So the days went on. And the pair remained friends; a state of affairs which took more of Val"s time than he should have spared from his real ambitions.
Loveland had tried at intervals to be nice to Miss Coolidge and Miss Milton, and he met other pretty girls to whom he felt obliged to be agreeable, because Major Cadwallader Hunter said that they were heiresses. But it is difficult to be equally nice to five or six charming young women at once and within a comparatively limited area, when you have not made up your mind which of them you want to marry, or whether you will not in the end throw them all over to marry someone else whom you have not yet seen. And it is a particularly difficult task when you would prefer to be nice to someone else whom you have already seen.
Besides, Lord Loveland thought too much of himself to pretend love-making successfully when, so far from being in love, he was considerably bored. Each girl he knew on the ship bored him in her own separate way, except his friend Miss Dearmer, to whom he went frequently for good advice about the others. Perhaps if he had not known her, the other girls, or some of them, would not have bored him. But as it was, they were occasionally tiresome in his eyes when he would have liked to be with Lesley instead; and though Lord Loveland was clever, he was not clever enough to hide his feelings. Sometimes, so sure was he of their forgiveness if he wanted it, he was downright rude; and there is nothing a nice American girl forgives less easily than rudeness which springs from a man"s self-conceit.
At first, all the girls had admired Loveland, not only because he had a t.i.tle, but because he was himself; and some of the younger ones, like f.a.n.n.y Milton and Madge Beverly, had been inclined to regard him as a starry Paladin. f.a.n.n.y said he was "so handsome, it almost hurt," and that she "could hardly talk to him for gazing at his Gibson chin." But when the more sophisticated Eva Turner, Elinor Coolidge, Kate Wood and a few others realised that their starry Paladin was impudently inspecting them all with a view to the possible purchase of the most satisfactory, each began to hate him secretly with forty-woman power. Secretly, because there was a kind of glory in him as an a.s.set, and a rivalry for the a.s.set, just as there might be among smaller girls with only one doll--an unlovable but expensive doll--to play with. Not one of the number would sacrifice all right in the doll, and give it up to her companions.
They were worldly, though good-hearted, girls to whom Major Cadwallader Hunter had introduced his prize, and they foresaw that handsome Lord Loveland would be petted, perhaps fought for, in Society, when he had left the little world of the _Mauretania_ for the bigger world of New York. There would be an advantage in having known him first in case he should become the "rage," as he was sure to do, if not too insufferably rude and offensive. Thinking of this, each girl clung to her share of him, and refrained from trampling on the expensive doll, as, for her pride"s sake, she ached to do. Nor did Elinor Coolidge and f.a.n.n.y Milton and the rest speak their true feelings frankly out to one another. Each wished her friends to believe that he was nice to her alone, that his insolence was charmed into lamb-like docility in a duet with her; for in that way self-respect could be maintained and jealousy aroused.
Val was unaware of the hatred, but conscious of the rivalry, and was altogether kept very busy. He forgot to Marconi to his mother that he had sailed on the _Mauretania_, as Jim Harborough had thought he might forget. As for writing, he had not a moment for any such sedentary employment. Once or twice he did make up his mind to begin a letter to Lady Loveland; but, when he could get a few minutes off duty, it seemed such a waste of time not to go and ask for good advice from Lesley Dearmer, that somehow pen was never put to paper.
And so at last came the day for landing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hail to the Land: Goodbye to the Girl
The _Mauretania_ pa.s.sed the n.o.ble statue of Liberty enlightening the world, and Loveland admired her impersonally, but felt that had she been a live millionairess he would not have dared propose to her.
Then, presently, the hugeness of the great city loomed monstrous, mountainous in purple shadow against such a blue sky as Italy and New York know.
A crowd was ma.s.sed on the dock to welcome the _Mauretania_ and her pa.s.sengers; and for the first time since he had left England, Val felt a vague homesickness stirring in his breast. Almost everyone else on board seemed to have at least one handkerchief-waving friend, and some had half a dozen, but all the smiling eager faces looking up were strange to his eyes. There was no one for him; and he had a sudden, queer sensation of not being at home in the world. This, in spite of invitations from everybody he had met on the ship--except one: the One who mattered.
Mr. Coolidge and several other fathers and uncles of pretty girls had asked him to make their house his home; but he had taken Jim Harborough"s advice to heart, and excused himself warily. His idea was to let New York society pa.s.s before his eyes in review, before risking a premature entanglement. To this course he committed himself in cold blood. Since he could not have Lesley Dearmer, all that mattered to him in a girl was decent manners, decent looks, and--many millions.
