GAIETIES
They took her away the next day. The governor--Sir Charles Somebody--had
heard of her and came and claimed her. His lady--portly,
majestic--arrived with him. Their carriage was the finest on the island
and their horses were the best. The coachman and footman were covered
with the most approved paraphernalia and always constituted an unending
source of wonder and admiration for the natives. The latter gathered in
front of the best hotel on this occasion; they did not quite know what
was taking place, but the sight of the big carriage there drew them
about like flies.
Mr. Heatherbloom did not linger to speculate or to survey. He had seen
but not spoken to Miss Dalrymple that morning; she had smiled at him
across space, behind orchids. A moment or two he had sat dreaming how
fine it would be to live for ever in such a courtyard, with Betty
Dalrymple's face on the other side, then the hubbub below disturbed and
dispelled his reflections. He went down to investigate and to retreat.
Sir Charles and his lady were in the hall; they seemed to charge the
entire hostelry with their presence. Mr. Heatherbloom walked
contemplatively out and down the street.
His mind, with a little encouragement, would have flitted back to
courtyards and orchids, but he forced it along less fanciful lines.
Mundane considerations were imperative and courtyards were a luxury of
the rich. He calculated that, after paying his bill at the best hotel,
he wouldn't have much more than half a dollar, or two English shillings,
left. The situation demanded calm practical reflection; he strove to
bestow upon it the necessary measure of orderly thinking. Yesterday,
with its nickelodeon, or temple of wonder, was yesterday; to-day, with
its problems, was to-day. He had lingered in the happy valley, or
kingdom of Micomicon, but the carriage was before the door--the golden
chariot had come to bear away the beautiful princess.
Mr. Heatherbloom asked for employment at the wharf and got it. The
supercargo of the boat, loading there, had been indulging, not wisely
but too well, in "green swizzles", an insidious drink of the country,
and, when last seen was oblivious to the world. A red-haired mate, with
superfluous utterance, informed the applicant he could come that
afternoon and temporarily essay the delinquent one's duties, checking up
the bags of merchandise and bananas the natives were bringing aboard,
and otherwise making himself useful. Mr. Heatherbloom tendered his
thanks and departed.
He wandered aimlessly for a while, but the charm of the town had
vanished; he gazed with no interest upon quaint bits most attractive
yesterday, and stolidly regarded now those happy faces he had liked so
much but a short time before. He shook himself; this would not do; but
the work would soon cure him of vain imaginings.
He returned to the hotel and settled with the landlady. Betty Dalrymple
was gone. Of course, there could be no denying Sir Charles and his lady;
one of the young girl's place and position in the world could not, with
reason or good grace, refuse the governor's hospitality. Mr.
Heatherbloom was hardly a suitable chaperon. But she had left a hasty
and altogether charming note for him which he read the last few moments
he spent in the courtyard room. "Come soon;" that was the substance of
it. What more could mortal have asked? Mr. Heatherbloom gazed at an
empty window where he had last seen her (had they been there only
twenty-four hours?), then he took a bit of painting on ivory from his
pocket and wrapped the message around it. Before noon he had engaged
cheap but neat lodgings at the home of an old negro woman.
Several days passed. After waiting in vain for him to call at the
governor's mansion, Betty Dalrymple drove herself to the hotel; here she
learned that he had gone without leaving an address; a message from Sir
Charles for Mr. Heatherbloom, formally offering to put the latter up at
government house, had not been delivered. Mr. Heatherbloom had failed to
call for his mail.
"Really, my dear, such solicitude!" murmured the governor's wife, when
Miss Dalrymple came out of the hotel. "An ordinary secret-service man,
too."
"Oh, no; not an ordinary one," said the girl a little confusedly. She
had not taken the liberty of speaking of Mr. Heatherbloom's private
affairs to her august hosts. His true name, or his story, were his to
reveal when or where he saw fit. In taking her into his confidence he
had sealed her lips until such time as she had his permission to speak.
"Well, don't worry about the man," observed the elder lady rather
loftily. "There has been a big reward offered, of course, and he'll
appear in due time to claim it."
"He'll not," began Betty Dalrymple indignantly, and stopped.
She had been obliged to explain in some way Mr. Heatherbloom's presence,
and the subterfuge he had himself employed toward her on the _Nevski_
had been the only one that occurred to her. A brave secret-service
officer who had aided her--that's what Mr. Heatherbloom was to the
governor and his better half. Hence the distinct formality of Sir
Charles' note to Mr. Heatherbloom, indited at Miss Dalrymple's special
request and somewhat against the good baronet's own secret judgment. A
police agent may be valiant as a lion, but he is not a gentleman.
