CAPTAIN and Mrs. Kempt with Sabina had resided a week in the Matterhorn
Hotel before the two girls arrived there. They had gone direct to New
York, and it required the seven days to find a flat that suited them, of
which they were to take possession on the first of October. Then there
were the lawyers to see; a great many business details to settle, and
an architect to consult. After leaving New York the girls spent a day at
Haverstock, where Dorothy Amhurst bought a piece of land as shrewdly
as if she had been in the real estate business all her life. After this
transaction the girls drove to the station on the line connecting with
the inclined railway, and so, as Katherine remarked, were “wafted to
the skies on flowery beds of ease,” which she explained to her shocked
companion was all right, because it was a quotation from a hymn. When at
last they reached their hotel, Katherine was in ecstasies.
“Isn’t this heavenly?” she cried, “and, indeed, it ought to be, for I
understand we are three thousand feet higher than we were in New York,
and even the sky-scrapers can’t compete with such an altitude.”
The broad valley of the Hudson lay spread beneath them, stretching
as far as the eye could see, shimmering in the thin, bluish veil of a
summer evening, and miles away the river itself could be traced like a
silver ribbon.
The gallant Captain, who had been energetically browbeaten by his
younger daughter, and threatened with divers pains and penalties should
he fail to pay attention and take heed to instructions, had acquitted
himself with eclat in the selection of rooms for Dorothy and his
daughter. The suite was situated in one corner of the huge caravansary,
a large parlor occupying the angle, with windows on one side looking
into the forest, and on the other giving an extended view across the
valley. The front room adjoining the parlor was to be Dorothy’s very
own, and the end room belonged to Katherine, he said, as long as she
behaved herself. If Dorothy ever wished to evict her strenuous neighbor,
all she had to do was to call upon the Captain, and he would lend his
aid, at which proffer of assistance Katherine tossed her head, and
said she would try the room for a week, and, if she didn’t like it, out
Dorothy would have to go.
There followed days and nights of revelry. Hops, concerts,
entertainments of all sorts, with a more pretentious ball on Saturday
night, when the week-tired man from New York arrived in the afternoon to
find temperature twenty degrees lower, and the altitude very much higher
than was the case in his busy office in the city. Katherine revelled in
this round of excitement, and indeed, so, in a milder way, did Dorothy.
After the functions were over the girls enjoyed a comforting chat
with one another in their drawing room; all windows open, and the moon
a-shining down over the luminous valley, which it seemed to fill with
mother-o’-pearl dust.
Young Mr. J. K. Henderson of New York, having danced repeatedly with
Katherine on Saturday night, unexpectedly turned up for the hop on
the following Wednesday, when he again danced repeatedly with the same
joyous girl. It being somewhat unusual for a keen business man to take a
four hours’ journey during an afternoon in the middle of the week, and,
as a consequence, arrive late at his office next morning, Dorothy began
to wonder if a concrete formation, associated with the name of Prince
Ivan Lermontoff of Russia, was strong enough to stand an energetic
assault of this nature, supposing it were to be constantly repeated. It
was after midnight on Wednesday when the two reached the corner parlor.
Dorothy sat in a cane armchair, while Katherine threw herself into a
rocking-chair, laced her fingers behind her head, and gazed through the
open window at the misty infinity beyond.
“Well,” sighed Katherine, “this has been the most enjoyable evening I
ever spent!”
“Are you quite sure?” inquired her friend.
“Certainly. Shouldn’t I know?”
“He dances well, then?”
“Exquisitely!”
“Better than Jack Lamont?”
“Well, now you mention him I must confess Jack danced very creditably.”
“I didn’t know but you might have forgotten the Prince.”
“No, I haven’t exactly forgotten him, but--I do think he might have
written to me.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it? Did he ask your permission to write?”
“Good gracious, no. We never talked of writing. Old red sandstone,
rather, was our topic of conversation. Still, he might have acknowledged
receipt of the book.”
“But the book was given to him in return for the one he presented to
you.”
“Yes, I suppose it was. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Then again, Kate, Russian notions regarding writing to young ladies
may differ from ours, or he may have fallen overboard, or touched a live
wire.”
“Yes, there are many possibilities,” murmured Katherine dreamily.
“It seems rather strange that Mr. Henderson should have time to come up
here in the middle of the week.”
“Why is it strange?” asked Katherine. “Mr. Henderson is not a clerk
bound down to office hours. He’s an official high up in one of the big
insurance companies, and gets a simply tremendous salary.”
“Really? Does he talk as well as Jack Lamont did?”
“He talks less like the Troy Technical Institute, and more like the
‘Home Journal’ than poor Prince Jack did, and then he has a much greater
sense of humor. When I told him that the oath of an insurance man should
be ‘bet your life!’ he laughed. Now, Jack would never have seen the
point of that. Anyhow, the hour is too late, and I am too sleepy, to
worry about young men, or jokes either. Good-night!”
Next morning’s mail brought Dorothy a bulky letter decorated with
English stamps. She locked the door, tore open the envelope, and found
many sheets of thin paper bearing the heading of the Bluewater Club,
Pall Mall.
