II.An International Courtship.
In seven minutes the great steamerLahnwould slip her moorings and sail for Southampton.
Already the more cautious friends of the departing passengers had left the ship, and were finding places on the dock whence they might wave their final messages. The decks were clearing fast, leaving mournful groups of travellers, who were beginning to realize how soon they would form a little world of their own; and so they were making quiet observations of each other.
A tall, sturdy, young Englishman was leaning over the rail, looking a trifle amused at the scene about him, and occasionally waving his hand to two men on the wharf, who were evidently “seeing him off.” He did not look particularly sad, or as if he had any especial interest in the voyage beyond reaching his destination. That he was distinctly a well-bred Englishman, who knew his London well, one could not doubt; that he was also a trifle obstinate, might be surmised from the pose of the intellectual head upon the square shoulders, and the determined look about the firm, well-shaped mouth. Just now, he has screwed an eye-glass into his eye, and is looking at two ladies who have crossed the plank, and are being greeted by two elderly gentlemen, each of whom presents them with bunches of flowers.
Something about them strikes theyoung man’s fancy; perhaps he is interested in seeing that they seem quite oblivious of the fact that the warning bell is ringing, and he is wondering if the two men are to sail also, when suddenly, just as the gangway is to be removed, he sees them all shake hands, and the two women are left standing alone.
After a final look at his friends on the dock, he takes a turn about the steamer, and far off on the side, quite removed from the harbour, he sees the younger woman standing, looking out—not behind, at what she is leaving, but before her.Whyit is that he cares at all what a perfectly unknown young woman is doing or thinking puzzles Mr. Gordon-Treherne. In his five-and-thirty years, he has known a great many of the fair sex; he has had several rather close love affairs—with various results. He was rescued from what might have terminated inan unfortunate marriage when in Cambridge. The Gordon-Trehernes considered that the heir of the family had no right to throw himself away upon a modest little English girl, even if she were the daughter of the rector, and deeply in love with the fascinating young collegian.
After that experience, young Mr. Gordon-Treherne, or “The Arab,” as his chums called him, from his love of travel, determined not to hurry himself about marrying. One or two charming Frenchwomen almost destroyed this resolution, and once he was decidedly fascinated with the daughter of an English general out in India. But he had travelled the length and breadth of the United States, and never felt inclined to fall in love with an American girl. Several of his friends had married American belles; and when young Lord Clanmore’s engagement was announced tothe beautiful and wealthy Miss Lawson, of New York, everyone envied him; but Treherne had not cared to enter the lists, although he knew Miss Lawson well. Women said he was a man with a history, but he was all the more fascinating for that. Men called him a good fellow, and said “The Arab” was the best shot and the coolest rider in the club, only he was always running off to some outlandish place, where his accomplishments were lost.
Just now his friends might have been surprised to see him arranging a steamer chair for the elder of the two women who had caught his attention on the dock. The steamer has left the quay only a half hour, and already an opportunity has presented itself to make their acquaintance. Etiquette at sea is very elastic, and it only needed the usual attentions to the comfort of the elder woman toattract the notice of the younger. She has turned now, and with her hands still full of flowers, comes toward them—a tall, slim girl, possibly four-and-twenty he thinks. He is dimly conscious that both ladies are quietly but elegantly dressed. Americans, he fancies; and then the elder woman speaks,—“Thanks, so much.” The voice is low and musical. She must be French, he thinks. She is a brunette, and he decides that she cannot be the mother of the tall, fair girl who seats herself next to her.
“Let me arrange your rug also,” Mr. Gordon-Treherne says, as he raises his hat.
“Oh, thank you; that is very comfortable.”
And again he is struck with the well-modulated tones, which he scarcely associates with American voices.
Still they must be Americans, the young man argues to himself, but no longer finding an excuse to tarry in their vicinity, he moves off, and they meet no more till dinner-time.
