‘For I hold that on the seas,The expression if you pleaseA particularly gentlemanly tone implants,And so do his sisters and his cousins and his aunts.’
Now, Dorothy, don’t be bashful. Here’s your sister and your cousin and your aunt waiting for the horrifying revelation. What has happened?”
“I’ll tell you what is going to happen, Kate,” said the girl, smiling at the way the other ran on. “Mrs. Captain Kempt will perhaps consent to take you and me to New York or Boston, where we will put up at the best hotel, and trick ourselves out in ball costumes that will be the envy of Bar Harbor. I shall pay the expense of this trip as partial return for your father’s kindness in getting me an invitation and your mother’s kindness in allowing me to be one of your party.”
“Oh, then it isn’t an elopement, but a legacy. Has the wicked but wealthy relative died?”
“Yes,” said Dorothy solemnly, her eyes on the floor.
“Oh, I am so sorry for what I have just said!”
“You always speak without thinking,” chided her mother.
“Yes, don’t I? But, you see, I thought somehow that Dorothy had no relatives; but if she had one who was wealthy, and who allowed her to slave at sewing, then I say he was wicked, dead or alive, so there!”
“When work is paid for it is not slavery,” commented Sabina with severity and justice.
The sewing girl looked up at her.
“My grandfather, in Virginia, owned slaves before the war, and I have often thought that any curse which may have been attached to slavery has at least partly been expiated by me, as foreshadowed in the Bible, where it says that the sins of the fathers shall affect the third or fourth generations. I was thinking of that when I spoke of the shackles falling from my wrists, for sometimes, Miss Kempt, you have made me doubt whether wages and slavery are as incompatible as you appear to imagine. My father, who was a clergyman, often spoke to me of his father’s slaves, and while he never defended the institution, I think the past in his mind was softened by a glamor that possibly obscured the defects of life on the plantation. But often in depression and loneliness I have thought I would rather have been one of my grandfather’s slaves than endure the life I have been called upon to lead.”
“Oh, Dorothy, don’t talk like that, or you’ll make me cry,” pleaded Kate. “Let us be cheerful whatever happens. Tell us about the money. Begin ‘Once upon a time,’ and then everything will be all right. No matter how harrowing such a story begins, it always ends with lashin’s and lashin’s of money, or else with a prince in a gorgeous uniform and gold lace, and you get the half of his kingdom. Do go on.”
Dorothy looked up at her impatient friend, and a radiant cheerfulness chased away the gathering shadows from her face.
“Well, once upon a time I lived very happily with my father in a little rectory in a little town near the Hudson River. His family had been ruined by the war, and when the plantation was sold, or allowed to go derelict, whatever money came from it went to his elder and only brother. My father was a dreamy scholar and not a business man as his brother seems to have been. My mother had died when I was a child; I do not remember her. My father was the kindest and most patient of men, and all I know he taught me. We were very poor, and I undertook the duties of housekeeper, which I performed as well as I was able, constantly learning by my failures. But my father was so indifferent to material comforts that there were never any reproaches. He taught me all that I know in the way of what you might call accomplishments, and they were of a strangely varied order—a smattering of Latin and Greek, a good deal of French, history, literature, and even dancing, as well as music, for he was an excellent musician. Our meager income ceased with my father’s life, and I had to choose what I should do to earn my board and keep, like Orphant Annie, in Whitcomb Riley’s poem. There appeared to be three avenues open to me. I could be a governess, domestic servant, or dressmaker. I had already earned something at the latter occupation, and I thought if I could set up in business for myself, there was a greater chance of gaining an independence along that line than either as a governess or servant. But to do this I needed at least a little capital.
“Although there had been no communication between the two brothers for many years, I had my uncle’s address, and I wrote acquainting him with the fact of my father’s death, and asking for some assistance to set up in business for myself, promising to repay the amount advanced with interest as soon as I was able, for although my father had never said anything against his elder brother, I somehow had divined, rather than knew, that he was a hard man, and his answering letter gave proof of that, for it contained no expression of regret for his brother’s death. My uncle declined to make the advance I asked for, saying that many years before he had given my father two hundred dollars which had never been repaid. I was thus compelled, for the time at least, to give up my plan for opening a dressmaking establishment, even on the smallest scale, and was obliged to take a situation similar to that which I hold here. In three years I was able to save the two hundred dollars, which I sent to my uncle, and promised to remit the interest if he would tell me the age of the debt. He replied giving the information, and enclosing a receipt for the principal, with a very correct mathematical statement of the amount of interest if compounded annually, as was his legal right, but expressing his readiness to accept simple interest, and give me a receipt in full.”