Something of this axiomatic truth the excellent hosts strove to instill
by means, more or less subtle, in the mind of their young guest; but she
clung with odd tenacity to her own ingenuous point of view. Whereupon
Sir Charles figuratively shrugged. Reprehensible democracy of the new
world! She, with the perversity of American womankind, actually spoke
of, and, no doubt, desired to treat the fellow as an equal.
She found him one morning, a day or two later. She came down to the
wharf, alone, and on foot. He held a note-book and pencil, but that he
had not been above lending physical assistance, on occasion, to the
natives bearing bags and other merchandise, was evident from his hands
which were grimy as a stevedore's. His shirt was open at the throat, and
his face, too, bore marks of toil. Betty Dalrymple stepped impetuously
toward him; she looked as fresh as a flower, and held out a hand gloved
in immaculate white.
"Dare I?" he laughed.
"If you don't!" Her eyes dared him not to take it.
He looked at the hand, such a delicate thing, and seemed still in the
least uncertain; then his fingers closed on it.
"You see I managed to find you," she said. "Who is that man who stares
so?"
"That," answered Mr. Heatherbloom smiling, "is my boss."
"Well," she observed, "I don't like his face."
"Some of the darkies he's knocked down share, I believe, your opinion,"
he laughed. "Excuse me a moment." And Mr. Heatherbloom stepped to the
dumfounded person in question, handed him the note-book and pencil,
with a request to keep tab for a moment, and then returned to the girl.
"Now, I'm at your command," he said with a smile.
"Suppose we take a walk?" she suggested. "We can talk better if we do."
A moment Mr. Heatherbloom wavered. "Sorry," he then said, "but I've
promised to stick by the job. You see the old tub sails to-morrow for
South America and it'll be a task to get her loaded before night. Some
of the hands, as well as the supercargo, have been bowled over by
fire-water."
"I see." There was a strained look about her lips. Before them heavily
laden negroes and a few sailors passed and repassed. The burly
red-headed mate often looked at her; amazement and curiosity were
depicted on his features; he almost forgot the duties Mr. Heatherbloom
had, for a brief interval, thrust upon him. Betty Dalrymple, however,
had ceased to observe him; he, the others, no longer existed for her.
She saw only Mr. Heatherbloom now; what he said, she knew he meant; she
realized with an odd thrill of mingled admiration and pain that even she
could not cause him to change his mind. He would "stick to his job",
because he had said he would.
"I'm interrupting, I fear," she said, a feeling of strange humility
sweeping over her. "When is your day's work done?"
"About six, I expect."
"The governor gives a ball for me to-night," she said.
"Excellent. All the elite of the port will be there, and," with slow
meditative accent, "I can imagine how you'll look!"
"Can you?" she asked, bending somewhat nearer.
"Yes." His gaze was straight ahead.
The white glove stole toward the black hand. "Why don't you come?"
"I?" He stared.
"Yes; the governor has sent you an invitation. He thinks you a
secret-service officer."
Mr. Heatherbloom continued to look at her; then he glanced toward the
boat. Suddenly his hand closed; he hardly realized the white glove was
in it. "I'll do it, Betty," he exclaimed. "That is, if I can. And--there
may be a way. Yes; there will be."
"You mean, you may be able to rent them?" With a sparkle in her glance.
"Exactly," he answered gaily, recklessly.
Both laughed. Then her expression changed; she suppressed an
exclamation, but gently withdrew her hand.
"How many dances will you give me, Betty?" He had not even noticed that
he had hurt her; his voice was low and eager.
"Ask and see," she said merrily, and went. But outside the shed, she
stretched her crushed fingers; he was very strong; he had spoiled a new
pair of gloves; she did not, however, seem greatly to mind. As for Mr.
Heatherbloom, for the balance of the day he plunged into his task with
the energy of an Antaeus.
* * * * *
Sir Charles regarded rather curiously that night one of his guests who
arrived late. Mr. Heatherbloom's evening garments were not a Poole fit,
and his white gloves, though white enough, had obviously been used and
cleaned often. But the host observed, also, that Mr. Heatherbloom held
himself well, said just the right thing to the hostess, and moved
through the assemblage with quite the proper poise. He didn't look
bored, neither did he appear overimpressed by the almost palatial
elegance of the ball-room. He even managed to suppress any outward signs
of elation at the sight of Miss Dalrymple with whom he had but the
opportunity for a word or two, at first. Naturally the center of
attraction, the young girl found herself forced to dance often. He, too,
whirled around with others, just whom, he did not know; he dipped into
Terpsichorean gaiety to escape the dowager's inquisition regarding that
haphazard flight from the _Nevski_ and other details he did not wish to
converse about. But his turn came with Betty at last, and sooner than he
had reason to expect.
