A BRAND FROM THE BURNING
THE liner Bosphorus, after a comfortable nap of some eight days in the
Mersey, was making a reluctant effort to tear herself from the land of
her birth and face an unfriendly ocean upon her seventy-eighth voyage to
New York. Motive power for the time being was supplied by four fussy
tugboats, three of which were endeavouring to speed the parting guest by
valiant pushings in the neighbourhood of her rudder, while the fourth
initiated a turning movement at her starboard bow. An occasional rumble
from the engine-room announced that the tugs would soon have no excuse
for further officiousness.
The cabin passengers were leaning over the rails of the upper deck,
surveying the busy landing-stage. They were chiefly males--their wives
were down below, engaged in the unprofitable task of endeavouring to
intimidate stewardesses--and were for the most part Americans. Philip
stood apart, watching the variegated farewells of the crowd.
The etiquette of valediction at the sailing of a great ship varies with
the three classes of passenger. The friends of cabin passengers accept a
final drink, say good-bye, leave the ship, and are no more seen. The
friends and relations of the second class--and they are _all_
there--line up along the landing-stage and maintain a running fire of
chaff and invective until the ship has been warped out into the stream
and the engines begin to run. The steerage and their friends, being
mainly aliens and knowing no better, weep and howl.
Philip knew that the second-class passengers were on the deck below him;
but as he could not see them (though he could hear them) his attention
wandered to the throng which was engaging them in conversation. They
were of many types. There were people who shouted cheerfully, "Well,
send us a line when you get there!" and then, after a laborious attempt
to discover another topic, cried despairingly, "Well, don't forget to
write!" And so on. "Give my love to Milly when you see her," commanded a
stout matron in bugles, "and say I hope her cold is better."
Farther along, a girl with tears raining down her cheeks was more than
holding her own in an exchange of biting personalities with a grimy
gentleman at a porthole--apparently her _fiance_--whom she had come to
see off. A comic man, mistaking a blast upon the siren for a definite
indication that the moment of departure had arrived, took out a dirty
pocket-handkerchief and wept loudly, periodically squeezing the
handkerchief dry and beginning again. But it was a false alarm: the ship
did not move; and his performance, which was to have been the crowning
effort of a strenuously humorous morning, continued perforce to halt
lamely along for another ten minutes. Finally, in response to an urgent
appeal from a matter-of-fact lady friend that he would not act the goat,
the unfortunate gentleman, submitting to the fate of all those whose
enterprises are born out of due time, put his handkerchief sheepishly in
his pocket and took no further part in the proceedings.
At last the Bosphorus swung clear. There was a jingle of bells deep down
in the engine-room, followed by a responsive throb of life throughout
the hitherto inert mass of the great vessel. The voyage had begun.
The crowd on the landing-stage broke into a cheer, which was answered
from all parts of the ship. As the sound died away a girl stepped
forward and waved her handkerchief for the last time. She was a short
girl, with a pleasant face, and wore glasses.
"Good-bye, Lil, dear!" she cried.
There was an answering flutter from directly below where Philip stood,
and a clear voice replied:--
"Good-bye, May, darling!"
Philip scrutinised the girl on the landing-stage.
"Who on earth is that?" he said to himself. Then he remembered. It was
Miss May Jennings, sister of Miss Lil Jennings, typist at the office in
Oxford Street.
* * * * *
Having taken part, with distinction, in the free fight round the person
of the second steward which our great steamship companies regard as the
only possible agency through which seats at table can be booked for a
voyage, and having further secured a position for his chair and rug from
the deck-steward, Philip took stock of his surroundings.
Transatlantic ship's company is never very interesting. The trip is too
short to make it possible for the pleasant people to get to know one
another: only the bores and thrusters have time to make their presence
felt. On this occasion the saloon appeared to be divided fairly evenly
between music-hall artistes and commercial travellers of Semitic origin;
so Philip, wrapped up in a rug, addressed himself to the task of
overtaking some of the arrears of sleep due to him after the recently
completed Joy-Week.
Next morning, experiencing a desire for society, Philip descended a deck
upon a visit to the second class, feeling tolerably certain that here,
at least, he would find a friend.
He was right. Miss Jennings was sitting by herself under the lee of the
boiler casing, perusing a novel.