“The brute!” ejaculated Katherine, which remark brought upon her a mild rebuke from her mother on intemperance of language.
“Well, go on,” said Katherine, unabashed.
“I merely mention this detail,” continued Dorothy, “as an object lesson in honesty. Never before since the world began was there such a case of casting bread upon the waters as was my sending the two hundred dollars. My uncle appears to have been a most methodical man. He filed away my letter which contained the money, also a typewritten copy of his reply, and when he died, it was these documents which turned the attention of the legal arm who acted for him to myself, for my uncle had left no will. The Californian firm communicated with lawyers in New York, and they began a series of very cautious inquiries, which at last resulted, after I had furnished certain proofs asked for, in my being declared heiress to my uncle’s estate.”
“And how much did you get? How much did you get?” demanded Katherine.
“I asked the lawyers from New York to deposit ten thousand dollars for me in the Sixth National Bank of this town, and they did so. It was to draw a little check against that deposit, and thus learn if it was real, that I went out to-day.”
“Ten thousand dollars,” murmured Katherine, in accents of deep disappointment. “Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” asked Dorothy, with a twinkle in her eyes.
“No, you deserve ten times as much, and I’m not going to New York or Boston at your expense to buy new dresses. Not likely! I will attend the ball in my calico.”
Dorothy laughed quietly, and drew from the little satchel she wore at her side a letter, which she handed to Katherine.
“It’s private and confidential,” she warned her friend.
“Oh, I won’t tell any one,” said Katherine, unfolding it. She read eagerly half-way down the page, then sprang to her feet on the top of the table, screaming:
“Fifteen million dollars! Fifteen million dollars!” and, swinging her arms back and forth like an athlete about to leap, sprang to the floor, nearly upsetting the little table, tray and all, as she embraced Dorothy Amhurst.
“Fifteen millions! That’s something like! Why, mother, do you realize that we have under our roof one of the richest young women in the world? Don’t you see that the rest of this conference must take place in our drawing-room under the most solemn auspices? The idea of our keeping such an heiress in the attic!”
“I believe,” said Sabina, slowly and coldly, “that Mr. Rockefeller’s income is—”
“Oh, blow Mr. Rockefeller and his income!” cried the indignant younger sister.
“Katherine!” pleaded the mother tearfully.
THROUGHOUT the long summer day a gentle excitement had fluttered the hearts of those ladies, young, or not so young, who had received invitations to the ball on board the “Consternation” that night. The last touches were given to creations on which had been spent skill, taste, and money. Our three young women, being most tastefully and fashionably attired, were in high spirits, which state of feeling was exhibited according to the nature of each; Sabina rather stately in her exaltation; Dorothy quiet and demure; while Katherine, despite her mother’s supplications, would not be kept quiet, but swung her graceful gown this way and that, practising the slide of a waltz, and quoting W. R. Gilbert, as was her custom. She glided over the floor in rhythm with her chant.
“When I first put this uniform onI said, as I looked in the glass,‘It’s one to a millionThat any civilianMy figure and form will surpass.’”
Meanwhile, in a room downstairs that good-natured veteran Captain Kempt was telling the latest stories to his future son-in-law, a young officer of the American Navy, who awaited, with dutiful impatience, the advent of the serene Sabina. When at last the ladies came down the party set out through the gathering darkness of this heavenly summer night for the private pier from which they were privileged, because of Captain Kempt’s official standing, to voyage to the cruiser on the little revenue cutter “Whip-poor-will,” which was later on to convey the Secretary of the Navy and his entourage across the same intervening waters. Just before they reached the pier their steps were arrested by the boom of a cannon, followed instantly by the sudden apparition of the “Consternation” picked out in electric light; masts, funnel and hull all outlined by incandescent stars.
“How beautiful!” cried Sabina, whose young man stood beside her. “It is as if a gigantic racket, all of one color, had burst, and hung suspended there like the planets of heaven.”
“It reminds me,” whispered Katherine to Dorothy, “of an overgrown pop-corn ball,” at which remark the two girls were frivolous enough to laugh.
“Crash!” sounded a cannon from an American ship, and then the white squadron became visible in a blaze of lightning. And now all the yachts and other craft on the waters flaunted their lines of fire, and the whole Bay was illuminated like a lake in Fairyland.