“I am reminded of an old adage,” she read, “to the effect that one
should never cross a bridge before arriving at it. Since I bade good-by
to you, up to this very evening, I have been plodding over a bridge
that didn’t exist, much to my own discomfort. You were with me when
I received the message ordering me home to England, and I don’t
know whether or not I succeeded in suppressing all signs of my own
perturbation, but we have in the Navy now a man who does not hesitate
to overturn a court martial, and so I feared a re-opening of the Rock in
the Baltic question, which might have meant the wrecking of my career.
I had quite made up my mind, if the worst came to the worst, to go out
West and become a cow-boy, but a passenger with whom I became acquainted
on the ‘Enthusiana’ informed me, to my regret, that the cow-boy is
largely a being of the past, to be met with only in the writings of
Stewart Edward White, Owen Wister, and several other famous men whom he
named. So you see, I went across the ocean tolerably depressed, finding
my present occupation threatened, and my future uncertain.
“When I arrived in London I took a room at this Club, of which I have
been a member for some years, and reported immediately at the Admiralty.
But there, in spite of all diligence on my part, I was quite unable to
learn what was wanted of me. Of course, I could have gone to my Uncle,
who is in the government, and perhaps he might have enlightened me,
although he has nothing to do with the Navy, but I rather like to avoid
Uncle Metgurne. He brought me up since I was a small boy, and seems
unnecessarily ashamed of the result. It is his son who is the attache’
in St. Petersburg that I spoke to you about.”
Dorothy ceased reading for a moment.
“Metgurne, Metgurne,” she said to herself. “Surely I know that name?”
She laid down the letter, pressed the electric button, and unlocked the
door. When the servant came, she said:
“Will you ask at the office if they have any biographical book of
reference relating to Great Britain, and if so, please bring it to me.”
The servant appeared shortly after with a red book which proved to be an
English “Who’s Who” dated two years back. Turning the pages she came to
Metgurne.
“Metgurne, twelfth Duke of, created 1681, Herbert George Alan.” Here
followed a number of other titles, the information that the son and heir
was Marquis of Thaxted, and belonged to the Diplomatic Service, that
Lord Metgurne was H. M. Secretary of State for Royal Dependencies;
finally a list of residences and clubs. She put down the book and
resumed the letter.
“I think I ought to have told you that when I reach St. Petersburg I
shall be as anxious to avoid my cousin Thaxted as I am to steer clear of
his father in London. So I sat in my club, and read the papers. Dear me,
this is evidently going to be a very long letter. I hope you won’t mind.
I think perhaps you may be interested in learning how they do things
over here.
“After two or three days of anxious waiting there came a crushing
communication from the Admiralty which confirmed my worst fears and set
me at crossing the bridge again. I was ordered to report next morning
at eleven, at Committee Room 5, in the Admiralty, and bring with me
full particulars pertaining to the firing of gun number so-and-so of the
‘Consternation’s’ equipment on such a date. I wonder since that I did
not take to drink. We have every facility for that sort of thing in this
club. However, at eleven next day, I presented myself at the Committee
Room and found in session the grimmest looking five men I have ever yet
been called upon to face. Collectively they were about ten times worse
in appearance than the court-martial I had previously encountered. Four
of the men I did not know, but the fifth I recognized at once, having
often seen his portrait. He is Admiral Sir John Pendergest, popularly
known in the service as ‘Old Grouch,’ a blue terror who knows absolutely
nothing of mercy. The lads in the service say he looks so disagreeable
because he is sorry he wasn’t born a hanging judge. Picture a face as
cleanly cut as that of some severe old Roman Senator; a face as hard as
marble, quite as cold, and nearly as white, rescued from the appearance
of a death mask by a pair of piercing eyes that glitter like steel. When
looking at him it is quite impossible to believe that such a personage
has ever been a boy who played pranks on his masters. Indeed,
Admiral Sir John Pendergest seems to have sprung, fully uniformed and
forbidding, from the earth, like those soldiers of mythology. I was
so taken aback at confronting such a man that I never noticed my old
friend, Billy Richardson, seated at the table as one of the minor
officials of the Committee. Billy tells me I looked rather white about
the lips when I realized what was ahead of me, and I daresay he was
right. My consolation is that I didn’t get red, as is my disconcerting
habit. I was accommodated with a chair, and then a ferrety-faced little
man began asking me questions, consulting every now and then a foolscap
sheet of paper which was before him. Others were ready to note down the
answers.
“‘When did you fire the new gun from the “Consternation” in the Baltic?’
“Dear Miss Amhurst, I have confessed to you that I am not brilliant,
and, indeed, such confession was quite unnecessary, for you must
speedily have recognized the fact, but here let me boast for a line or
two of my one accomplishment, which is mathematical accuracy. When I
make experiments I don’t note the result by rule of thumb. My answer to
the ferret-faced man was prompt and complete.
“‘At twenty-three minutes, seventeen seconds past ten, A.M., on May the
third of this year,’ was my reply.
“The five high officials remained perfectly impassive, but the two
stenographers seemed somewhat taken by surprise, and one of them
whispered, ‘Did you say fifteen seconds, sir?’
