“I would ask that blonde young lady.”
This reply was so utterly unexpected by Morris that he looked at her
with wide eyes, the picture of a man dumbfounded. At that moment the
smoking-room steward came up to them and said—
“Will you have your coffee now, sir?”
“Coffee!” cried Morris, as if he had never heard the word before.
“Coffee!”
“Yes,” answered Miss Earle, sweetly, “we will have the coffee now, if
you please. You will have a cup with me, will you not, Mr. Morris?”
“Yes, I will, if it is not too much trouble.”
“Oh, it is no trouble to me,” said, the young lady; “some trouble to
the steward, but I believe even for him that it is not a trouble that
cannot be recompensed.”
Morris sipped his coffee in silence. Every now and then Miss Earle
stole a quiet look at him, and apparently was waiting for him to again
resume the conversation. This he did not seem in a hurry to do. At last
she said—
“Mr. Morris, suppose we were on shipboard and that we had become
acquainted without the friendly intervention of an introducer, and
suppose, if such a supposition is at all within the bounds of
probability, that you wanted to find out something about me, how would
you go about it?”
“How would I go about it?”
“Yes. How?”
“I would go about it in what would be the worst possible way. I would
frankly ask you, and you would as frankly snub me.”
“Suppose, then, while declining to tell you anything about myself I
were to refer you to somebody who would give you the information you
desire, would you take the opportunity of learning?”
“I would prefer to hear from yourself anything I desired to learn.”
“Now, that is very nicely said, Mr. Morris, and you make me feel almost
sorry, for having spoken to you as I did. Still, if you really want to
find out something about me, I shall tell you some one whom you can
ask, and who will doubtless answer you.”
“Who is that? The captain?”
“No. It is the same person to whom I should go if I wished to have
information of you—the blonde young lady.”
“Do you mean to say you know her?” asked the astonished young man.
“I said nothing of the sort.”
“Well, _do_ you know her?”
“No, I do not.”
“Do you know her name?”
“No, I do not even know her name.”
“Have you ever met her before you came on board this ship?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Well, if that isn’t the most astonishing thing I ever heard!”
“I don’t see why it is. You say you thought you had met me before. As
you are a man no doubt you have forgotten it. I say I think I have met
that young lady before. As she is a woman I don’t think she will have
forgotten. If you have any interest in the matter at all you might
inquire.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort.”
“Well, of course, I said I thought you hadn’t very much interest. I
only supposed the case.”
“It is not that I have not the interest, but it is that I prefer to go
to the person who can best answer my question if she chooses to do so.
If she doesn’t choose to answer me, then I don’t choose to learn.”
“Now, I like that ever so much,” said the young lady; “if you will get
me another cup of coffee I shall be exceedingly obliged to you. My
excuse is that these cups are very small, and the coffee is very good.”
“I am sure you don’t need any excuse,” replied Morris, springing to his
feet, “and I am only too happy to be your steward without the hope of
the fee at the end of the voyage.”
When he returned she said, “I think we had better stop the personal
conversation into which we have drifted. It isn’t at all pleasant to
me, and I don’t think it is very agreeable to you. Now, I intended this
morning to give you a lesson on American literature. I feel that you
need enlightening on the subject, and that you have neglected your
opportunities, as most New York men do, and so I thought you would be
glad of a lesson or two.”
“I shall be very glad of it indeed. I don’t know what our opportunities
are, but if most New York men are like me I imagine a great many of
them are in the same fix. We have very little time for the study of the
literature of any country.”
“And perhaps very little inclination.”
“Well, you know, Miss Earle, there is some excuse for a busy man. Don’t
you think there is?”
“I don’t think there is very much. Who in America is a busier man than
Mr. Gladstone? Yet he reads nearly everything, and is familiar with
almost any subject you can mention.”
“Oh, Gladstone! Well, he is a man of a million. But you take the
average New York man. He is worried in business, and kept on the keen
jump all the year round. Then he has a vacation, say for a couple of
weeks or a month, in summer, and he goes off into the woods with his
fishing kit, or canoeing outfit, or his amateur photographic set, or
whatever the tools of his particular fad may be. He goes to a
book-store and buys up a lot of paper-covered novels. There is no use
of buying an expensive book, because he would spoil it before he gets
back, and he would be sure to leave it in some shanty. So he takes
those paper-covered abominations, and you will find torn copies of them
scattered all through the Adirondacks, and down the St. Lawrence, and
everywhere else that tourists congregate. I always tell the book-store
man to give me the worst lot of trash he has got, and he does. Now,
what is that book you have with you?”
