A New Sensation.
by Albert Ross.
TO MY READERS.
It is a common question of my correspondents, "Are your novels ever founded on fact?" Sometimes; not often. This one is.
A year ago I had an attack of neurasthenia, as did "Donald Camran." I did not die, nor go to an insane asylum, both of which items of "news"
appeared in the daily papers from one end of the country to the other; but I wasn"t exactly well for awhile. In January of this year I made my second trip to the Caribbean Islands and wrote this novel among the scenes I have described.
Before going I advertised in the New York Herald "Personal" column for a typewriter to accompany me as private secretary. I received more than a hundred letters from women who desired the situation and interviewed quite a number of them. I decided, however, to go alone. (If the reader doesn"t believe me I refer him to the pa.s.senger lists of the "Madiana"
and "Pretoria.") The basis of this story, however, grew out of the advertis.e.m.e.nt and answers.
"Marjorie" and "Statia" have a genuine existence, and so have many of the other characters in this tale. I have used real people as an artist does his models, taking a little from one, a little from another, and a great deal from the vivid imagination with which nature has endowed me.
I hope the result will be satisfactory to my friends, who have waited double the usual time for this novel.
My health seems wholly recovered and unless something unforeseen occurs my stories will continue to appear each July and January, as they have for the past ten years. This is the nineteenth volume of the "Albatross Series." I again send a too indulgent public my warmest thanks for their appreciation.
Very Truly,
ALBERT ROSS.
Cambridge, Ma.s.s., May, 1898.
A NEW SENSATION.
CHAPTER I.
LADY TYPEWRITER WANTED.
"A New Sensation--that is what you need," said Dr. Chambers, wisely.
"Yes, that is what you want, above all things," a.s.sented Harvey Hume.
"A New Sensation--it would be the making of you!" cried Tom Barton, with enthusiasm.
I agreed with them all. My brain was exhausted with my long illness and responded feebly to the new strength that was returning to my body. It was much easier, however, for people to discover the remedy I needed than to find the right way to apply it. They would never have united in prescribing the same kind of "sensation." What one would suggest would be opposed by the others; and had they come to a united decision in the matter their ideas might not have suited me at all. I was in a condition when it is not easy to make up the mind to anything.
After long reflection, I decided to go and propose marriage to Statia. I had never offered my hand to any woman and it seemed as if that ought to give me at least a diversion, which was something. Not that I intended to make the offer lightly. I had as lief get married as anything else. I was sick to death of idleness--nothing could well be worse than doing nothing, day after day.
But when I had carried out my plan, I left Statia in greater despondency than ever. For she refused me pointblank--something that had not entered into my calculations. She did it, too, in anything but an agreeable manner, as it then seemed to me.
If the reader of these lines has ever gone through a period of insomnia in its most acute form, he will understand the condition in which it leaves a fellow. When Tom"s sister laughed me out of court, as one might say, even though she did it with the highest expressions of good will, I was ready for anything desperate.
"You are a silly fellow," she said, as if I were a five years" old child and she my governess. "What kind of a husband do you think you would make? Look back over the last five years of your life and see how much of it does you credit. You think I don"t know what you have been up to, and perhaps it is best for me that I don"t know all of it; but I am sure, at least, that you have undertaken nothing serious, and that every hour has been practically wasted. A girl has got to have something different in a partner on whom she is to rely for life. And that tale of your physician"s advice is worse than all. I am not going to let myself for a hospital. Your health is broken on account of your persistent violation of all hygienic rules. You have no right to quarter yourself on a strong, well girl like me until you can bring something better than you now have to offer."
I was too provoked at her manner, even more than at her words, to reply with much patience. I said, ill-manneredly, I must now admit, that if I did not have my old physique, it was only a question of time when it would return, and that I certainly had something else that many a young man would gladly take in exchange for beef and brawn.
"Oh, _that_ for your fortune!" she said, snapping her fingers disdainfully. "I am not talking of marrying your grandfather, who gathered the dollars you think of such moment. Wealth is a good thing only when harnessed to the right horses. The man that marries me must have a better recommendation. I would give more for a character of sterling merit, a disposition to conquer the difficulties of life, than for all your cash. If the will of Aleck Camran had not tied up his savings, you would have made ducks and drakes of the whole of it before this time."
I was angry at myself for arguing with her. She had a great deal of a.s.surance to address me in that manner, I thought.
"Will or no will, I have a certainty of five thousand dollars a year till I am thirty," I retorted. "How many of the brave young chaps you talk about can gain as much as that? And when I am thirty I get possession of the entire estate, a quarter of a million now, and more when that time comes. But I am not going to debate the matter with you.
You are a coquette, Statia Barton, and have had your amus.e.m.e.nt with me.
Some day, when you hear I have gone to the devil, a little remorse may touch your heart. I don"t care a rap now whether I live or die."
She paled at the concluding sentence.
"Don"t add crime to your follies," she said, in a low tone. "Existence does not end with this brief life on earth. When you have time to reflect, you will be ashamed of your present state of mind. If there is anything I can do for you, short of sacrificing my whole future--"
"I know," I responded, sarcastically. "You are willing to be "a sister"
to me!"
"I am, indeed!" she answered, fervently. "It"s what you need much more than a wife. You accuse me of coquetry, because I have tried to treat you as--well--as the closest friend of my brother Tom. I fear your experience with women has not fitted you to be a good judge of their actions."
"They are pretty much alike," I snarled. "Selfish to the core, when you get at their true natures. All this talk amounts to nothing. So, I"ll say good-by, for as soon as I can get my things packed I"m going to get out of the country."
She seemed genuinely distressed, and like the soft fellow I always was where her s.e.x is concerned I found myself relenting.
"Dr. Chambers advises travel," I explained, in a gentler tone. "His exact prescription was, "Marry the nicest girl you know, then take a journey to some place where you can forget the troubles through which you have pa.s.sed." If I can"t carry out the first part, I can the last."
Statia"s face lit up.
"And am I--really--the "nicest girl you know," that you came so straight to me with your proposal?" she asked.
"I thought so an hour ago," I responded, growing gloomy again. "I"ve intended for two years to ask you sometime, though I didn"t think it would be so soon. I supposed you knew what was on my mind, and it never occurred to me that, instead of accepting my offer, you would play the schoolma"am with me. But let it go now. I believe I shall live through it, after all. That cursed insomnia leaves a man ready for the blues on the slightest provocation. The sooner I get out of this part of the world the better."
She asked if I had decided where to go, and I told her I had not. I thought the best thing was to get on the sea as soon as I could and keep out of sight of land for awhile.
"I don"t think you ought to go alone," she said, thoughtfully.
"Perhaps you would undertake to chaperone me," I suggested, mischievously.
"No. It would be too great a responsibility. But, seriously, you should have some one. You are not in a condition to make a long journey alone."
I felt that as well as she. But of all my friends I could think of no one to fill the bill, and I told her so.
"Tom would go, if he could," she said. "He would lose a year in his cla.s.ses, though, which is a serious matter. Can you not hire some capable young man, who would act as an a.s.sistant and companion combined?"