"Yes," she said, after an exchange of greetings, "I dare say you are a
bit surprised to see me. I'm a trifle that way myself. I only settled to
do it a week ago."
"I did not even know you had left the Britannia Company," said Philip,
sitting down. "Tell me about it."
"Well," explained Miss Jennings, "there isn't much to tell. I got tired
of Oxford Street. It didn't seem to be leading to much, and I wasn't
getting any younger; and just about six months ago I had had a letter
from a girl friend of mine who had settled in New York, saying that a
good stenographer could do twice as well there as in London. So I
decided to go--if only for a bit of a change."
"What about your mother and sister?" asked Philip.
"Oh, you haven't heard. Poor Mother died over a year ago, when you were
away at Coventry. I'm just out of black for her now. May is married. I
have been living with her and Tom for some time back. I didn't like it
much. Makes you feel inferior-like, living in a house belonging to a
married sister that's plainer than yourself. That's all about me. I hope
you are very well, Mr. Meldrum. You are out on the Company's business, I
suppose?"
"Yes," said Philip. He explained the nature of his trip.
"They were saying at Oxford Street," pursued Miss Jennings, with the air
of one who is anxious to avoid all appearance of asking for information,
"that you were going to be made a partner."
"It was talked about," said Philip, "but nothing at all came of it. They
wanted me to risk rather more capital in the business than I happen to
possess."
"Don't you worry about capital, Mr. Meldrum," said Miss Jennings. "It's
your brains they're after. Bob Br--a gentleman I know told me that he
had heard from some one behind the scenes that they don't mean to let
you go at any price. They can't afford to have your inventions taken up
by other people. It was just a try-on, telling you you must put a lot of
money into the business. Next time they mention the matter, you name
your terms and _stick_ to them!"
Philip thanked her.
"Of course I've no call," admitted Miss Jennings, "to be giving you
advice. But I wasn't born with my mouth sewn up, and you never were one
to put yourself forward, were you?"
Philip admitted that possibly this was true, and the conversation passed
to the inevitable topic of old times and old friends.
"How is Brand, by the way?" asked Philip. "He was an admirer of yours, I
believe?"
"Brand?" said Miss Jennings carelessly. "Oh--the mechanic? I believe he
is getting on very well. First foreman, then manager of the garage; and
now that you are gone he and Mr. Rendle pretty well own the earth
between them, so I gather. Brand is quite the gentleman now. I hear he
has given up making a spectacle of himself in the Park of a Sunday. Mr.
Rendle is the same as ever. He misses you at the flat, though."
"You seem to know all about our domestic arrangements," said Philip,
much amused.
"Nobody that wasn't born deaf-and-dumb," said Miss Jennings with
decision, "could see Mr. Rendle six hours a day for six days a week
without knowing every blessed thing about him, and a jolly sight more,
from his own lips. His young ladies, and everything! He brought one to
Oxford Street, the other day. He told me afterwards--"
"What was she like?" asked Philip instantly.
"I didn't notice her particularly. She was in the show-room looking at
motors most of the time, and only stepped into the office for a minute.
She was quite simply dressed, it being the morning, but her clothes were
good all through. I picked up two or three ideas for myself straight
off. Shoes, for one thing. Hers were the neatest I ever saw--brown
_suede_ with silver buckles. No cheap American ready-mades, or anything
of that kind. As for her coat and skirt, you could see they'd been cut
by a tailor, and her hat was one of these simple little things that fit
close to the head and look as if they could be put together for
half-nothing; but I know better. It came out of--"
"What was she like?" repeated a patient voice.
"I'm trying to tell you," replied Miss Jennings, a little offended.
"Yes, but her appearance? Not her clothes."
Miss Jennings pondered.
"I didn't really have time to notice her appearance," she said at
length; "but she was what I should call a middling blonde. She was
wearing one of those new blouses, with a V-shaped--"
"I think it must have been Miss Falconer," said Philip, with an air of
great detachment.
"Yes, that was the name," replied Miss Jennings. "Mr. Rendle told me he
was very sorry for her. He said thousands of gentlemen were in love with
her--you know the silly way he talks--"
"Yes," said Philip, with a gulp. "Well?"
"But she could never marry any of them."
"Why, I wonder?"