“Now,” said Captain Kempt with a chuckle, “watch the Britisher. I think she’s going to show us some color,” and as he spoke there appeared, spreading from nest to mast, a huge sheet of blue, with four great stars which pointed the corners of a parallelogram, and between the stars shone a huge white anchor. Cheers rang out from the crew of the “Consternation,” and the band on board played “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“That,” said Captain Kempt in explanation, “is the flag of the United States Secretary of the Navy, who will be with us to-night. The visitors have kept very quiet about this bit of illumination, but our lads got on to the secret about a week ago, and I’ll be very much disappointed if they don’t give ‘em tit for tat.”
When the band on the “Consternation” ceased playing, all lights went out on the American squadron, and then on the flagship appeared from mast to mast a device with the Union Jack in the corner, a great red cross dividing the flag into three white squares. As this illumination flashed out the American band struck up the British national anthem, and the outline lights appeared again.
“That,” said the captain, “is the British man-o’-war’s flag.”
The “Whip-poor-will” speedily whisked the party and others across the sparkling waters to the foot of the grand stairway which had been specially constructed to conduct the elect from the tide to the deck. It was more than double as broad as the ordinary gangway, was carpeted from top to bottom, and on every step stood a blue-jacket, each as steady as if cast in bronze, the line forming, as one might say, a living handrail rising toward the dark sky.
Captain Kempt and his wife went first, followed by Sabina and her young man with the two girls in their wake.
“Aren’t those men splendid?” whispered Katherine to her friend. “I wish each held an old-fashioned torch. I do love a sailor.”
“So do I,” said Dorothy, then checked herself, and laughed a little.
“I guess we all do,” sighed Katherine.
On deck the bluff captain of the “Consternation,” in resplendent uniform, stood beside Lady Angela Burford of the British Embassy at Washington, to receive the guests of the cruiser. Behind these two were grouped an assemblage of officers and very fashionably dressed women, chatting vivaciously with each other. As Dorothy looked at the princess-like Lady Angela it seemed as if she knew her; as if here were one who had stepped out of an English romance. Her tall, proudly held figure made the stoutish captain seem shorter than he actually was. The natural haughtiness of those classic features was somewhat modified by a pro tem smile. Captain Kempt looked back over his shoulder and said in a low voice:
“Now, young ladies, best foot forward. The Du Maurier woman is to receive the Gibson girls.”
“I know I shall laugh, and I fear I shall giggle,” said Katherine, but she encountered a glance from her elder sister quite as haughty as any Lady Angela might have bestowed, and all thought of merriment fled for the moment; thus the ordeal passed conventionally without Katherine either laughing or giggling.
Sabina and her young man faded away into the crowd. Captain Kempt was nodding to this one and that of his numerous acquaintances, and Katherine felt Dorothy shrink a little closer to her as a tall, unknown young man deftly threaded his way among the people, making directly for the Captain, whom he seized by the hand in a grasp of the most cordial friendship.
“Captain Kempt, I am delighted to meet you again. My name is Drummond—Lieutenant Drummond, and I had the pleasure of being introduced to you at that dinner a week or two ago.”
“The pleasure was mine, sir, the pleasure was mine,” exclaimed the Captain with a cordiality equal to that with which he had been greeted. He had not at first the least recollection of the young man, but the Captain was something of an amateur politician, and possessed all a politician’s expertness in facing the unknown, and making the most of any situation in which he found himself.
“Oh, yes, Lieutenant, I remember very well that excellent song you—”
“Isn’t it a perfect night?” gasped the Lieutenant. “I think we are to be congratulated on our weather.”
He still clung to the Captain’s hand, and shook it again so warmly that the Captain said to himself:
“I must have made an impression on this young fellow,” then aloud he replied jauntily:
“Oh, we always have good weather this time of year. You see, the United States Government runs the weather. Didn’t you know that? Yes, our Weather Bureau is considered the best in the world.”
The Lieutenant laughed heartily, although a hollow note intervened, for the young man had got to the end of his conversation, realized he could not shake hands for a third time, yet did not know what more to say. The suavity of the politician came to his rescue in just the form the Lieutenant had hoped.
“Lieutenant Drummond, allow me to introduce my wife to you.”
The lady bowed.
“And my daughter, Katherine, and Miss Amhurst, a friend of ours—Lieutenant Drummond, of the ‘Consternation.’”
“I wonder,” said the Lieutenant, as if the thought had just occurred to him, “if the young ladies would like to go to a point where they can have a comprehensive view of the decorations. I—I may not be the best guide, but I am rather well acquainted with the ship, you know.”