"Ours is the next?" she said, passing him.
Was it? He had ventured to write his name thrice on her card, but
neither of the dances he had claimed was the next.
"I put your name down for this one myself," she confessed to him a few
moments later. "Do you mind?"
Did he? The evening wore away but too soon; he held her to him a little
while, only over-quickly to be obliged to yield her to another. And now,
after a third period of waiting, the time came for their last dance. He
went for it as soon as the number preceding was over; he wanted, not
only to miss none of it, but he hungered to snatch all the prelude he
could. The conventional-looking young personage she had been dancing
with regarded the approaching Mr. Heatherbloom rather resentfully, but
he moved straight as an arrow for her. At once she stepped toward him,
and he soon found himself walking with her across the smooth shining
floor, on into the great conservatory. Here were soft shadows and
wondrous perfumes. Mr. Heatherbloom breathed deeply.
"But a few days more, and we're en route for home." It was the girl who
spoke first--lightly, gaily--though there was a thrill in her tones.
He started and did not answer at once. "That will be great, won't it?"
His voice, too, was light, but it did not seem so spontaneously glad as
her own.
"You _are_ pleased, aren't you?" she said suddenly.
"Pleased? Of course!"
A brief period of inexplicable constraint! He looked at one of her hands
resting on the edge of a great vase--at a flower she held in her
fingers.
"May I?" he said, and just touched it.
"Of course!" she laughed. "A modest request, after all you've done for
me!"
Her fingers placed it in the rented coat.
"There!" she murmured in a matter-of-fact tone, stepping back.
His face, turned to the light, appeared paler; his eyes looked
studiously beyond her.
"It will be jolly on the steamer, won't it?" she went on.
"Jolly? Oh, yes," he assented, with false enthusiasm, when a black and
white apparition appeared before them, no less a person than Sir
Charles.
The governor, as the bearer of particular news, had been looking for
her. Mr. Heatherbloom hardly appreciated the preamble or the importance
of what followed. Sir Charles imparted a bit of confidential information
they were not to breathe to any one until he had verified the
particulars. Word had just been brought to him that the _Nevski_ had
gone on a reef near a neighboring island and was a total wreck. A
passing steamer had stood by, taken off the prince and his crew and
landed them. Still Mr. Heatherbloom but vaguely heard; he felt little
interest at the moment in his excellency or his boat. Betty Dalrymple's
face, however, showed less indifference to this startling intelligence.
"The _Nevski_ a wreck?" she murmured.
"It must all seem like an evil dream to you now," Mr. Heatherbloom spoke
absently. "Your having ever been on her!"
"Not all an evil one," she answered. They stood again on the ball-room
floor. "Much good has come from it. I no longer hate the prince. I only
blame myself a great deal for many things--"
He seemed to hear only her first words. "'Good come from it?' I don't
understand."
"But for the _Nevski_, and what happened to me, I should have gone on
thinking, as I did, about you."
"And--would that have made such a difference?" quickly.
She raised her eyes. "What do you think?"
"Betty!"
The music had begun. He who had heretofore danced perfectly, now guided
wildly.
"Take care!" she whispered.
But discretion seemed to have left him; he spoke he knew not what--wild
mad words that would not be suppressed. They came in contact with
another couple and were brought to an abrupt stop. Flaming poppies shone
on her cheeks; her eyes were brightly beaming. But she laughed and they
went on. He swept her out of the crowded ball-room now, on to the broad
veranda where a few other couples also moved in the starlight. On her
curved lips a smile rested; it seemed to draw his head lower.
"Betty, do you mean it?" Again the words were wrested from him, would
come. "What your eyes said just now?"
She lifted them again, gladly, freely--not only that--
"Yes; I mean it--mean it," said her lips. "Of course! Foolish boy! I
have long meant it--"
"Long?" he cried.
"You heard what the Russian woman said--"
"About there being some one? Then it was--"
"Guess." The sweet laughing lips were close; his swept them
passionately. He found the answer; the world seemed to go round.
But later, that night, there was no joy on Mr. Heatherbloom's face. In
his room in the old negro woman's house, he indited a letter. It was
brought to Betty Dalrymple the next morning as the early sunshine
entered her chamber overlooking the governor's park.
