"Three weeks?" He almost reeled.
"That"s a long time in these days of speedy divorces," said Medcroft blandly.
CHAPTER II
THE SISTER-IN-LAW
The Gare de l"Est was thronged with people when Brock appeared, fully half an hour before departing time. In no little dismay, he found himself wondering if the whole of Paris was going away or, on the other hand, if the rest of the continent was arriving. He felt a fool in Medcroft"s unspeakable checked suit; and the eyegla.s.s was a much more obstinate, untractable thing than he had even suspected it could be. The right side of his face was in a condition of semi-paralysis due to the muscular exactions required; he had a sickening fear that the scowl that marked his brow was destined to form a perpetual alliance with the smirk at the corner of his nose, forever destroying the symmetry of his face.
If one who has not the proper facial construction will but attempt the feat of holding a monocle in place for unbroken hours, he may come to appreciate at least one of the trials which beset poor Brock.
Every one seemed to be staring at him. He heard more than one American in the scurrying throng say to another, "English," and he felt relieved until an Englishman or two upset his confidence by brutally alluding to him as a "confounded American toady."
It was quite train time before Mrs. Medcroft was seen hurrying in from the carriage way, pursued by a trio of _facteurs_, laden with bags and boxes.
"Don"t shake hands," she warned in a quick whisper, as they came together. "I recognised you by the clothes."
"Thank G.o.d, it wasn"t my face!" he cried. "Are your trunks checked?"
"Yes,--this afternoon. I have nothing but the bags. You have the tickets? Then let us get aboard. I just couldn"t get here earlier," she whispered guiltily. "We had to say good-by, you know. Poor old Roxy! How he hated it! I sent Burton and O"Brien on ahead of me. My sister brought them here in her carriage, and I daresay they"re aboard and abed by this time. You didn"t see them? But of course you wouldn"t know my maids. How stupid of me! Don"t be alarmed. They have their instructions, Roxbury.
Doesn"t it sound odd to you?"
Brock was icy-cold with apprehension as they walked down the line of _wagon-lits_ in the wake of the bag-bearers. Mrs. Medcroft was as self-possessed and as _degage_ as he was ill at ease and awkward. As they ascended the steps of the carriage, she turned back to him and said, with the most malicious twinkle in her eyes,--
"I"m not a bit nervous."
"But you"ve been married so much longer than I have," he responded.
Then came the disposition of the bags and parcels. She calmly directed the porters to put the overflow into the upper berth. The _garde_ came up to remonstrate in his most rapid French.
"But where is M"sieur to sleep if the bags go up there?" he argued.
Mrs. Medcroft dropped her toilet bag and turned to Brock with startled eyes, her lips parted. He was standing in the pa.s.sage, his two bags at his feet, an aroused gleam in his eyes. A deep flush overspread her face; an expression of utter rout succeeded the buoyancy of the moment before.
"Really," she murmured and could go no farther. The loveliest pucker came into her face. Brock waved the _garde_ aside.
"It"s all right," he explained. "I shan"t occupy the--I mean, I"ll take one of the other compartments." As the _garde_ opened his lips to protest, she drew Brock inside the compartment and closed the door. Mrs.
Medcroft was agitated.
"Oh, what a wretched _contretemps_!" she cried in despair. "Roxy has made a frightful mess of it, after all. He has _not_ taken a compartment for you. I"m--I"m afraid you"ll have to take this one and--and let me go in with--"
"Nonsense!" he broke in. "Nothing of the sort! I"ll find a bed, never fear. I daresay there"s plenty of room on the train. You shan"t sleep with the servants. And don"t lie awake blaming poor old Rox. He"s lonesome and unhappy, and he--"
"But he has a place to sleep," she lamented. "I"m so sorry, Mr. Brock.
It"s perfectly horrid, and I"m--I"m dreadfully afraid you won"t be able to get a berth. Roxbury tried yesterday for a lower for himself."
"And he--couldn"t get one?"
"No, Mr. Brock. But I"ll ask the maids to give up their--"
"Please, please don"t worry--and please don"t call me Mr. Brock. I hate the name. Good night! Now don"t think about me. I"ll be all right.
You"ll find me as gay as a lark in the morning."
He did not give her a chance for further protest, but darted out of the compartment. As he closed the door he had the disquieting impression that she was sitting upon the edge of her berth, giggling hysterically.
The _garde_ listened to his demand for a separate compartment with the dejection of a capable French attendant who is ever ready with joint commiseration and obduracy. No, he was compelled to inform Monsieur the American (to the dismay of the pseudo-Englishman) it would be impossible to arrange for another compartment. The train was crowded to its capacity. Many had been turned away. No, a louis would not be of avail.
The deepest grief and anguish filled his soul to see the predicament of Monsieur, but there was no relief.