"Because of her father," explained the everready Miss Jennings. "She
won't ever leave him, him being a widower, and very peculiar in his
manner, and unable to look after himself. A bit silly-like, from all
accounts. Seems to me to be asking a good lot of a girl, to stay at home
to look after an old image like that. That's only supposing, of course,
that she _wants_ to marry one of these thousands of hers. She's welcome
to the lot, so far as I'm concerned."
"Yes, rather!" agreed Philip absently.
So _that_ was the reason! And he had never guessed. Well, it made his
own chances no brighter, but it took a load from his mind. Peggy was
back on a higher pedestal than ever, and her silent knight could now
worship her without reservation. She was acquitted for all time of the
charge of being hard, or callous, or unfeminine.
* * * * *
The Bosphorus was rolling heavily when Philip rose next morning, but his
sea-legs were good, and he proceeded to his toilet with no particular
pangs save those of hunger. After shaving he put on a dressing-gown and
staggered along an alleyway in search of a bath. Presently an
illuminated sign informed him that he had reached his destination. He
turned into the first empty bathroom, where a man in a white jacket was
tidying up after the last occupant.
"Bath, please," said Philip. "Chill just off."
The man turned his back and set going a spouting cataract, and the bath
was half-full of salt water in less than a minute. There are no
corporation restrictions or half-inch pipes in oceanic bathrooms: you
simply open a sluice and let in as much of the Atlantic as you require.
The man next lowered a long hinged pipe into the bottom of the bath, and
gave a twist to a little valve-wheel on the wall. Straightway a violent
subaqueous crackling announced that live steam from the boilers was
performing its allotted task of taking the chill off.
"That will do, thank you," said Philip presently.
The bath-steward turned off the valve, and the crackling ceased. Philip
sat down upon the edge of the bath.
"Well, Brand," he said, "how does the Bosphorus compare with Oxford
Street?"
He held out his hand, and Mr. Brand, having overcome his surprise, shook
it resentfully.
"I suppose you are surprised to come across me here," he remarked
defiantly.
"Not altogether," replied Philip, thinking of the second class; "but I
did not expect to find you swabbing bathrooms."
"I wasn't going to waste good money travelling as a passenger," said
Brand sullenly. "I tried to get taken on in the engine-room, but they
wouldn't look at me without marine engineering experience; so I had to
be content with this. It's only for a week."
"You aren't coming back, then?"
"It depends," said Brand shortly. "Not at present."
"Have you given up the Britannia Company?"
"Yes: handed in me resignation Friday afternoon."
"What on earth for? You were climbing to the top of the tree there."
"I preferred to be on the ground," said Brand oracularly.
Philip decided not to press for information.
"Still, I'm sorry," he said.
"Why? I wasn't fired, if that's what you mean," said Brand swiftly.
At this moment another passenger came tacking down the alleyway, and
Brand departed in the further execution of his official duties.
There are no facilities upon ocean liners for promoting social
intercourse between bath-stewards and cabin passengers, so Philip did
not see Brand again until the same hour the following morning.
"By the way, Brand," he said, as he waited for the proper adjustment of
the bath's temperature, "there is a mutual friend of ours on board,
travelling second class. Did you know?"
"Yes," said Brand thickly, "I did."
He swung the steam-pipe savagely back into its clip, flung two hot
towels down on a seat, and departed, banging the door behind him. That
was the beginning and end of the second day's conversation.
* * * * *
Philip saw nothing of Miss Jennings during the next few days, for the
weather continued to be boisterous, and that lady--unlike other and less
considerate members of the ship's company--preferred to endure the pangs
of _mal-de-mer_ in the seclusion of her own cabin. It was not until the
fourth day out that he saw her again. She was reclining languidly in a
chair, convalescent, but obviously disinclined for conversation. Philip
passed her by.
The fifth day broke bright and sunny, and the Bosphorus, clear of the
Newfoundland Banks, with their accompanying fogs and ground-swell,
became a centre of social activity. Vigorous couples tramped up and
down, snuffing the breeze. Unpleasant children ran shrieking round the
deck, galloping over the same sets of toes at regular intervals. Elderly
gentlemen played interminable games of deck-quoits and bull-board. In
the smoking-room enthusiastic alcoholists gathered, to splice the main
brace and bid in the auction sweep-stake on the day's run. New York was
only twenty-four hours away.
Philip, descending to his cabin for a book, passed Citizen Brand,
polishing cabin doorhandles with fierce energy. He paused.