He should have rejoiced that it was time to land, and have felt keen to set to work upon the business which had brought him across the sea, but he was in no mood to rejoice at anything; and it was Lesley Dearmer"s fault.
He had planned a moonlight farewell for the night before, but Lesley thwarted him by talking the whole evening long with a sporting youth, whom Val wrathfully stigmatised in his mind as suffering from motor bicycle face, bridge eye, clutch knee and tennis elbow. Then when she had tired of her flirtation she went to bed.
Next morning it was only as the _Mauretania_ neared her slip that the girl appeared again. Without seeming to notice Loveland she stood leaning her elbows on the rail, not far from him. It occurred to Val that after all it was a matter of no importance to her that their lives were to be lived apart. And the separation was at hand. He had thought of this hour, but now it was here. He was going to lose her. Tomorrow, and all the tomorrows, he would have no sweet, merry, mysterious-eyed friend to advise him and listen half-amused, half in earnest, to his confidences.
Suddenly his heart felt like a large, cold boiled beetroot in his breast. He went and stood behind the girl, dumb with a strange new misery he could not understand, and, as though she had heard the "unerring speech" of his silence, she turned.
At first her beautiful brown eyes flashed a laughing challenge at him, as if they said, "Wouldn"t you like to make me think you really care?
But I don"t think it, and won"t. And neither do you care. We"ve both been playing."
Then, something in his look softened hers. She smiled kindly, though not wholly without guile.
"Aren"t you excited?" she asked.
"Why should I be excited?" he grumbled.
"Because--well, you"re a soldier, and know what war is like. I"ve heard that the most exciting thing which can happen is a call to make a _sortie_ in the middle of the night, in the midst of a dream--and on an empty stomach. But I should think the call to a matrimonial sortie----"
"On an empty purse?"
"Yes; when it"s a question of selling yourself to fill it."
"I don"t mean to sell myself. I shall still belong to myself and to one other. I won"t say who that other is, for I"ve pretty well told you already."
"It"s no use pretending not to understand. I know what you want me to _think_ you mean."
"If I never knew before how much I do mean it, I know now, when I"ve got to say "goodbye.""
"You needn"t say it."
"You"ve tried hard to keep me from saying it, haven"t you? But look here, Lesley--do look at me. I"m awfully cut up at leaving you."
"You"re not to call me Lesley."
"You can"t prevent my calling you Lesley to myself."
"You"ll soon forget the name."
"Never. I can never forget you--worse luck. The thought of you is going to come between me and--other things."
"The thought must learn better manners. Not to "b.u.t.t in," as we say over here. Oh, it will soon be tamed. You"ll have so much to do."
"I hope I shall," said Loveland. "I say, are you going to forget me as soon as we"re parted?"
The girl was silent for a moment. Then she laughed. Yet her laugh had not quite the frank lightheartedness which was usually one of its charms. "I shall make a note of you for my next story but one," she answered.
"You"re not very kind."
"Are you sure you deserve kindness?"
"I"m sure I want it--from you."
"How you have always got what you wanted in your life, haven"t you--one way or another?"
"Life wouldn"t be worth living if one didn"t."
"Oh, it"s not much good saying to you that that"s a selfish way of looking at life. But you"ve never had any lessons, and I suppose you never will have. You"ll go on getting what you want, and taking it for granted that you ought to get it, till the end."
"I hope so, sincerely," said Val, without shame. "But I shan"t get one of the things I want most, unless you promise to write to me."
She shook her head. "I can"t promise that. I wouldn"t if I could. As for getting your news, I shall read it in the papers, which are sure to chronicle all Lord Loveland does and says, and a lot he doesn"t do or say. The Louisville papers will have things about you, copied from New York, in the Sunday editions. Yes, I shall be able to read about you every Sunday--lots of things you wouldn"t tell in letters if I let you write. I shall see rumours of your engagement, then an announcement. I wonder if it will be the survival of the prettiest; Miss Coolidge--or if you"ll be knocked down--on your knees--to a higher bid?"
"You"re not letting me get much pleasure out of my last moments with you," he complained, his blue eyes really pathetic. "Do you despise me, after all?"
She looked up at him. "Only one side of you," she answered, a little sadly. "But--you"re rather like the moon. We see only one of her sides.
The other we have to take on faith. Perhaps it"s silly of me, yet sometimes--in some moods--I do take your other side on faith."
"What is there,--on that side?" he asked, eagerly.