Meanwhile, with the philosophy of an old traveller, Mr. Gordon-Treherne has interviewed the head steward, and, foregoing the honour of sitting at the captain’s table, he has asked to be placed at a small one with a sofa-seat. Experience during previous voyages has taught him that there are certain comforts not to be despised in a side seat under a strong light. He sees several prospective lonely evenings, when he may not feel inclined to hunt about for a good place to read.
At dinner Mr. Gordon-Treherne notices two elderly men and a small boy at his table, and remarks two vacant places. Presently his two interesting acquaintances of the morningappear, and he has just time to read the cards on the plates on either side of him—“Mrs. Barry” on one, and “Miss Stuyvesant” on the other—and to comprehend that by some blunder he is separating them, and that he can only remedy the matter by giving up his cherished seat, when the two ladies arrive at their places. There is a moment’s hesitation, and Mr. Gordon-Treherne remarks, “Allow me to change my place.” Suiting the action to the word, he steps past and allows Mrs. Barry to take his seat, which brings him opposite Miss Stuyvesant. Both ladies express their thanks, and then, naturally, they fall into conversation. They speak of the steamers; Mr. Gordon-Treherne prefers a larger boat, and refers to several “ocean greyhounds” he has personally known. Curiously enough the ladies have made the same crossings, but prefer even smaller steamers than theLahn. “Americans, surely; ‘Globe Trotters,’” he thinks.
He mentions that he has just been to the Exhibition at Chicago. Miss Stuyvesant says that in point of exhibits she preferred the Paris Exposition of ’89, and so on, until it seems as if there were no place this young woman had not seen and about which she had not formed her conclusions. He doesn’t care for it though, Arab that he is; he likes to travel, but the women of his family have never expressed a desire to go beyond Paris, and he thinks promiscuous sight-seeing outside a woman’s province. He shows a little of this in his manner, for as he leaves the table, the elder woman says:
“How glad I am, Helen, that you do not believe in International marriages. Now here is a well-bred, intelligent Englishman, yet he shows insensibly what narrow ideas he hasabout women. I admit he is polite, and careful in small details of manner, but an American girl of spirit could never be happily married to him. Their ideas of life are too opposed.”
Miss Stuyvesant has evidently not thought much about him, for she only smiles in a vague way, and says she has learned not to quarrel with the old-fashioned notions of English people.
“Why, I pride myself in actually leading them, when they start in a tirade against the very things I do myself!” she said.
“You are a sadly worldly young woman,” Mrs. Barry rejoins, “and I wish you would marry and settle in your own country.”
Meanwhile Mr. Gordon-Treherne was idly pacing the deck, smoking his cigar, and wondering if the self-possessed young woman would appearlater on. “If ever I marry,” he resolves, “it will be to some woman who hasnotbeen everywhere and seen everything. I should feel as if I were travelling with an animated guide-book. I wonder if that girl has a home?”
Then it occurred to him that Miss Stuyvesant had merely answered his questions, and as these had been restricted to quite impersonal topics, he only knew her name after all.
That she was good-looking, agreeable, and witty, he had already observed, but she did not seem to thrust any information about herself upon him, as he had supposed an American girl would. He did not see her again that day, nor till the next afternoon, when she was walking up and down the deck with the captain of the steamer, and as she passed him with a little nod of recognition he heard her speaking German.
“Surely American,” he thinks, “knows the captain already, and speaks his language.”
At dinner Mrs. Barry was missing, but Miss Stuyvesant appeared looking as calm and “well-groomed” as if a heavy sea were not tossing everything about, and obliging the passengers to eat over racks.
“You are an old sailor, I see,” began Mr. Gordon-Treherne, “but I fear Mrs. Barry is ill.”
“Yes, quite seriously ill,” Miss Stuyvesant replied. “It is always an ordeal for her to cross the ocean.”
“And has she done so frequently?” he asked.
“Nine times with me,” the young woman coolly replied.