“Don’t ask me,” said Captain Kempt. “Ask the girls. Everything I’ve had in life has come to me because I asked, and if I didn’t get it the first time, I asked again.”
“Of course we want to see the decorations,” cried Katherine with enthusiasm, and so bowing to the Captain and Mrs. Kempt, the Lieutenant led the young women down the deck, until he came to an elevated spot out of the way of all possible promenaders, on which had been placed in a somewhat secluded position, yet commanding a splendid view of the throng, a settee with just room for two, that had been taken from some one’s cabin. A blue-jacket stood guard over it, but at a nod from the Lieutenant he disappeared.
“Hello!” cried Katherine, “reserved seats, eh? How different from a theatre chair, where you are entitled to your place by holding a colored bit of cardboard. Here a man with a cutlass stands guard. It gives one a notion of the horrors of war, doesn’t it, Dorothy?”
The Lieutenant laughed quite as heartily as if he had not himself hoped to occupy the position now held by the sprightly Katherine. He was cudgelling his brain to solve the problem represented by the adage “Two is company, three is none.” The girls sat together on the settee and gazed out over the brilliantly lighted, animated throng. People were still pouring up the gangways, and the decks were rapidly becoming crowded with a many-colored, ever-shifting galaxy of humanity. The hum of conversation almost drowned the popular selections being played by the cruiser’s excellent band. Suddenly one popular selection was cut in two. The sound of the instruments ceased for a moment, then they struck up “The Stars and Stripes for Ever.”
“Hello,” cried Katherine, “can your band play Sousa?”
“I should say we could,” boasted the Lieutenant, “and we can play his music, in a way to give some hints to Mr. Sousa’s own musicians.”
“To beat the band, eh?—Sousa’s band?” rejoined Katherine, dropping into slang.
“Exactly,” smiled the Lieutenant, “and now, young ladies, will you excuse me for a few moments? This musical selection means that your Secretary of the Navy is on the waters, and I must be in my place with the rest of the officers to receive him and his staff with all ceremony. Please promise you will not leave this spot till I return: I implore you.”
“Better put the blue-jacket on guard over us,” laughed Katherine.
“By Jove! a very good idea.”
Dorothy saw all levity depart from his face, giving way to a look of sternness and command. Although he was engaged in a joke, the subordinate must see no sign of fooling in his countenance. He said a sharp word to a blue-jacket, who nimbly sprang to the end of the settee, raised his hand in salute, and stiffened himself to an automaton. Then the girls saw the tall figure of the Lieutenant wending its way to the spot where the commander stood.
“I say, Dorothy, we’re prisoners. I wonder what this Johnny would do if we attempted to fly. Isn’t the Lieutenant sumptuous?”
“He seems a very agreeable person,” murmured Dorothy.
“Agreeable! Why, he’s splendid. I tell you, Dorothy, I’m going to have the first dance with him. I’m the eldest. He’s big enough to divide between two small girls like us, you know.”
“I don’t intend to dance,” said Dorothy.
“Nonsense, you’re not going to sit here all night with nobody to speak to. I’ll ask the Lieutenant to bring you a man. He’ll take two or three blue-jackets and capture anybody you want.”
“Katherine,” said Dorothy, almost as severely as if it were the elder sister who spoke, “if you say anything like that, I’ll go back to the house.”
“You can’t get back. I’ll appeal to the guard. I’ll have you locked up if you don’t behave yourself.”
“You should behave yourself. Really, Katherine, you must be careful what you say, or you’ll make me feel very unhappy.”
Katherine caught her by the elbow, and gave it an affectionate little squeeze.
“Don’t be frightened, Miss Propriety, I wouldn’t make you unhappy for the world. But surely you’re going to dance?”
Dorothy shook her head.
“Some other time. Not to-night. There are too many people here. I shouldn’t enjoy it, and—there are other reasons. This is all so new and strange to me: these brilliant men and beautiful women—the lights, the music, everything—it is as if I had stepped into another world; something I had read about, or perhaps dreamed about, and never expected to see.”
“Why, you dear girl, I’m not going to dance either, then.”
“Oh, yes, you will, Katherine; you must.”
“I couldn’t be so selfish as to leave you here all alone.”
“It isn’t selfish at all, Katherine. I shall enjoy myself completely here. I don’t really wish to talk to any one, but simply to enjoy my dream, with just a little fear at the bottom of my heart that I shall suddenly wake up, rubbing my eyes, in the sewing room.”
