Very Truly,
David Camwell, Lambs Club.
New York, Dec. 30, 1897.
I summoned a district messenger, by a call in my room, and dispatched this to East Sixteenth Street, though why I did not put it in the mail I do not know. There was certainly no haste required. The steward of the club would send an answer, if one was received, without delay, for I had given him my pseudonym, and he was too wise to ask questions.
That night I dreamed I was at St. Thomas; that Marjorie had somehow changed into the Quarantine Keeper"s daughter; and that Laps, the Danish dog, was proceeding to tear her in pieces, when I interfered and treated him as Samson did the Lion in the Hebrew tale. The girl had fainted in my arms and, I was calling wildly upon Heaven to restore her senses, when a servant, up late, woke me by knocking on my door and inquiring if I wished for anything.
I searched for a bootjack to throw at the fellow"s head, and not finding it in the dark, I threw a few uncomplimentary expletives instead. But sleep had vanished for that night, and after taking a cold bath I threw myself on a sofa, where with a pipe in my mouth I spent the long hours till morning drawing pictures of the happiness so soon to be mine.
CHAPTER VIII.
"A WOMAN I LIKE VERY WELL."
The first thought that struck me when I was ready for breakfast was that my new secretary ought to terminate her arrangement with that disagreeably affectionate employer and keep open house during each entire day and evening for my benefit. The mornings that were to elapse before the sailing of the "Madiana" would be terribly dull. I had tried to make it clear to Miss May that her salary had already begun to be reckoned and I did not see why she should carry on two business engagements at the same time.
When I rose from the table on which my coffee and eggs had been spread, it was to receive a letter which had pa.s.sed through the Lambs Club and was undoubtedly a reply to the one I had sent Miss Brazier on the previous day. It would at least entertain me for a few moments to know what that apparently lively young lady had to say:
Dear Sir:--[it began--coldly enough, I thought] Your communication has been duly received and its contents noted. Although it is unlikely, and certainly, on my part, not desired, that we shall ever meet, I must inform you that my answer to your advertis.e.m.e.nt was written purely in fun and without the least idea of accepting your remarkable proposition. I will add that I am surprised that you have succeeded in inducing any woman of the least respectability to undertake such a journey, and I fear that your impression of her high character will receive some severe wrenches before your return.
It must require unusual "nerve" to start off for several months with an unmarried man (or a married one, for that matter) putting ones self at his mercy, for that is what it amounts to. When the individual is wholly unknown to the woman who is to accompany him--when he may, for all she knows, be a "Jack, the Ripper"--the foolhardiness of the idea grows on one. I am sure I do not envy your companion, though it is by no means certain but you, and not she, will be the most swindled in the affair.
I conjure you, however, though a total stranger, that if your friend proves to be merely a misguided girl of good intentions, you will not soil your soul with the greatest guilt of which a man can be capable. Remember, if your thoughts are dishonorable, that you have or have had a Mother, perhaps a Sister, whose memory should make you pause before you inflict irreparable ruin on one of the same s.e.x.
Yours Sincerely,
A.B.
New York, Dec. 31, 1897.
A strange letter, I thought, take it altogether. I read it over slowly for the second time. The first few lines indicated disappointment, and a perusal of the remaining portion did not remove this impression, entirely. The final sentences sobered me. The reflections they induced were certainly not exhilarating. Although I have no sister and cannot remember my mother, I have a great veneration for my lost parents, and there is no string so susceptible of influence on my actions as the one this writer touched.
I made a new resolution that I would carry myself like a gentleman in the truest sense of the word with Miss May. I had been honest in the expressions I used when talking the matter over with Harvey Hume. The earnest admonitions of Dr. Chambers had not been without effect. I meant to prove by this journey that I was capable of being in the close companionship of a young lady without becoming either a brute or a Don Juan.
Looking at it even from the standpoint of an enlightened selfishness I was sure to get more satisfaction in a voyage with a woman whom I could respect than with one who a.s.sumed the role of a cyprienne.
Loose creatures are to be found in plenty in the Caribbee Islands, as well as in New York. A sweet, true, honest, intelligent bit of femininity was quite another thing, and infinitely to be preferred, from any sensible view.
Marjorie! So far as my uncertain mind could do so I pledged to her a purity of intercourse such as a man might give to his affianced sweetheart.
I had folded the letter up and put it in my pocket when a visitor was announced, no less a person than Tom Barton. He came toward me with a distressed look on his honest countenance and it was plain that he was far from being at ease.