"Brand," he said, "I want to have a palaver with you. Can you come and
see me in my cabin this evening?"
Brand considered.
"I shall get a telling-off from the second steward if I do," he said.
"Regular Cossack, he is. This ship's full of rotten rules and red-tape.
Still, after all, he can only sack me, which will save me the trouble of
deserting. All right: I'll come."
He appeared in Philip's cabin at ten o'clock that night, and consented
to drink whiskey-and-water out of a tooth-glass.
"Well," enquired Philip, lighting his pipe, "what are your prospects in
the States. Got a berth?"
"Not yet," said Brand.
"I am going on a visit to some of the big establishments out there. If I
come across anything that would suit you, shall I put it in your way?"
Brand thanked him gruffly, and said:--
"I don't know. I don't know what to say. The fact is, I don't know where
I shall have to live yet."
"Have to live?"
"Yes, have to live. I can't settle anything. I--Oh, damn it, I don't
know! Leave me alone!"
He sat staring savagely at the floor, with his head in his hands.
"Brand, my friend," remarked Philip, puffing at his pipe, "you and I
have been acquainted for a considerable time now, haven't we?"
Brand nodded, and Philip continued:--
"I'm going to assume the privilege of an old friend, and enquire into
your private affairs."
"Fat lot of information you'll get," was the gracious reply.
"Very well, then," said Philip cheerfully. "I won't enquire: I'll
assume. Having assumed that everything I meant to ask about is as I
think it is, I'll tell you something. It's this: you are a pretty good
chap."
Brand's gloomy eyes turned upon Philip suspiciously.
"What do you mean?" he snarled.
"I mean this. You have done a pretty fine thing. If the information
interests you, I may tell you that you have taught me a lesson; but
that's beside the point. Last Friday you were in a comfortable berth,
doing well, and rising rapidly. To-day you are a bath-steward, without
any status or prospects. Why?"
"Because I'm a blasted fool," replied Brand.
"No, I don't think so," continued Philip, "I prefer to look at it
differently. You have sacrificed everything, and staked your whole
future--on what? On an Idea--a single Idea. I call that a pretty fine
thing."
"What Idea?" snapped Brand.
"A very pretty little Idea," said Philip. "She is now sleeping
peacefully two decks below this."
Brand sprang to his feet, his eyes blazing.
"And why not?" he demanded. "Do you deny my right to follow her, and
look after her, and see she comes to no harm, whatever she may think of
me or do to me? I love her! Do you understand what that means? I love
her! Gentlemen like you and Rendle, you don't know the meanin' of the
word. With you it's just: 'Fine girl, what? Come and have supper at the
Savoy to-night!' That's what you call love!" Brand's arms were waving:
he was rapidly lapsing into his old Hyde Park manner. "When you've
finished with one girl, or the girl's finished with you, what do you do?
Kiss your 'and and get another! Bah!"
"And what do you do, Brand," enquired Philip imperturbably, "when a lady
gives you up?"
"I give up my job: I give up everything, so as to be free; and I follow
her. That's what I do. She's a child: she's not able to look after
herself."
"Now, my impression of Miss Jennings's character," said Philip, "is
exactly the opposite. I have rarely met a woman who seemed to me so
well-balanced and self-possessed."
"Up to a point, and in a manner of speaking," agreed Brand, conversing
more rationally now, "you are right. But that's a woman all over. She
may keep her head for months at a time, and snap her fingers at man
after man; and then one fine day a fellow comes along that's no better
than fifty others she's turned down--and what does she do? She goes
potty! She crumples up! She crawls round him and eats out of his hand!
Why is it? In God's name, sir, why is it?"
His head dropped into his hands again.
"When did this happen?" asked Philip gently. He felt strangely awed in
the presence of this elemental soul.
"I'll tell you," said Brand. "It'll do me good. She and I had been
getting on pretty well of late. We weren't exactly engaged, but she
allowed no other man near her but me. I gave up a lot to please her. I
gave up speaking in the Park, because she said it wasn't gentlemanly. I
joined the Church of England--me that's been a Freethinker ever since I
could think! I gave up being a Socialist, because she said it was low. I
cut my wings, and clamped myself down, and dressed myself up like a Guy
Fawkes--all to please her. I let her order me about, and I liked it! I
liked it! That's pretty degrading, ain't it? I felt degraded and in love
at the same time, if you know what I mean. That's a rotten state to be
in, I don't think!"