Katherine pinched her.
“Now are you awake?”
Dorothy smiled, still dreaming.
“Hello!” cried Katherine, with renewed animation, “they’ve got the Secretary safe aboard the lugger, and they seem to be clearing the decks for action. Here is my dear Lieutenant returning; tall even among tall men. Look at him. He’s in a great hurry, yet so polite, and doesn’t want to bump against anybody. And now, Dorothy, don’t you be afraid. I shall prove a perfect model of diffidence. You will be proud of me when you learn with what timidity I pronounce prunes and prism. I think I must languish a little at him. I don’t know quite how it’s done, but in old English novels the girls always languished, and perhaps an Englishman expects a little languishment in his. I wonder if he comes of a noble family. If he doesn’t, I don’t think I’ll languish very much. Still, what matters the pomp of pageantry and pride of race—isn’t that the way the poem runs? I love our dear little Lieutenant for himself alone, and I think I will have just one dance with him, at least.”
Drummond had captured a camp-stool somewhere, and this he placed at right angles to the settee, so that he might face the two girls, and yet not interrupt their view. The sailor on guard once more faded away, and the band now struck up the music of the dance.
“Well,” cried Drummond cheerfully, “I’ve got everything settled. I’ve received the Secretary of the Navy: our captain is to dance with his wife, and the Secretary is Lady Angela’s partner. There they go!”
For a few minutes the young people watched the dance, then the Lieutenant said:
“Ladies, I am disappointed that you have not complimented our electrical display.”
“I am sure it’s very nice, indeed, and most ingenious,” declared Dorothy, speaking for the first time that evening to the officer, but Katherine, whose little foot was tapping the deck to the dance music, tossed her head, and declared nonchalantly that it was all very well as a British effort at illumination, but she begged the young man to remember that America was the home of electricity.
“Where would you have been if it were not for Edison?”
“I suppose,” said the Lieutenant cheerfully, “that we should have been where Moses was when the candle went out—in the dark.”
“You might have had torches,” said Dorothy. “My friend forgets she was wishing the sailors held torches on that suspended stairway up the ship’s side.”
“I meant electric torches—Edison torches, of course.”
Katherine was displeased at the outlook. She was extremely fond of dancing, and here this complacent young man had planted himself down on a camp stool to talk of electricity.
“Miss Kempt, I am sorry that you are disappointed at our display. Your slight upon British electrical engineering leaves us unscathed, because this has been done by a foreign mechanic, whom I wish to present to you.”
“Oh, indeed,” said Katherine, rather in the usual tone of her elder sister. “I don’t dance with mechanics, thank you.”
She emphasized the light fantastic word, but the Lieutenant did not take the hint; he merely laughed again in an exasperatingly good-natured way, and said:
“Lady Angela is going to be Jack Lamont’s partner for the next waltz.”
“Oh,” said Katherine loftily, “Lady Angela may dance with any blacksmith that pleases her, but I don’t. I’m taking it for granted that Jack Lamont is your electrical tinsmith.”
“Yes, he is, and I think him by all odds the finest fellow aboard this ship. It’s quite likely you have read about his sister. She is a year older than Jack, very beautiful, cultured, everything that a grande dame should be, yet she has given away her huge estate to the peasantry, and works with them in the fields, living as they do, and faring as they do. There was an article about her in one of the French reviews not long ago. She is called the Princess Natalia.”
“The Princess Natalia!” echoed Katherine, turning her face toward the young man. “How can Princess Natalia be a sister of Jack Lamont? Did she marry some old prince, and take to the fields in disgust?”
“Oh, no; Jack Lamont is a Russian. He is called Prince Ivan Lermontoff when he’s at home, but we call him Jack Lamont for short. He’s going to help me on the Russian business I told you of.”
“What Russian business?” asked Katherine. “I don’t remember your speaking of it.”
Dorothy went white, edged a little way from her friend, while her widening eyes flashed a warning at the Lieutenant, who, too late, remembered that this conversation on Russia had taken place during the walk from the bank. The young man coughed slightly behind his open hand, reddened, and stammered:
“Oh, I thought I had told you. Didn’t I mention the prince to you as we were coming here?”
“Not that I recollect,” said Katherine. “Is he a real, genuine prince? A right down regular, regular, regular royal prince?”
