the deck and soon found himself in
the well-protected corner. A half-dozen unoccupied chairs were
cluttered about, having been abandoned by persons who over-estimated
their hardiness. One of the stewards was engaged in stacking them up
and making them fast.
Miss Guile's chair and that of Mrs. Gaston were staunchly fastened down
and their rugs were in place. R. Schmidt experienced an exquisite
sensation of pleasure. Here was a perfect exemplification of that
much-abused thing known as circumstantial evidence. She contemplated
coming on deck. So he had his chair put in place, called for his rug,
shrugged his chin down into the collar of his thick ulster, and sat
down to wait.