Philip was listening intently. Somewhere in the back of his mind he felt
that he had heard this story before. Then he remembered Uncle Joseph,
and realised that all human experience appears to run upon much the same
lines.
"Well, we were happy enough," continued Brand, "for a matter of two
years or so. The only trouble was that when I suggested marriage she
said she was very comfortable as she was and did not want to lose her
independence. (They're all for independence nowadays: I don't know what
causes it: Board Schools, perhaps.) In her company I was too pleased
with life ever to argue about anything, so I didn't press it. But there
was one big risk that I overlooked, and that was the risk of another man
butting in. And that's just what happened. A feller came along. He had
everything that I hadn't--fine manners and plenty of silly talk, and
nasty little love-making ways. He put the come-hither on Lil. As I told
you in a fortnight she was eating out of his hand. I'm not the man to
take that sort of thing lying down. I asked her straight what she meant
by it. She flared up, and asked when I had been appointed her keeper. I
said we was engaged. She said we was no such thing. I said if we wasn't
it was about time, considering all things, that we was. She asked what I
meant by that. I said if she had any sort of notion of fair play she
would know. After that she told me she never wanted to see me again. I
said she was only anticipating my own wishes; and we parted. We ain't
spoke since. That was six weeks ago."
"What became of the other man?" asked Philip.
Brand smiled grimly.
"Him? I went to him next day, and told him if ever he spoke to Lil again
I'd push his face in."
"What did he say to that?"
"He was most gentlemanly about it. Oh, _most_ gentlemanly!" Brand
assumed the mincing accent which he reserved for his impersonations of
the aristocracy. "Told me he had no desire to come between an honest
working-man and his future wife. Said he was not _permanently_
interested in the lady! He got no further than that, because that was
where I _did_ push his face in. He was a nasty sight when I'd finished
with him. He never went near Lil again, though,--the rabbit! Since than
not a word has passed between her and me, except when business required.
Then, last Friday, I saw her going round the office and garage saying
good-bye to everybody--except me, of course--and telling them she was
going to America. I waited till the dinner-hour; then wrote to
headquarters, resigned my job, and went straight to Liverpool, where I
managed to get signed on aboard this boat. That's all."
"What are you going to do when you get to New York?" asked Philip.
"I don't know. It depends on what Lil does," replied single-minded
Citizen Brand.
* * * * *
"Well, how do you like the prospect of New York to-morrow, Miss
Jennings?" asked Philip.
They were leaning over the taffrail in the calm darkness, watching the
phosphorescent wake of the great propellers.
"At the present moment," confessed Miss Jennings frankly, "I don't like
it at all. It's a way things have when you get right up against them.
They don't look so nice as they did at a distance."
"You are not in your usual spirits to-night."
"No," said the girl, "and that's a fact. I'm not. Worst of being a woman
is that you can't trust yourself to be sensible all the time. You do a
thing, and you know you're doing right, and you go on knowing it was
right for weeks on end; and then, just when you want to feel that you
were right most especially, you go and feel that you've been wrong all
the time. Silly, I call it! Sometimes I want to shake myself."
"You feel you wish you had not left London? Is that the trouble?"
"Ye--es," said Miss Jennings reluctantly.
"I'm surprised," said Philip, cautiously opening fire, "that you were
ever allowed to forsake your native land."
"Who by?" enquired Miss Jennings swiftly.
"Well, there are a good many thousand young men there, you know. It
doesn't show much enterprise on their part--"
"Mr. Meldrum," remarked Miss Jennings frankly, "if you start making
pretty speeches, the end of the world must be coming. A good many
thousand young men, indeed!"
"Well," persisted the abashed but pertinacious Philip, "let us say one
young man. Surely there was just one?"
Miss Jennings was silent for a moment. Then she replied:--
"Yes, there was one."
"More than one?"
"No. At least, there was only one that I really fancied. It was a queer
thing that I should have cared for him at all. (It's all over now, so
there's no harm in my telling you about it.) We were always having words
one way and another. We had nothing in common, really. Very stuck on his
opinions he was, and always laying down the law. His ideas weren't very
gentlemanly, either. He was a Socialist, and didn't belong to the
Church; but I cured him of that. I must say I improved him wonderfully."