“I don’t know about the royalty, but he’s a prince in good standing in his own land, and he is also an excellent blacksmith.” The Lieutenant chuckled a little. “He and his sister have both been touched a good deal by Tolstoian doctrine. Jack is the most wonderful inventor, I think, that is at present on the earth, Edison notwithstanding. Why, he is just now engaged on a scheme by which he can float houses from the mountains here down to New York. Float them—pipe-line them would perhaps be a better term. You know they have pipe-lines to carry petroleum. Very well; Jack has a solution that dissolves stone as white sugar dissolves in tea, and he believes he can run the fluid from the quarries to where building is going on. It seems that he then puts this liquid into molds, and there you have the stone again. I don’t understand the process myself, but Jack tells me it’s marvelously cheap, and marvelously effective. He picked up the idea from nature one time when he and I were on our vacation at Detroit.”
“Detroit, Michigan?”
“The Detroit River.”
“Well, that runs between Michigan and Canada.”
“No, no, this is in France. I believe the real name of the river is the Tarn. There’s a gorge called Detroit—the strait, you know. Wonderful place—tremendous chasm. You go down in a boat, and all the tributary rivers pour into the main stream like jets from the nozzle of a hose. They tell me this is caused by the rain percolating through the dead leaves on the surface of the ground far above, and thus the water becomes saturated with carbonic acid gas, and so dissolves the limestone until the granite is reached, and the granite forms the bed of these underground rivers. It all seemed to me very wonderful, but it struck Jack on his scientific side, and he has been experimenting ever since. He says he’ll be able to build a city with a hose next year.”
“Where does he live?”
“On the cruiser just at present. I was instrumental in getting him signed on as John Lamont, and he passed without question. No wonder, for he has scientific degrees from all sorts of German universities, from Oxford, and one or two institutions in the States. When at home he lives in St. Petersburg.”
“Has he a palace there?”
Drummond laughed.
“He’s got a blacksmith shop, with two rooms above, and I’m going to stop with him for a few months as soon as I get my leave. When the cruiser reaches England we pay off, and I expect to have nothing to do for six months, so Jack and I will make for St. Petersburg.”
“Why do you call him Lamont? Is it taken from his real name of what-d’ye-call-it-off?”
“Lermontoff? Yes. The Czar Demetrius, some time about the beginning of the seventeenth century, established a Scottish Guard, just as Louis XI did in France two hundred years before, and there came over from Scotland Lamonts, Carmichaels, Buchanans and others, on whom were bestowed titles and estates. Prince Ivan Lermontoff is a descendant of the original Lamont, who was an officer in the Scottish Guard of Russia.
“So he is really a Scotchman?”
“That’s what I tell him when he annoys me, as I am by way of being a Scotchman myself. Ah, the waltz is ended. Will you excuse me a moment while I fetch his Highness?”
Dorothy inclined her head, and Katherine fairly beamed permission.
“Oh, Dorothy,” she exclaimed, when the Lieutenant was out of hearing, “think of it! A real prince, and my ambition has never risen higher than a paltry count, or some plebeian of that sort. He’s mine, Dorothy; I found him first.”
“I thought you had appropriated the Lieutenant?”
“What are lieutenants to me? The proud daughter of a captain (retired) cannot stoop to a mere lieutenant.”
“You wouldn’t have to stoop far, Kate, with so tall a man as Mr. Drummond.”
“You are beginning to take notice, aren’t you, Dot? But I bestow the Lieutenant freely upon you, because I’m going to dance with the Prince, even if I have to ask him myself.
She’ll toddle away, as all aver,With the Lord High Executioner.
Ah, here they come. Isn’t he perfectly splendid? Look at his beard! Just the color of a brand-new twenty-dollar gold piece. See that broad ribbon diagonally across him. I wonder what it means. And gaze at those scintillating orders on his breast. Good gracious me, isn’t he splendid?”
“Yes, for a blacksmith. I wonder if he beat those stars out on his anvil. He isn’t nearly so tall as Lieutenant Drummond.”
“Dorothy, I’ll not allow you to disparage my Prince. How can you be so disagreeable? I thought from the very first that the Lieutenant was too tall. If the Prince expects me to call him ‘your Highness,’ he’ll be disappointed.”
“You are quite right, Kate. The term would suit the Lieutenant better.”
“Dorothy, I believe you’re jealous.”
“Oh, no, I’m not,” said Dorothy, shaking her head and laughing, and then “Hush!” she added, as Katherine was about to speak again.