"Darling: Forgive me. I am sailing at dawn on the old tub, for South
America--"
Here the note fell from the girl's hand. Long she looked out of the
window. Then she went back to the bit of paper, took it and held it
against her breast before she again read. She seemed to know now what
would be in it; the strange depression that had come over her after he
had left last night was accounted for. Of course, he would not go back
to New York with her; he would, or could, accept nothing, in the way she
wished, from her or her aunt. It was necessary for him still to be Mr.
Heatherbloom; he had not yet "found himself" fully; the beginning he had
spoken of was only begun. The influential friends of his father in the
financial world had become impossible aids; he had to continue as he had
planned, to go his own way, and his, alone. It would have been easy for
him, as his father's son and the prospective nephew of the influential
Miss Van Rolsen, to have obtained one of those large salaried positions,
or "sinecures", with little to do. But that would be only beginning at
the end once more.
Again she essayed to read. The letter would have been a little
incomprehensible to any one except herself, but she understood. There
were three "darlings"; inexcusable tautology! She kissed them all, but
she kissed oftenest the end: "You will forgive me for forgetting
myself--God knows I didn't intend to--and you will wait; have faith? It
is much to ask--too much; but if you will, I think my father's son and
he whom you have honored by caring for, may yet prove a little worthy--"
The words brought a sob to her throat; she threw herself back on the
bed. "A little?" she cried, still holding the note tight in her hand.
But after a spell of weeping, once more she got up and looked out of the
window. The sunshine was very bright, the birds sang to her. Did she
take heart a little? A great wave of sadness bowed her down, but
courage, too, began to revive in her.
"Have faith?" She looked up at the sky; she would do as he asked--unto
the grave, if need be. Then, very quietly, she dressed and went
down-stairs.
EPILOGUE
It is very gay at the Hermitage, in Moscow, just after Easter, and so it
was natural that Sonia Turgeinov should have been there on a certain
bright afternoon some three years later. The theater, at which she once
more appeared, was closed for the afternoon, and at this season
following Holy Week and fasting, fashionables and others were wont to
congregate in the spacious café and grounds, where a superb orchestra
discourses classical or dashing selections. The musicians played now an
American air.
"Some one at a table out there on the balcony sent a request by the head
waiter for it," said a member of Sonia Turgeinov's party--a Parisian
artist, not long in Moscow.
"An American, no doubt," she answered absently, sipping her wine. The
three years had treated her kindly; the few outward changes could be
superficially enumerated: A little more embonpoint; a tendency toward a
slight drooping at the corners of the mobile lips, and moments when the
shadows seemed to stay rather longer in the deep eyes.
"That style of music should appeal to you, Madam," observed the
Frenchman. "You who have been among those favored artists to visit the
land of the free. Did you have to play in a tent, and were you literally
showered with gold?"
"Both," she laughed. "It is a land of many surprises."
"I have heard _es ist alles_ 'the almighty dollar'," said a musician
from Berlin, one of the gay company.
"Exaggeration, _mein Herr_!" she retorted, with a wave of the hand. "It
is also a _komischer romantischer_ land." For a moment she seemed
thinking.
"Isn't that his excellency, Prince Boris Strogareff?" inquired abruptly
a young man with a beyond-the-Volga physiognomy.
She started. "The prince?" An odd look came into her eyes. "Do you
believe in telepathic waves, Monsieur?" she said gaily to the Frenchman.
"Not to any great extent, Madam. _Mais pourquoi?"_
"Nothing. But I don't see this prince you speak of."
"He has disappeared now," replied her countryman, a fellow-player
recently come from Odessa. "It is his first dip again into the gaieties
of the world. For several years," with the proud accents of one able to
impart information concerning an important personage, "he has been
living in seclusion on his vast estates near the Caspian Sea--ruling a
kingdom greater than many a European principality. But have you never
met the prince?" To Sonia Turgeinov. "He used to be a patron of the
arts, according to report, before the sad accident that befell him."
"I think," observed Sonia Turgeinov, with brows bent as if striving to
recollect, "I did meet him once. But a poor actress is forced to meet
so many princes and nobles, nowadays," she laughed, "that--"
"True! Only one would not easily forget the prince, the handsomest man
in Asia."
She yawned slightly.
"What was this 'sad accident' you were speaking of, _mein Herr_?
observed the German, with a mind trained to conversational continuity.
"The prince was cruising somewhere and his yacht was wrecked," said the
young Roscius from Odessa. "A number of the crew were drowned; his
excellency, when picked up, was unconscious. A blow on the head from a
falling timber, or from being dashed on the rocks, I'm not sure which.
At any rate, for a long time his life was despaired of, but he recovered
and is as strong and sound as ever. Only, there is a strange sequel; or
not so strange," reflectively, "since cases of its kind are common. The
injury was on his head, as I remarked, and his mind became--"
"Affected, Monsieur?" said the Frenchman. "You mean this great noble of
the steppe is no longer right, mentally?"