"Was he grateful?" asked Philip.
"He was, and he wasn't. He would do anything I asked him; but if it went
against the grain with him to do it he would say so before he did
it--sometimes all the time he was doing it; and that rather spoils your
pleasure, doesn't it?"
"I should have thought it would increase it," said Philip. "It would
show your great power over him, that you should be able to compel him to
do things against his will."
Miss Jennings deliberated.
"Perhaps you are right," she said at last. "I hadn't thought of it that
way. Still, his back-chat used to worry me to death. And his temper! It
was so fierce, I was frightened of him. He was fierce, too, in the way
he loved me. He would carry on something dreadful at times."
"In what way?"
"Well, supposing I made an appointment with him, and changed my mind and
didn't go--"
"Did you do that often?"
"Oh, yes, sometimes. It's a good thing to do," explained the experienced
Miss Jennings. "If you don't act like that sometimes--promise to meet
him somewhere and then forget--a man begins to think he's engaged to
you. If a girl doesn't respect herself, who else will? That's what I
say. Then his jealousy--my word!"
For a moment Miss Jennings's cheerful little Cockney voice grew quite
shrill. Then came an expressive silence, which Philip construed as an
aposiopetic allusion to this young gentleman whose face had been pushed
in.
"Still," he persisted gently, "you were fond of him?"
Miss Jennings did not answer immediately.
"I suppose I was," she admitted at last. "But I think I was more sorry
for him, if you know what I mean. He didn't know how to look after
himself: he was like a child: he wanted a nurse. But if ever I did try
to do anything for him, he took it up wrong. He thought I was getting
soft on him, and before you could turn round he was trying to lord it
over me. No, this affair never came to anything. It never could: we were
made too different, both of us. Forget it!"
Miss Jennings ceased, and surveyed the long moonlit streak of foam
astern rather wistfully. To-night the land she knew and the man she had
been sorry for seemed to have receded to infinity: over the bow of the
ship the unknown was creeping, hand over hand, inexorably. She sighed,
and then shivered. She was realising the truth of her own dictum on the
subject of a woman's inability to be sensible all the time.
Then the voice of Philip broke the silence, expounding the simple
philosophy of his simple life.
"Do you know," he said, "I think that all things are possible to two
people who are prepared to make allowances for one another? You and the
man you speak of both possess strong natures. You both wanted to be
master. You both hated conceding anything. He regarded the acts of
worship that a woman expects of the man who loves her as a form of
humiliation; he was content to make good by material homage--presents,
theatres, and so on. You on your part felt that in accepting these
things from him you were weakening your own independence and laying
yourself under an obligation to him. So he, when he made actual love to
you, did so reluctantly and half-heartedly--didn't he?"
"I should think he did!" affirmed the epicurean Miss Jennings.
"--While you could never accept his gifts and his arrangements for your
entertainment without just a little--what shall we say?--a dash of
vinegar?"
The girl nodded.
"That's it," she said.
"Now," proceeded Philip, too much immersed in his subject to be
surprised at his own fluency, "when two people who love one another
reach that stage, they must get over it at once, or there will be
friction, and finally disaster. Each must learn at once to consider
things from the other's point of view--make allowances, in fact. Brand
ought to--"
"Who?" enquired a sharp voice at his side.
"--Brand. It was Brand, wasn't it?"
Miss Jennings nodded.
"Yes," she said simply, "it was Brand. Go on."
"Brand," continued Philip, "ought to have remembered that you were a
woman, with all a woman's reserve and instinct of self-defence; and that
you could not be expected to wear your heart upon your sleeve."
"Yes, he ought to have remembered that," agreed Miss Jennings. "But what
about me? What should I have remembered?" She appeared almost anxious to
be scolded.
"This," said Philip--"that Brand was a proud, passionate man, of very
humble birth, terrified of showing you his heart and being laughed at
for his pains--"
The girl nodded again.
"Yes," she said, "you are right. I ought to have remembered that. I
forgot his feelings sometimes. Poor Bob!" she added pensively.
"So you see," concluded Philip, thankful to feel that his homily was
almost delivered, "if only you two could get accustomed to regarding one
another in that light, the barrier would be down for ever. A barrier can
never stand for a moment when it is attacked from both sides. Make
allowances, Miss Jennings! Make allowances! Get to know one another;
study one another; appreciate one another! Then Brand can pour out for
you all that shy, inarticulate worship of his, without fear of
indifference or ridicule, and you can surrender with all the honours of
war. Will you try?"