“This is one of Mr. Howells’ novels. You will admit, at least, that you
have heard of Howells, I suppose?”
“Heard of him? Oh yes; I have read some of Howells’ books. I am not as
ignorant as you seem to think.”
“What have you read of Mr. Howells’?”
“Well, I read _The American,_ I don’t remember the others.”
“_The American!_ That is by Henry James.”
“Is it? Well, I knew that it was by either Howells or James, I forgot
which. They didn’t write a book together, did they?”
“Well, not that I know of. Why, the depth of your ignorance about
American literature is something appalling. You talk of it so jauntily
that you evidently have no idea of it yourself.”
“I wish you would take me in hand, Miss Earle. Isn’t there any sort of
condensed version that a person could get hold of? Couldn’t you give me
a synopsis of what is written, so that I might post myself up in
literature without going to the trouble of reading the books?”
“The trouble! Oh, if that is the way you speak, then your case is
hopeless! I suspected it for some time, but now I am certain. The
trouble! The _delight_ of reading a new novel by Howells is something
that you evidently have not the remotest idea of. Why, I don’t know
what I would give to have with me a novel of Howells’ that I had not
read.”
“Goodness gracious! You don’t mean to say that you have read
_everything_ he has written?”
“Certainly I have, and I am reading one now that is coming out in the
magazine; and I don’t know what I shall do if I am not able to get the
magazine when I go to Europe.”
“Oh, you can get them over there right enough, and cheaper than you can
in America. They publish them over there.”
“Do they? Well, I am glad to hear it.”
“You see, there is something about American literature that you are not
acquainted with, the publication of our magazines in England, for
instance. Ah, there is the breakfast gong. Well, we will have to
postpone our lesson in literature until afterwards. Will you be up here
after breakfast?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, we will leave our chairs and rugs just where they are. I will
take your book down for you. Books have the habit of disappearing if
they are left around on shipboard.”
After breakfast Mr. Morris went to the smoking-room to enjoy his cigar,
and there was challenged to a game of cards. He played one game; but
his mind was evidently not on his amusement, so he excused himself from
any further dissipation in that line, and walked out on deck. The
promise of the morning had been more than fulfilled in the day, and the
warm sunlight and mild air had brought on deck many who had not been
visible up to that time. There was a long row of muffled up figures on
steamer chairs, and the deck steward was kept busy hurrying here and
there attending to the wants of the passengers. Nearly every one had a
book, but many of the books were turned face downwards on the steamer
rugs, while the owners either talked to those next them, or gazed idly
out at the blue ocean. In the long and narrow open space between the
chairs and the bulwarks of the ship, the energetic pedestrians were
walking up and down.
At this stage of the voyage most of the passengers had found congenial
companions, and nearly everybody was acquainted with everybody else.
Morris walked along in front of the reclining passengers, scanning each
one eagerly to find the person he wanted, but she was not there.
Remembering then that the chairs had been on the other side of the
ship, he continued his walk around the wheel-house, and there he saw
Miss Earle, and sitting beside her was the blonde young lady talking
vivaciously, while Miss Earle listened.
Morris hesitated for a moment, but before he could turn back the young
lady sprang to her feet, and said—“Oh, Mr. Morris, am I sitting in your
chair?”
“What makes you think it is my chair?” asked that gentleman, not in the
most genial tone of voice.
“I thought so,” replied the young lady, with a laugh, “because it was
near Miss Earle.”
Miss Earle did not look at all pleased at this remark. She coloured
slightly, and, taking the open book from her lap, began to read.
“You are quite welcome to the chair,” replied Morris, and the moment
the words were spoken he felt that somehow it was one of those things
he would rather have left unsaid, as far as Miss Earle was concerned.
“I beg that you will not disturb yourself,” he continued; and, raising
his hat to the lady, he continued his walk.
A chance acquaintance joined him, changing his step to suit that of
Morris, and talked with him on the prospects of the next year being a
good business season in the United States. Morris answered rather
absent-mindedly, and it was nearly lunch-time before he had an
opportunity of going back to see whether or not Miss Earle’s companion
had left. When he reached the spot where they had been sitting he found
things the very reverse of what he had hoped. Miss Earle’s chair was
vacant, but her companion sat there, idly turning over the leaves of
the book that Miss Earle had been reading. “Won’t you sit down, Mr.