"He is one of the keenest satraps in Asia, Monsieur. His brain is as
alert as ever, only he has suffered a complete loss of memory."
Sonia Turgeinov's interest was of a distinctly artificial nature; she
tapped on the floor with her foot; then abruptly arose. "Shan't we go
into the garden for our coffee?" she said. "It is close here."
They got up and walked out. As they did so they passed a couple at one
of the tables on the balcony and a slight exclamation fell from Sonia
Turgeinov's lips. For an instant she exhibited real interest, then
hastening down the steps, she selected a place some distance aside. A
great bunch of flowers was in the center of the table and she moved her
chair behind them.
"You see some one you know, _gnädige_ Madam?" asked the observant
Teuton.
"A great many people," she answered.
"There's that American over there who asked for the Yankee piece of
music," said the Frenchman, with eyes on the two people Sonia Turgeinov
had started at sight of, a moment before. "_Mon Dieu!_ What charm! What
beauty!"
"_Der Herr Amerikaner?_" blurted the surprised Berliner.
"No--_diable!_ His _belle_ companion!"
"Where?" said Sonia Turgeinov, well knowing. A face that her table
companion regarded, she, too, saw beyond the flowers. The afternoon
sunshine touched the golden hair of her she looked at; the violet eyes
shone with delight upon bizarre details: of the scene--the waiters in
blouses resembling street "white wings" in American cities, the coachmen
outside, big as balloons in their quilted cloaks.
"_Der Herr Amerikaner_ has the passionate eyes of an admirer, a devout
lover," murmured the sentimental musician from Berlin.
"Or an American husband!" said Roscius from Odessa.
"Sometimes!" added the Frenchman cynically.
"I haf met him," observed the _Herr Musikaner_, "at the hotel.
We haf talked together, once or twice. He has been in South
America--Argentine, _ich glaube_--and has made a fortune there. And
madam, his wife, and he are making a grand tour of the world. Their
wedding trip, I believe. _Sie kommt von einer der ersten Familien_--the
Dalrymples. _Der Herr Direktor_ of the Russicher-Chinese bank told me.
He cashes the drafts--_Her Gott_--_nicht kleine!_"
These prosaic details the Frenchman, pictorially occupied, hardly,
heard. "_Mon Dieu_! What a _chapeau_!" he sighed. "No wonder he looks
enchanted at that wonderful creation of the Rue de la Paix."
"He seems quite an exception to some husbands in that respect!" remarked
the Berliner in deep gutturals.
Sonia Turgeinov lighted a cigarette and blew the smoke at the flowers.
There was a resentful cynicism in the act; she leaned back with greater
abandon in her chair. "After all, the unities have been observed," she
said with an odd laugh.
"What unities?" asked Roscius, becoming keen as a young hound on the
scent, at the sound of the trite phrase.
"Oh, I was thinking of a play." Stretching more comfortably. Suddenly
her cigarette waved; behind the flowers, her eyes dilated. Prince Boris
Strogareff was coming down the steps; he passed the American couple they
had been talking about and looked at them. A light of involuntary
admiration shone from his gaze, but there was no recognition in it--only
the instinctive tribute that a man of the world and a gallant Russian is
ever prone to pay at the sight of an unusually charming member of the
other sex. Then, once more impassive--a striking handsome figure--he
moved leisurely down and out of the gardens. The couple, engrossed at
the time in a conversation of some intimate nature or in each other, had
not even seen or noticed the august nobleman.
Sonia Turgeinov drew harder on the cigarette; a laugh welled from her
throat. "Oh, I wouldn't have missed it for worlds!" she said.
Young Roscius with the Tartar eyes stared at her. She threw away the
smoking cylinder.
"I'm off!"
"Why--"
"Has not the curtain descended?" enigmatically.
"I don't see any curtain," said the Frenchman.
"No? But it's there." At the gate, however, once more she paused--to
listen, to laugh.
"_Was jetzt_?" asked the mystified Berliner.
She only shrugged.
The orchestra, having played a few conventional selections after
_Dixie_, had now plunged into _Marching through Georgia_.
As Sonia Turgeinov disappeared through the gate, the golden head
surmounted by the "wonderful _chapeau_", bent toward the clean-cut,
strong-looking face of the young man on the other side of the small
table.
"It's awfully extravagant of you, Harry,--twenty roubles, a tip for
those musicians. But it makes it seem like home, doesn't it?"
"Yes, darling," he answered.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's A Man and His Money, by Frederic Stewart Isham