“‘He said seventeen,’ growled Sir John Pendergest, in a voice that
seemed to come out of a sepulchre.
“‘Who sighted the gun?’
“‘I did, sir.’
“‘Why did not the regular gunner do that?’
“‘He did, sir, but I also took observations, and raised the muzzle
.000327 of an inch.’
“‘Was your gunner inaccurate, then, to that extent?’
“‘No, sir, but I had weighed the ammunition, and found it short by two
ounces and thirty-seven grains.’
“I must not bore you with all the questions and answers. I merely give
these as samples. They questioned me about the recoil, the action of the
gun, the state of this, that and the other after firing, and luckily I
was able to answer to a dot every query put to me. At the finish one
of the judges asked me to give in my own words my opinion of the gun.
Admiral Sir John glared at him as he put this question, for of course
to any expert the answers I had furnished, all taken together, gave
an accurate verdict on the gun, assuming my statements to have been
correct, which I maintain they were. However, as Sir John made no verbal
comment, I offered my opinion as tersely as I could.
“‘Thank you, Lieutenant Drummond,’ rumbled Sir John in his deep voice,
as if he were pronouncing sentence, and, my testimony completed, the
Committee rose.
“I was out in the street before Billy Richardson overtook me, and then
he called himself to my attention by a resounding slap on the shoulder.
“‘Alan, my boy,’ he cried, ‘you have done yourself proud. Your fortune’s
made.’
“‘As how?’ I asked, shaking him by the hand.
“‘Why, we’ve been for weeks holding an inquiry on this blessed gun, and
the question is whether or not a lot more of them are to be made. You
know what an opinionated beast Old Grouch is. Well, my boy, you have
corroborated his opinion of the gun in every detail. He is such a
brow-beating, tyrannical brute that the rest of the Committee would
rather like to go against him if they dared, but you have put a spoke in
their wheel. Why, Sir John never said “thank you” to a human being since
he was born until twenty-seven minutes and fifteen seconds after eleven
this morning, as you would have put it,’ and at the time of writing this
letter this surmise of Billy’s appears to be justified, for the tape in
the club just now announced that the Committee has unanimously decided
in favor of the gun, and adds that this is regarded as a triumph for the
chairman, Admiral Sir John Pendergest, with various letters after his
name.
“Dear Miss Amhurst, this letter, as I feared, has turned out intolerably
long, and like our first conversation, it is all about myself. But then,
you see, you are the only one on the other side of the water to whom
I have confided my selfish worries, and I believe you to be so
kind-hearted that I am sure you will not censure me for this once
exceeding the limits of friendly correspondence. Having been deeply
depressed during all the previous long days, the sudden reaction urges
me to go out into Pall Mall, fling my cap in the air, and whoop, which
action is quite evidently a remnant of my former cow-boy aspirations.
Truth to tell, the Russian business seems already forgotten, except by
my stout old Captain on the ‘Consternation,’ or my Uncle. The strenuous
Sir John has had me haled across the ocean merely to give testimony,
lasting about thirty-five minutes, when with a little patience he might
have waited till the ‘Consternation’ herself arrived, or else have
cabled for us to try the gun at Bar Harbor. I suppose, however, that
after my unfortunate contretemps with Russia our government was afraid
I’d chip a corner off the United States, and that they’d have to pay for
it. So perhaps after all it was greater economy to bring me across on
the liner ‘Enthusiana.’
“By the way, I learned yesterday that the ‘Consternation’ has been
ordered home, and so I expect to see Jack Lamont before many days are
past. The ship will be paid off at Portsmouth, and then I suppose he and
I will have our freedom for six months. I am rather looking forward to
Jack’s cooking me some weird but tasteful Russian dishes when we reach
his blacksmith’s shop in St. Petersburg. If I get on in Russia as I hope
and expect, I shall spend the rest of my leave over in the States. I saw
very little indeed of that great country, and am extremely anxious to
see more. When one is on duty aboard ship one can only take very short
excursions ashore. I should like to visit Niagara. It seems ridiculous
that one should have been all along the American coast from Canada to
New York, and never have got far enough inland to view the great Falls.
“Russia is rather dilatory in her methods, but I surely should know
within two or three weeks whether I am going to succeed or not. If
not, then there is no use in waiting there. I shall try to persuade the
Prince to accompany me to America. During the weeks I am waiting in St.
Petersburg I shall continually impress upon him the utter futility of
a life which has not investigated the great electrical power plant at
Niagara Falls. And then he is interested in the educational system of
the United States. While we were going to the station early that morning
he told me that the United States educational system must be the
most wonderful in the world, because he found that your friend, Miss
Katherine Kempt, knew more about electricity, metallurgy, natural
philosophy and a great number of other things he is interested in, than
all the ladies he has met in Europe put together. He thinks that’s the
right sort of education for girls, and all this rather astonished me,
because, although your friend was most charming, she said nothing during
my very short acquaintance with her to lead me to suspect that she had
received a scientific training.
“Dear Miss Amhurst, I am looking every day for a letter from you, but
none has yet been received by the Admiralty, who, when they get one,
will forward it to whatever part of the world I happen to be in.”