Brock"s miserable affectation of the English drawl soon gave way to sharp, emphatic Americanisms. It was after eight o"clock and the train was well under way. The street lamps were getting fewer and fewer, and the soft, fresh air of the suburbs was rushing through the window.
"But, hang it all, I _can"t_ sit up all night!" growled Brock in exasperated finality.
"Monsieur forgets that he has a berth. It is not the fault of the _compagnie_ that he is without a bed. Did not M"sieur book the compartment himself? _Tres bien!_"
As the result of strong persuasion, the _garde_ consented to make "the grand tour" of the train de luxe in search of a berth. It goes without saying that he was intensely mystified by Brock"s incautious remark that he would be satisfied with "an upper if he couldn"t do any better." For the life of him, Monsieur the _garde_ could not comprehend the situation. He went away, shaking his head and looking at the tickets, as much as to say that an American is never satisfied--not even with the best.
Brock lowered a window-seat in the pa.s.sage and sat down, staring blankly and blackly out into the whizzing night. The predicament had come upon him so suddenly that he had not until now found the opportunity to a.n.a.lyse it in its entirety. The worst that could come of it, of course, was the poor comfort of a night in a chair. He knew that it was a train of sleeping-coaches--Ah! He suddenly remembered the luggage van! As a last resort, he might find lodging among the trunks!
And then, too, there was something irritating in the suspicion that she had laughed as if it were a huge joke--perhaps, even now, she was doubled up in her narrow couch, stifling the giggle that would not be suppressed.
When the _garde_ came back with the lugubrious information that nothing, positively nothing, was to be had, it is painful to record that Brock swore in a manner which won the deepest respect of the trainman.
"At four o"clock in the morning, M"sieur, an old gentleman and his wife will get out at Stra.s.sburg, their destination. They are in this carriage and you may take their compartment, if M"sieur will not object to sleeping in a room just vacated by two mourners who to-day buried a beloved son in Paris. They have kept all of the flowers in their--"
"Four o"clock! Good Lord, what am I to do till then?" groaned Brock, glaring with unmanly hatred at the door of the Medcroft compartment.
"Perhaps Madame may be willing to take the upper--" ventured the guard timorously, but Brock checked him with a peremptory gesture. He proposed, instead, the luggage van, whereupon the guard burst into a psalm of utter dejection. It was against the rules, irrevocably.
"Then I guess I"ll have to sit here all night," said Brock faintly. He was forgetting his English.
"If M"sieur will not occupy his own bed, yes," said the guard, shrugging his shoulders and washing his hands of the whole incomprehensible affair. "M"sieur will then be up to receive the Customs officers at the frontier. Perhaps he will give me the keys to Madame"s trunks, so that she may not be disturbed."
"Ask her for "em yourself," growled Brock, after one dazed moment of dismay.
The hours crawled slowly by. He paced the length of the wriggling corridor a hundred times, back and forth; he sat on every window-seat in the carriage; he nodded and dozed and groaned, and laughed at himself in the deepest derision all through the dismal night. Daylight came at four; he saw the sun rise for the first time in his life. He neither enjoyed nor appreciated the novelty. Never had he witnessed anything so mournfully depressing as the first grey tints that crept up to mock him in his vigil; never had he seen anything so ghastly as the soft red glow that suffused the morning sky.
"I"ll sleep all day if I ever get into that d.a.m.ned bed," he said to himself, bitterly wistful.
The Customs officers had eyed him suspiciously at the border. They evidently had been told of his strange madness in refusing to occupy the berth he had paid for. Their examination of his effects was more thorough than usual. It may have entered their heads that he was standing guard over the repose of a fair accomplice. They asked so many embarra.s.sing and disconcerting questions that he was devoutly relieved when they pa.s.sed on, still suspicious.
The train was late, and at five o"clock he was desperately combating an impulse to leave it at Stra.s.sburg, find lodging in a hotel, and then, refreshed, set out for London to have it out with the malevolent Medcroft. The disembarking of the venerable mourners, however, restored him to a degree of his peace of mind. After all, he reviewed, it would be cowardly and base to desert a trusting wife; he pictured her as asleep and securely confident in his stanchness. No: he would have it out with Medcroft at some later day.
He was congratulating himself on the acquisition of a bed--although it might possess the odour of a bed of tuberoses--when all of his pleasant calculations were upset by the appearance of a German burgher and his family. It was then that he learned that these people had booked _le compartement_ from Stra.s.sburg to Munich.
Brock resumed his window-seat and despondently awaited the call to breakfast. He fell sound asleep with his monocle in position; nor did it matter to him that his hat dropped through the window and went scuttling off across the green Rhenish fields. When next he looked at his watch, it was eight o"clock. A small boy was standing at the end of the pa.s.sage, staring wide-eyed at him. Two little girls came piling, half dressed, from a compartment, evidently in response to the youngster"s whispered command to hurry out and see the funny man. Brock scowled darkly, and the trio darted swiftly into the compartment.