Morris?” said the young woman, looking up at him with a winning smile.
“Miss Earle has gone to dress for lunch. I should do the same thing,
but, alas! I am too indolent.”
Morris hesitated for a moment, and then sat down beside her.
“Why do you act so perfectly horrid to me?” asked the young lady,
closing the book sharply.
“I was not aware that I acted horridly to anybody,” answered Morris.
“You know well enough that you have been trying your very best to avoid
me.”
“I think you are mistaken. I seldom try to avoid any one, and I see no
reason why I should try to avoid you. Do you know of any reason?”
The young lady blushed and looked down at her book, whose leaves she
again began to turn.
“I thought,” she said at last, “that you might have some feeling
against me, and I have no doubt you judge me very harshly. You never
_did_ make any allowances.”
Morris gave a little laugh that was half a sneer.
“Allowances?” he said.
“Yes, allowances. You know you always were harsh with me, George,
always.” And as she looked up at him her blue eyes were filled with
tears, and there was a quiver at the corner of her mouth. “What a
splendid actress you would make, Blanche,” said the young man, calling
her by her name for the first time.
She gave him a quick look as he did so. “Actress!” she cried. “No one
was ever less an actress than I am, and you know that.”
“Oh, well, what’s the use of us talking? It’s all right. We made a
little mistake, that’s all, and people often make mistakes in this
life, don’t they, Blanche?”
“Yes,” sobbed that young lady, putting her dainty silk handkerchief to
her eyes.
“Now, for goodness sake,” said the young man, “don’t do that. People
will think I am scolding you, and certainly there is no one in this
world who has less right to scold you than I have.”
“I thought,” murmured the young lady, from behind her handkerchief,
“that we might at least be friends. I didn’t think you could ever act
so harshly towards me as you have done for the past few days.”
“Act?” cried the young man. “Bless me, I haven’t acted one way or the
other. I simply haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you till the other
evening, or morning, which ever it was. I have said nothing, and done
nothing. I don’t see how I could be accused of acting, or of anything
else.”
“I think,” sobbed the young lady, “that you might at least have spoken
kindly to me.”
“Good gracious!” cried Morris, starting up, “here comes Miss Earle. For
heaven’s sake put up that handkerchief.”
But Blanche merely sank her face lower in it, while silent sobs shook
her somewhat slender form.
Miss Earle stood for a moment amazed as she looked at Morris’s flushed
face, and at the bowed head of the young lady beside him; then, without
a word, she turned and walked away.
“I wish to goodness,” said Morris, harshly, “that if you are going to
have a fit of crying you would not have it on deck, and where people
can see you.”
The young woman at once straightened up and flashed a look at him in
which there were no traces of her former emotion.
“People!” she said, scornfully. “Much _you_ care about people. It is
because Miss Katherine Earle saw me that you are annoyed. You are
afraid that it will interfere with your flirtation with her.”
“Flirtation?”
“Yes, flirtation. Surely it can’t be anything more serious?”
“Why should it not be something more serious?” asked Morris, very
coldly. The blue eyes opened wide in apparent astonishment.
“Would you _marry_ her?” she said, with telling emphasis upon the word.
“Why not?” he answered. “Any man might be proud to marry a lady like
Miss Earle.”
“A lady! Much of a lady she is! Why, she is one of your own shop-girls.
You know it.”
“Shop-girls?” cried Morris, in astonishment.
“Yes, shop-girls. You don’t mean to say that she has concealed that
fact from you, or that you didn’t know it by seeing her in the store?”
“A shop-girl in my store?” he murmured, bewildered. “I knew I had seen
her somewhere.”
Blanche laughed a little irritating laugh.
“What a splendid item it would make for the society papers,” she said.
“The junior partner marries one of his own shop-girls, or, worse still,
the junior partner and one of his shop-girls leave New York on the
_City of Buffalo_, and are married in England. I hope that the
reporters will not get the particulars of the affair.” Then, rising,
she left the amazed young man to his thoughts.
George Morris saw nothing more of Miss Katherine Earle that day.
“I wonder what that vixen has said to her,” he thought, as he turned in
for the night.