"You can write and explain. My brother's time is valuable--he has
already put off his journey to Paris one day in order to see you."
"But I have no money," he objected weakly.
"What does that matter? I have enough for the railway ticket, and when
you see Boris he will give you an advance. Oh, don't be grateful," she
added in her independent way. "In the first place, we're brother
artists, and in the second it's a pure matter of business. It's much
better to put yourself in the hands of Boris Danilof and make a fortune
in Europe than to play in a restaurant orchestra in New York; don't you
think so?"
Andrea did think so, and he blessed the storm that drove the ship out
of its course from Hamburg and terrified him out of his wits in his
steerage quarters, so that he rushed on deck in shirt and trousers,
grasping a life-belt, only to be cursed one moment by a sailor and the
next to be swept by a wave clean over the taffrail into the sea. He
blessed the storm and he blessed the wave and he blessed the life-belt
which he lost just before consciousness left him; and he blessed the
jag of rock on the sandy cove against which he must have broken his
ankle; and he blessed the ladies and the sun and the sea and sky and
Olga Danilof and the whole of this beautiful world that had suddenly
laid itself at his feet.
The village cart drew up by the door, and Miss Danilof's luggage that
lay ready in the hall was lifted in.
"Come," she said. "You can ask the old maids to send on your things."