"Will I try?" echoed Miss Jennings wonderingly. "Isn't it a little late
in the day?"
"Well--would you try?"
"Would I?" Miss Jennings's voice suddenly broke. "What's the use of my
trying?" she demanded tearfully. "Bob's on the other side of the world
now--taken up with another girl as likely as not. What's the good of
asking me what I would do when I can't do it?"
She was crying in earnest now.
"Supposing--just supposing--" began Philip.
"Oh, stop your supposing!" the girl blazed out passionately. "Don't you
see I can't bear it? I want him! I'm frightened of everything, and I
want Bob! And it's too late!"
"Stay exactly where you are for about five minutes," commanded Philip.
And he disappeared in the darkness.
* * * * *
A few minutes later Bath-Steward Brand was incurring the risk of
ignominious expulsion from the service of the merchant marine by
trespassing upon a portion of the deck strictly reserved for passengers.
Philip went to bed.
* * * * *
Philip, leaning over the forward rail of the boatdeck and surveying the
silhouette of New York, rising like a row of irregular teeth upon the
distant horizon, talked to himself in order to keep his spirits up.
"Theophilus, my lad,"--he liked to call himself by that name, because
Peggy had sometimes used it,--"so far, your scheme of fresh friends and
pastures new has turned out a fizzle. You took this trip in order to see
new faces and make new friends, and generally put the past behind you.
The net result is that you have not made a single new acquaintance.
Instead, you have devoted your entire energies to interfering in the
affairs of a second-class lady passenger and a bath-steward, neither of
whom can be described under any circumstances as a new friend. You must
make a real effort when you land."
But Fate was against him. He descended to the saloon, and having there
satisfied an Immigration official, sitting behind a pile of papers, that
he was neither a pauper, a lunatic, nor an anarchist, could read and
write, and was not suffering from any disease of the eyeball, he
purchased one of the newspapers which the pilot had brought on board in
the early morning, and retired to a sunny corner to occupy himself,
after a week's abstention, in getting abreast of the news of the day. He
unfolded the crackling sheet.
It was his first introduction to that stupendous organ of private
opinion, the American newspaper.... When he had recovered his breath,
and the shouting scarelines had focussed themselves into some sort of
proportion, he worked methodically through the entire journal,
discovering ultimately, to his relief, that nothing very dreadful had
happened after all. He had almost finished, when his eye fell upon a
small paragraph at the foot of a column, with its headlines set in
comparatively modest type.
CUPID GETS BUSY IN THE STUDIO
WELL-KNOWN BRITISH PAINTERS WED
LOVE COMES LATE IN LIFE
TO MONTAGU FALCONER
ASSOCIATE OF BRITISH ACADEMY
AND JEAN LESLIE
FAMOUS WOMAN MINIATURIST
_We cull the following from the London "Times":_
_Falconer-Leslie. At St. Peter's, Eaton Square, on the 4th
inst., Montagu Falconer, A.R.A., to Jean Leslie, only daughter
of the late General Sir Ian Leslie, V.C., of Inverdurie,
Invernesshire._
A quarter of a column followed, expatiating upon the fact that the
wedding took place very quietly at ten o'clock in the morning, and that
reporters had met with a discouraging reception from the bridegroom.
Then came a list of Montagu's best-known pictures. But Philip did not
read it. He threw the paper down on deck, and started to his feet.
The Bosphorus had come to a standstill at the opening of her berth,
waiting for the tugs to turn her in. Protruding from the next opening
was the forepart of a monster liner, from whose four funnels smoke was
spouting.
Philip enquired of a passing quartermaster:--
"What ship is that, please?"
"The Caspian, sir. Our record-breaker!" said the man, with proper pride.
"She sails for Liverpool at noon."
Half an hour later Philip found himself and his belongings dumped upon
the Continent of America. A minion of the rapacious but efficient ring
of buccaneers which controls the entire transport system of the United
States confronted him.
"Where shall I express your baggage?" he enquired.
"You can put it on board the Caspian," replied Philip.
"Gee!" remarked the expressman admiringly.
"Some hustler, ain't you?"
"I am," said Philip--"this trip! Get busy!"