“Really,” he said with a smile, “one might infer you had some designs on her life, did you not look so anxious about her.”
“Oh, no, we usually have someexcellent reason, we do not take this voyage in order to martyrize Mrs. Barry,” she replied.
“I shall have to ask her nationality outright,” he thought.
“Then you do not live in America all the time?” he said.
“Not now, we are ‘birds of passage,’ and, like them, follow the spring-time; our habitation is usually settled by the climate.”
“And do you know England?” he asked.
“Quite well, I was at school in England, and some of my dearest friends are living there.”
“Some church school,” he mentally remarked.
“Ah, then, perhaps you do not altogether despise our little island, and look down upon us from your bigness with the scorn that most of your compatriots do?”
“He is trying to make sport. Ishall foil him,” she thought, and quite calmly said—
“Look down upon a country upon whose possessions ‘the sun never sets’? Besides, the fact that I stay so much in England ought to prove how much I admire most of its institutions.”
“Clever girl!” he thought, “trying to be a little satirical, and doesn’t commit herself as toallof our ‘institutions.’ I must make her angry to get her real opinion.”
And then he said, “You should see our English home-life. I am surethatappeals to every American woman.”
There was a patronising tone about this remark that Mr. Gordon-Treherne felt would effect his purpose.
“Indeed,” she said slowly, and went on eating, as if the conversation were beginning rather to bore her. Now, why Mr. Gordon-Treherne shouldassume that Miss Stuyvesant had not seen this phase of England as well as others cannot be imagined; but there he overstepped the line, and soon after the decidedly cool “Indeed,” Miss Stuyvesant left the table to look after herchaperone.
“An egotistical man,” she thought, as she went to her state-room. She had liked Mr. Gordon-Treherne’s appearance, and being a cosmopolitan young woman, was prepared to find him agreeable. Now she thinks him distinctly aggressive, with his old conservative ideas of women and English superiority.
He, for his part, feels he does not understand this American girl, who refused to quarrel with him, but suddenly turned and left him. He knows he has not shown himself in his most brilliant colours.
The days passed rapidly. Mr. Treherne and Miss Stuyvesant saweach other at table, walked the deck together, and to the casual observer seemed to be mutually entertained. But although they were in so many ways companionable, they both felt an intangible barrier between them in the national prejudice that their first conversation had developed—a prejudice probably latent in every person, however cultivated or travelled, although in this particular case both of these young people flattered themselves that they were singularly broad-minded.
The last evening of the voyage, as they were walking up and down the deck, Mr. Gordon-Treherne determined to broach the subject which he felt they had both avoided.
A larger acquaintance had brought out the fact that Miss Stuyvesant had read for honours at an English University, and Mr. Treherne was obliged to admit that in this case the higher education of women (whichnever strongly appealed to him), had not detracted from her personal charm. She, on the other hand, discovered that he knew a great deal abouthercountry, and considered its possibilities almost unlimited; but she felt that he looked down upon its newness, and she resented his opinion of American men, whom he described as clever and agreeable in their relations with each other, but servile in their attitude toward women. The dangerous topic of national characteristics had not been touched upon until to-night.
Now Mr. Treherne is saying, “I hope you have forgiven my frankness in telling you exactly what my impressions were of America. I could not help seeing how charming and bright the women were, and I wondered if they did not despise the slavishness of their husbands and lovers. While the men are toiling to get rich, their families come abroad,their wives thus educating themselves beyond their husbands, and returning home, find themselves less than ever in sympathy with their surroundings. I never wonder when an American girl, who has had a chance to see the world, marries a foreigner of family and education.”
If Mr. Treherne had been closely observing his companion, he might have remarked an ominous expression crossing her face, but she only said—
“I have had several friends in Europe whose fathers’ fortunes have found them titles, and on the occasions that I have stayed with them, they did not seem wildly enthusiastic over the equality of companionship. The head of the house had generally gone to town, or was taking a run over to Paris, and I wondered if it suited a woman very well who had been accustomed to have a small court about her at home, to find herselfrestricted to a husband so little her companion that she scarcely ever saw him.”