"Don," he said, paying no attention to my motion toward a chair, "what is the trouble between you and Statia? I can"t believe you have done anything intentionally to set her so against you, and yet--"
"Sit down and don"t get excited," I responded quickly, deciding to dispose of the matter in the calmest way. "Have you had your coffee? If not, let me ring for another pot. You don"t seem well this morning, old boy."
"I"m not well," he said, in a dispirited tone, taking the chair at last.
"But you can make me so with one word. Last night Statia came to me with her eyes full of tears. "Tom," she said, "if you love me I want you to promise never to see Donald Camran again." "Never to see Don!" I exclaimed, unable to believe my ears. "Yes," said she, "I"ve told him I don"t wish him to call here and I want you to write him to the same effect." You may imagine what a staggerer that was. There"s not another fellow in the world of whom I wouldn"t rather she"d have said that. I tried to get her to give some reason--any reason, or the hint of one--but it was no use. She only cried the harder, and when at last I went to bed, I tell you I didn"t get much sleep. Tell me, Don, what it means."
"It seems you didn"t make your sister the promise," I replied. "And you were quite right. The whim of a girl should not come between stanch friends like us."
That did not satisfy him, however. He murmured that we had been good friends--that he couldn"t bear to think we should ever be otherwise--but he wanted to understand what his sister meant. As she wouldn"t tell him, he had come to ask that favor of me.
"Supposing I don"t care to say anything about it," I replied, quietly.
"If Statia is set on keeping the wonderful secret, how can you expect me to divulge it?"
He struggled a moment with this idea, for Tom was always slow in grasping abstruse problems.
"You"ll have to help me clear up the mystery," he said, at last. "I"ve only got one sister, Don, and she and I are all there are to the family now. If it comes to losing my sister or my best friend, I must stand by Statia."
I felt a chill going over my flesh as he spoke. I liked Tom, and I liked Statia--yes, in spite of the silly meeting of the day before. It was better to back down a little than to lose such friends.
"What a serious matter you make of it!" I exclaimed. "You ask me what is the trouble between Statia and me. Well, the fact is, I hardly know. She met me in Broadway yesterday and wanted to make me promise something that I could not see--to be candid--was any affair of hers. When I declined, as courteously as I knew how, she flew at me with the statement that I need never call at her house again. I had no choice in the matter, Tom, not the least. I wouldn"t do anything to justify her in talking to me in that way, if I could help it, but one must retain a few of his personal rights, you know."
"And what was it about?" asked Tom, very earnestly.
"It was about a woman. A woman I like very well, and who happens to be going on the same steamer I am to the Tropics. There! The terrible secret is out."
Tom studied the answer a long time, but evidently could make nothing of it.
"Statia has always liked you immensely, Don," he said. "I"ve been almost jealous of you sometimes. She wouldn"t go against you all of a sudden without what seemed to her a strong reason."
"And I like Statia," was my reply. "Yes, in spite of the ugly att.i.tude she has chosen to take toward me. Why, Tom--I don"t know but, under the circ.u.mstances, I ought to tell you--I asked her only a week ago to marry me."
"Ah!" he exclaimed, in a mixture of happiness and pain, that was very touching.
"Yes, and she refused positively. I was disappointed, you may believe, for I had thought she entertained a decided feeling in my favor, and would have asked long before except for that illness of mine. Her att.i.tude might have thrown me back into the doctor"s hands, for my head is not yet any too strong, but I managed to crush down my thoughts and bear up under it. I hope it"s not wrong to tell you this, old chap, but I don"t think I ought to let you go off with wrong impressions of me."
He shook his head in mute dismay.
"The other woman--the one you and she were speaking about," he said.
"Who is she? It seems as if the key to the whole trouble was there."
"Now, Tom," I replied, "you have no right to ask me a question like that and I shall have to decline to bring the name of a third person into this discussion. I have the greatest regard for you and the highest respect for Statia. If you decide to throw me over, the responsibility must rest where it belongs."
"Would you--would you come round to the house and talk it over with both of us together?" he asked, after a long pause. "It troubles me more than I can tell you. Would you come over, say Tuesday evening?"
"Yes," I said, smilingly, "if Statia writes me a letter asking me to do so."
"She must write it," he said, brightening. "I can"t have our friendship broken up like this. Shall you be at home all day?"
I answered that I would be there just before dinner, at least, to receive any communication that might be sent, and Tom, taking my hand in his hearty grasp for the first time since he had been in the room, said "Good-by" and left me, evidently much relieved.