The next moment the young men stood before them, and, introductions being soberly performed, the Prince lost no time in begging Katherine to favor him with a dance, to which request the young woman was graciously pleased to accede, without, however, exhibiting too much haste about her acceptance, and so they walked off together.
“SOME one has taken the camp stool,” said Lieutenant Drummond. “May I sit here?” and the young woman was good enough to give the desired permission.
When he had seated himself he glanced around, then impulsively held out his hand.
“Miss Amhurst,” he said, “how are you?”
“Very well, thank you,” replied the girl with a smile, and after half a moment’s hesitation she placed her hand in his.
“Of course you dance, Miss Amhurst?”
“Yes, but not to-night. I am here merely as a looker-on in Vienna. You must not allow politeness to keep you away from the floor, or, perhaps, I should say the deck. I don’t mind being alone in the least.”
“Now, Miss Amhurst, that is not a hint, is it? Tell me that I have not already tired you of my company.”
“Oh, no, but I do not wish you to feel that simply because we met casually the other day you are compelled to waste your evening sitting out.”
“Indeed, Miss Amhurst, although I should very much like to have the pleasure of dancing with you, there is no one else here that I should care to ask. I have quailed under the eagle eye of my Captain once or twice this evening, and I have been rather endeavoring to keep out of his sight. I fear he has found something new about me of which to disapprove, so I have quite determined not to dance, unless you would consent to dance with me, in which case I am quite ready to brave his reproachful glances.”
“Have you done anything wrong lately?”
“Heaven only knows! I try not to be purposely wicked, and indeed have put forth extra efforts to be extra good, but it seems all of no avail. I endeavor to go about the ship with a subdued, humble, unobtrusive air, but this is rather difficult for a person of my size. I don’t think a man can droop successfully unless he’s under six feet in height.”
Dorothy laughed with quiet content. She was surprised to find herself so much at her ease with him, and so mildly happy. They shared a secret together, and that of itself was an intangible bond linking him with her who had no ties with any one else. She liked him; had liked him from the first; and his unconcealed delight in her company was gratifying to a girl who heretofore had found none to offer her the gentle courtesies of life.
“Is it the Russian business again? You do not look very much troubled about it.”
“Ah, that is—that is—” he stammered in apparent confusion, then blurted out, “because you—because I am sitting here. Although I have met you but once before, it seems somehow as if I had known you always, and my slight anxiety that I told you of fades away in your presence. I hope you don’t think I am forward in saying this, but really to-night, when I saw you at the head of the gangway, I could scarcely refrain from going directly to you and greeting you. I am afraid I made rather a hash of it with Captain Kempt. He is too much of a gentleman to have shown any surprise at my somewhat boisterous accosting of him, and you know I didn’t remember him at all, but I saw that you were under his care, and chanced it. Luckily it seems to have been Captain Kempt after all, but I fear I surprised him, taking him by storm, as it were.”
“I thought you did it very nicely,” said Dorothy, “and, indeed, until this moment I hadn’t the least suspicion that you didn’t recognize him. He is a dear old gentleman, and I’m very fond of him.”
“I say,” said the Lieutenant, lowering his voice, “I nearly came a cropper when I spoke of that Russian affair before your friend. I was thinking of—of—well, I wasn’t thinking of Miss Kempt—”
“Oh, she never noticed anything,” said Dorothy hurriedly. “You got out of that, too, very well. I thought of telling her I had met you before while she and I were in New York together, but the opportunity never seemed—well, I couldn’t quite explain, and, indeed, didn’t wish to explain my own inexplicable conduct at the bank, and so trusted to chance. If you had greeted me first tonight, I suppose”—she smiled and looked up at him—“I suppose I should have brazened it out somehow.”
“Have you been in New York?”
“Yes, we were there nearly a week.”
“Ah, that accounts for it.”
“Accounts for what?”
“I have walked up and down every street, lane and alley in Bar Harbor, hoping to catch a glimpse of you. I have haunted the town, and all the time you were away.”
“No wonder the Captain frowns at you! Have you been neglecting your duty?”
“Well, I have been stretching my shore leave just a little bit. I wanted to apologize for talking so much about myself as we walked from the bank.”
“It was very interesting, and, if you remember, we walked farther than I had intended.”
“Were your friends waiting for you, or had they gone?”
“They were waiting for me.”
“I hope they weren’t cross?”
“Oh, no. I told them I had been detained. It happened not to be necessary to enter into details, so I was saved the task of explanation, and, besides, we had other interesting things to discuss. This function on the cruiser has loomed so large as a topic of conversation that there has been little need of any other subject to talk about for several days past.”