“But then you see, Miss Stuyvesant, she knows he is not down in Wall Street, or in some exchange, staking all his fortune on the rise and fall of stocks.”
“No,” she rejoined; “in the cases of my friends the women have to consider that their husbands are probably at Monte Carlo or Ostend. But really, why should we discuss it, Mr. Treherne? No one would ever fancyyouadmiring an American woman, and I, for my part, if I marry at all, would only marry an American man.”
With which delightfully feminine declaration, Miss Stuyvesant says “Good-night,” and abruptly leaves the astonished Treherne to realise that he has not made a good finish. Not that he cares seriously for Miss Stuyvesant; but Treherne is accustomedto find that women like him, and this girl, his instinct warns him, doesnotapprove of him and his opinions. He feels annoyed, but there seems to be nothing to explain; his training and the circumstances of his life have made him conservative. He does not wish to love, nor does he especially approve of a young woman, however attractive, whose ideas differ from his own so materially.
And so next day, when he bids a formal “good-bye” to Mrs. Barry and Miss Stuyvesant, he tries to feel that in England he has more manly occupations than doing the agreeable to a young woman, and that woman an American. This is exactly what Mr. Treherne doesnotfeel, nor does he mean to indicate it by his manner at parting. And so he goes off, consoling himself with the reflection that he certainly has found Miss Stuyvesant a pleasant companion for a sea voyage.
Three weeks later, in London, when the season is at its height, Miss Stuyvesant, who is looking radiant in a French gown, meets Mr. Gordon-Treherne at Lady Clanmore’s ball. She is on the arm of the American ambassador, and as she crosses the room with that unconscious grace of hers he feels that every man present would be glad to know her, to talk with her as he has talked, and something at that moment tells him that she interests him more than any woman has ever interested him before. Just then she sees him, and he fancies that a rather annoyed look crosses her face. Then she smiles, and he comes over and speaks to her and to her escort, who seems to know everyone.
“Will you give me a dance, Miss Stuyvesant?”
“Yes, but I have only this one waltz left. You see, you Englishmendothink that American girls are good partners—in a ball-room,” she adds slyly.
“I see I am not forgiven,” he says; and then the waltz begins.
What a waltz! Gordon-Treherne has had many good partners in his day, for he has always been a dancing man; but never has he seen anyone dance like this girl. When they stop she is scarcely out of breath, and he has only time to say, “Let me thank you.” For her next partner had already claimed her, when she turned back and mischievously remarked, “And you, you dance extremely well—for an Englishman.”
It occurred several times afterward to Miss Stuyvesant that he could do a great many things extremely well; and if he had only been born in America she might have preferred him to honest Jack Hamilton, who had loved her since she was a schoolgirl, and who was doing exactly what Mr. Treherne had described in that last obnoxious conversation—staking his fortune in an Oil Exchange, hoping that some day he could induce Miss Stuyvesant to give up her Bohemian life for the luxuries of a wealthy American home. In an indefinite way she had thought she might do so in the end, but, while she gave no promise, she was sure that Jack would never change. And so she had drifted on pleasantly and thoughtlessly, caring nothing for the men she met until this one, with his strong opinions, crossed her path, and forhimshe believed she entertained the most indifferent feelings. He had simply disturbed her. She did not think his ideas correct, but there was a sense of justice in the girl that made her think herself narrow and bigoted for not being able to judge things from other standpoints than her own. Itwas exactly what she was criticizing in Mr. Gordon-Treherne.
“It will be better to avoid any more discussions,” she thought, and so the two did not meet again until one glorious autumn morning, when the house party at Lady Clanmore’s rode out to the first meet of the season. Miss Stuyvesant headed the cavalcade, escorted by Lord Clanmore, and as they came up to the meet she saw Mr. Gordon-Treherne, who was riding a restive thoroughbred, and looking what he was—an excellent rider. He was talking to a handsome woman, beautifully gowned, who was driving a perfectly appointed trap.
