It seemed to Sam that he had been bitten, and this puzzled him, for New York crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite.
He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl.
She was a red-haired girl with the beautiful ivory skin which goes with red hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat, and he could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or maybe blue, or possibly grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in feminine eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were the specimens under his immediate notice, he was not the man to quibble about a point of colour. Her nose was small, and on the very tip of it there was a tiny freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft and round. She was just about the height which every girl ought to be. Her figure was trim, her feet tiny, and she wore one of those dresses of which a man can say no more than that they look pretty well all right.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and for many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and garnished, with "Welcome" on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and fill it. She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the third prettiest. He had an orderly mind, one capable of cla.s.sifying and docketing girls. But there was a subtle something about her, a sort of how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest swelled beneath its covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he told himself, he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which made it all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole course of history anything like this had ever happened before to anybody. Oh, to clasp this girl to him and-
But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit.
That, he felt, const.i.tuted an obstacle.
"Oh, I"m so sorry!" she cried.
Well, of course, if she regretted her rash act ... After all, an impulsive girl might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the moment and still have a sweet, womanly nature....
"The crowd seems to make Pinky-Boodles so nervous."
Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded from a bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl"s lower ribs a sharp yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over the confused noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and write, of Bills who were instructing d.i.c.ks to look up old Joe in Paris and give him their best, and of all the fruit-boys, candy-boys, magazine-boys, American-flag-boys, and telegraph boys who were honking their wares on every side.
"I hope he didn"t hurt you much. You"re the third person he"s bitten to-day." She kissed the animal in a loving and congratulatory way on the tip of his black nose. "Not counting bell-boys, of course," she added. And then she was swept from him in the crowd and he was left thinking of all the things he might have said-all those graceful, witty, ingratiating things which just make a bit of difference on these occasions.
He had said nothing. Not a sound, exclusive of the first sharp yowl of pain, had proceeded from him. He had just goggled. A rotten exhibition! Perhaps he would never see this girl again. She looked the sort of girl who comes to see friends off and doesn"t sail herself. And what memory of him would she retain? She would mix him up with the time when she went to visit the deaf-and-dumb hospital.
Sam reached the gang-plank, showed his ticket, and made his way through the crowd of pa.s.sengers, pa.s.sengers" friends, stewards, junior officers, and sailors who infested the deck. He proceeded down the main companion-way, through a rich smell of india-rubber and mixed pickles, as far as the dining-saloon: then turned down the narrow pa.s.sage leading to his stateroom.
Staterooms on ocean liners are curious things. When you see them on the chart in the pa.s.senger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing rings round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the impression that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room left over to do a bit of entertaining-possibly an informal dance or something. When you go on board you find that the place has shrunk to the dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be impossible to swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it suddenly expands again. For one reason or another the necessity for swinging cats does not arise and you find yourself quite comfortable.
Sam, balancing himself on the narrow, projecting ledge which the chart in the pa.s.senger-office had grandiloquently described as a lounge, began to feel the depression which marks the second phase. He almost wished now that he had not been so energetic in having his room changed in order to enjoy the company of his cousin Eustace. It was going to be a tight fit. Eustace"s bag was already in the cabin, and it seemed to take up the entire fairway. Still, after all, Eustace was a good sort, and would be a cheerful companion. And Sam realised that if that girl with the red hair was not a pa.s.senger on the boat he was going to have need of diverting society.
A footstep sounded in the pa.s.sage outside. The door opened.
"Hullo, Eustace!" said Sam.
Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag and emitted a deep sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale, intellectual face. Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He looked like a man who would write vers libre, as indeed he did. "Hullo!" he said, in a hollow voice.
Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but, going by his recollections of him at the University, he had expected something cheerier than this. In fact, he had rather been relying on Eustace to be the life and soul of the party. The man sitting on the bag before him could hardly have filled that role at a gathering of Russian novelists.
"What on earth"s the matter?" said Sam.
"The matter?" Eustace Hignett laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, nothing. Nothing much. Nothing to signify. Only my heart"s broken." He eyed with considerable malignity the bottle of water in the rack above his head, a harmless object provided by the White Star Company for clients who might desire to clean their teeth during the voyage.
"If you would care to hear the story?" he said.
"Go ahead."
"It is quite short."
"That"s good."
"Soon after I arrived in America I met a girl...."
"Talking of girls," said Marlowe with enthusiasm. "I"ve just seen the only one in the world that really amounts to anything. It was like this. I was shoving my way through the mob on the dock, when suddenly...."
"Shall I tell you my story, or will you tell me yours?"
"Oh, sorry! Go ahead."
Eustace Hignett scowled at the printed notice on the wall informing occupants of the stateroom that the name of their steward was J. B. Midgeley.
"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...."
"So was mine. I give you my honest word I never in all my life saw such...."
"Of course, if you would prefer that I postponed my narrative?" said Eustace coldly.
"Oh, sorry! Carry on."
"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...."
"What was her name?"
"Wilhelmina Bennett. She was an extraordinarily pretty girl and highly intelligent. I read her all my poems and she appreciated them immensely. She enjoyed my singing. My conversation appeared to interest her. She admired my...."
"I see. You made a hit. Now get on with the rest of the story."
"Don"t bustle me," said Eustace querulously.
"Well, you know, the voyage only takes eight days."
"I"ve forgotten where I was."
"You were saying what a devil of a chap she thought you. What happened? I suppose, when you actually came to propose, you found she was engaged to some other johnny?"
"Not at all. I asked her to be my wife, and she consented. We both agreed that a quiet wedding was what we wanted-she thought her father might stop the thing if he knew, and I was dashed sure my mother would-so we decided to get married without telling anybody. By now," said Eustace, with a morose glance at the porthole, "I ought to have been on my honeymoon. Everything was settled. I had the license and the parson"s fee. I had been breaking in a new tie for the wedding."
"And then you quarrelled?"
"Nothing of the kind. I wish you would stop trying to tell me the story. I"m telling you. What happened was this: somehow-I can"t make out how-mother found out. And then, of course, it was all over. She stopped the thing."
Sam was indignant. He thoroughly disliked his Aunt Adeline, and his cousin"s meek subservience to her revolted him.
"Stopped it? I suppose she said, "Now, Eustace, you mustn"t!" and you said, "Very well, mother!" and scratched the fixture?"
"She didn"t say a word. She never has said a word. As far as that goes she might never have heard anything about the marriage."
"Then how do you mean she stopped it?"
"She pinched my trousers!"
"Pinched your trousers?"
Eustace groaned. "All of them! The whole bally lot! She gets up long before I do, and she must have come into my room and cleaned it out while I was asleep. When I woke up and started to dress I couldn"t find a solitary pair of bags anywhere in the whole place. I looked everywhere. Finally, I went into the sitting-room where she was writing letters and asked if she had happened to see any anywhere. She said she had sent them all to be pressed. She said she knew I never went out in the mornings-I don"t as a rule-and they would be back at lunch-time, A fat lot of use that was! I had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I told her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and she wanted to know what it was and I tried to think of something, but it sounded pretty feeble and she said I had better telephone to the man and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book and told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn"t meet him! He was pretty peeved, judging from what he said about my being on the wrong line. And mother listening all the time, and I knowing that she knew-something told me that she knew-and she knowing that I knew she knew-I tell you it was awful!"