“I suppose you must have attended many grander occasions than this. Although we have endeavored to make a display, and although we possess a reasonably efficient band, still, a cruiser is not exactly designed for the use to which it is being put to-night. We have many disadvantages to overcome which are not met with in the sumptuous dwellings of New York and Bar Harbor.”
The girl’s eyes were on the deck for some moments before she replied, then she looked across at the dancers, and finally said:
“I think the ball on the ‘Consternation’ quite equals anything I have ever attended.”
“It is nice of you to say that. Praise from—I won’t name Sir Hubert Stanley—but rather Lady Hubert Stanley—is praise, indeed. And now, Miss Amhurst, since I have confessed my fruitless wanderings through Bar Harbor, may I not have the pleasure of calling upon you to-morrow or next day?”
Her eyes were dreamily watching the dancers.
“I suppose,” she said slowly, with the flicker of a smile curving those enticing lips, “that since you were so very friendly with Captain Kempt to-night he may expect you to smoke a cigar with him, and it will possibly happen that Katherine and I, who are very fond of the Captain, may chance to come in while you are there.”
“Katherine? Ah, Katherine is the name of the young lady who was with you here—Miss Kempt?”
“Yes.”
“You are stopping with the Kempts, then?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder if they’d think I was taking a liberty if I brought Jack Lamont with me?”
“The Prince?” laughed Dorothy. “Is he a real prince?”
“Oh, yes, there’s no doubt about that. I shouldn’t have taken the liberty of introducing him to you as Prince Lermontoff if he were not, as we say in Scotland, a real Mackay—the genuine article. Well, then, the Prince and I will pay our respects to Captain Kempt to-morrow afternoon.”
“Did you say the Prince is going with you to Russia?”
“Oh, yes. As I told you, I intend to live very quietly in St. Petersburg, and the Prince has his shop and a pair of rooms above it in a working quarter of the city. I shall occupy one of the rooms and he the other. The Prince is an excellent cook, so we shan’t starve, even if we engage no servant.”
“Has the Prince given his estates away also?”
“He hasn’t given them away exactly, but he is a very indulgent landlord, and he spends so much money on his experiments and travel that, although he has a formidable income, he is very frequently quite short of money. Did you like him?”
“Yes. Of course I saw him for a moment only. I wonder why they haven’t returned. There’s been several dances since they left.”
“Perhaps,” said the Lieutenant, with a slight return of his stammering, “your friend may be as fond of dancing as Jack is.”
“You are still determined to go to Russia?”
“Quite. There is absolutely no danger. I may not accomplish anything, but I’ll have a try at it. The Prince has a good deal of influence in St. Petersburg, which he will use quietly on my behalf, so that I may see the important people. I shall be glad when the Captain ceases frowning—”
Drummond was interrupted by a fellow-officer, who raised his cap, and begged a word with him.
“I think, Drummond, the Captain wanted to see you.”
“Oh, did he say that?”
“No, but I know he has left a note for you in your cabin. Shall I go and fetch it?”
“I wish you would, Chesham, if you don’t mind, and it isn’t too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all. Delighted, I’m sure,” said Chesham, again raising his cap and going off.
“Now, I wonder what I have forgotten to do.”
Drummond heaved a sigh proportionate to himself.
“Under the present condition of things a bit of neglect that would go unnoticed with another man is a sign of unrepentant villainy in me. Any other Lieutenant may steal a horse while I may not look over a hedge. You see how necessary it is for me to go to Russia, and get this thing smoothed over.”
“I think, perhaps, you are too sensitive, and notice slights where nothing of the kind is meant,” said the girl.
Chesham returned and handed Drummond a letter.
“Will you excuse me a moment?” he said, and as she looked at him he flattered himself that he noticed a trace of anxiety in her eyes. He tore open the missive.
“By Jove!” he cried.
“What is it?” she could not prevent herself from saying, leaning forward.
“I am ordered home. The Admiralty commands me to take the first steamer for England.”
“Is that serious?”
He laughed with well-feigned hilarity.
“Oh, no, not serious; it’s just their way of doing things. They might easily have allowed me to come home in my own ship. My only fear is I shall have to take the train for New York early to-morrow morning. But,” he said, holding out his hands, “it is not serious if you allow me to write to you, and if you will permit me to hope that I may receive an answer.”
She placed her hand in his, this time without hesitation.
“You may write,” she said, “and I will reply. I trust it is not serious.”