“That is Lady Diana Gordon,” Lord Clanmore is saying. “She is Treherne’s cousin, and rumour has it that the old estates of Gordon and Treherne are liable to be joined.”
Miss Stuyvesant feels for a moment as if she were slipping from her saddle,and then Treherne sees her. He raises his hat, and she smiles back an odd, unconsciously sad little smile, which he has only time to remark, when the hounds move off. And now all the recklessness in the girl is aroused; she knows she rides as few women can, and during the run she follows her pilot, Lord Clanmore, so straight that the whole field is lost in admiration of her.
Treherne alone has noticed the set look in her face. “Is she ill?” he wonders, and he determines to keep her well in view. He has hard work, for she is on a vicious little mare which she insisted upon riding, and as she takes fence after fence Treherne grows more and more anxious. The hounds have come to a check just beyond a clump of trees in the next field. Miss Stuyvesant turns her horse’s head, and Treherne sees she intends to take a short cut through a dangerous low-boughedcopse which intervenes. “Stop!” he calls, but she does not hear him, and he knows his only plan is to head her off, if possible. Turning sharply, he enters the field from the other side; as he does so, he hears the crashing of boughs, and sees Miss Stuyvesant’s mare coming straight towards him. Each moment he expects to see her swept from her saddle, but she keeps her seat bravely. He calls out to her to turn to the right, for before her in her present path is a strong low-hanging branch of an old oak, which Treherne knows she cannot pass safely. An instant after, he sees she has lost control over the mare, and he heads his own horse straight towards her. With a quick, skilful motion he grasps her bridle just as the horses meet. There is a mad plunge, and Mr. Treherne, still clinging to the other reins, has dropped his own and is dragged from his saddle. He helpsthe girl to dismount from her now subdued, but trembling animal. Miss Stuyvesant looks very white, and Mr. Treherne is offering her his hunting flask, when Lord Clanmore gallops back to them.
“Your empty saddle gave us a great scare, Treherne. Are you hurt?”
For Mr. Treherne, too, has suddenly grown very pale.
“It’s nothing, Clanmore, just a little wrench I gave my arm; that’s all.”
And Miss Stuyvesant remembers how skilfully that arm had lifted her from her saddle. In that moment she knows she loves him. Every vestige of national prejudice is swept away, and poor Jack Hamilton’s chances are gone for ever.
The next day Mr. Treherne managed to write a few words with his left hand and send them back by MissStuyvesant’s messenger, who came to enquire after him. He said—
“Dear Miss Stuyvesant,
“Dear Miss Stuyvesant,
“Dear Miss Stuyvesant,
“Dear Miss Stuyvesant,
“Many thanks for your kind enquiries. I shall be restricted to using my left hand for a time, but I must tell you how plucky I thought you yesterday. The stupid doctor has forbidden me to leave the house, but unless you wish to increase my feverish symptoms please send me some token by this messenger to assure me you have forgotten my first impressions of your country. As soon as I am able I shall beg you in person to reconsider your decision about marrying ‘only an American.’ My happiness depends upon your marrying an Englishman who is
“Entirely yours,“E. Gordon-Treherne.”
“Entirely yours,“E. Gordon-Treherne.”
“Entirely yours,“E. Gordon-Treherne.”
“Entirely yours,
“E. Gordon-Treherne.”
When Miss Stuyvesant read this note she took two beautiful little silkflags—one a Union Jack, the other the Stars and Stripes, and tying them together with a lover’s knot she sent them to Treherne.
In after years Mr. and Mrs. Gordon-Treherne’s friends remark the deference which they pay to each other’s ideas; and the entwined banners, which occupy a conspicuous place in the library, are called the “Flags of Truce.”