A New Sensation Part 19

"How could you tell those casual acquaintances what you concealed from me?" she said, hoa.r.s.ely.

"What difference can it make? I was introduced to Wesson in the office of the steams.h.i.+p agent, some time before we sailed, as I remember telling you. We exchanged cards. When he afterwards saw the way my name was spelled on the list he asked me how it happened and I ascribed it to a printer's error. I added, that as all the pa.s.sengers would probably call me Camwell, it was easier for him to do so than to explain the mistake to fifty people."

"Yes," said Miss May, slowly. "And--Edgerly?"

I thought she was awfully pressing, but I wanted to keep on good terms with her and I proceeded to account for his knowledge also.

"Well, Miss Inquisitive, Edgerly's case was like this: He won a small sum of money from me at poker and was kind enough to offer to refund it, and take my check for the amount. Thinking I might want the ready money to buy you a paper of pins or something of that sort I accepted his proposal with thanks. Of course, he asked what right I had to sign the name of Donald Camran to the check, and of course, I told him of the agent's 'error' on the pa.s.senger list. There! Is there anything else you would like to know?"

Saying this I took the hand nearest me in mine, to show that my bantering was entirely good natured, and was surprised to find it quite cold.

"Marjorie!" I exclaimed. "You are ill!"

She smiled faintly and admitted that she had a slight chill. I persuaded her to take a hot drink and went at once to prepare it. When I returned she had gone to her room and was bathing her face with cologne water.

Her hair, which she had combed with care half an hour earlier, was much disarranged and her eyes were swollen.

"Come in and sit down," she said. Then, as I hesitated, she added, "Oh, you can leave the door open."

The door was a frame affair covered with mosquito bar, there being nothing more seclusive in the house. Cold weather never reaches St.

Thomas at any time of year. I explained to her that to leave the door open was to invite the intrusion of insects.

"I am going to lie down," she replied. "My head aches." She drank part of the liquid I had brought. "We can't be prudish," she said, then. "The door is practically open at all times, for it is free to admit light and sound. Are you afraid to be alone with me? Perhaps you had best send for one of the servants to guard you."

"Or Laps?" I suggested, laughing.

I entered and took a chair, while she arranged herself upon the bed, with pillows to prop her up into a half-sitting posture.

"Don," she began. "You will let me call you Don?"

"You can call me what you please," I said. "Don or anything else that begins with D. 'Dear' or 'Darling,' if that suits you better."

I could not make her smile.

"Are you very, very sorry you took me with you?" she asked, earnestly.

"Not very, very."

"But--you wish you hadn't?"

I shook my head decidedly.

"Of what use am I to you?" she asked.

"Women were never made to be of use," I answered. "They are like bouquets, meant to fill the atmosphere with beauty and fragrance."

"And--do I do that--for you?"

I kissed the fingers she placed in mine. The smile came to her face at last.

"I shall be ready to begin the typewriting to-morrow," she said. "I understand the machine now, I think, well enough." (She had practiced on it in her cabin on the Madiana, several days, for some hours.) "I shall be glad when I am doing a little to earn the salary you pay me."

I made a grimace. The confounded record of my family's descent was far from interesting me at that moment.

"You earn more than your salary every hour," I said. "I am immensely in your debt already. By the way, I must pay you what I owe, before the sum gets any larger. It is quite three weeks and you have had nothing."

I counted out sixty dollars in gold coin and she took it without a word.

She was always doing something strange and I had ceased to wonder. I had imagined that she would say it was too much--or that I had reckoned the date of service too far back, or something of that kind.

"Would you bathe my head a little?" she asked, indicating the cologne.

I bathed her forehead, and found it as much too hot as her hands were too cold. It had a soothing effect on me, as well as on her, this action. It made me feel as I had not felt before, that our fortunes were really for the time running in the same mold.

"Perhaps you could sleep a little before dinner," I suggested, after a time. "Let me leave you to try."

She thanked me and before my hand left her, she put it gratefully to her lips. She did not kiss it, but rather breathed upon it a sigh of appreciation.

Thorwald and Ingeborg had just arrived from town and it was evident that the former's claim that he remembered me was founded on fact. The little girl was too young at my former visit to recollect anything about it, but she seemed to know me in a way and nodded when her mother asked if she did not remember my face in the photograph that hung in the dining room. Thorwald was now nine and about the finest specimen of a little man I have ever seen. His father could not conceal his pride in the boy, and I did not blame him.

"Ah, I am very happy with that little fellow!" he said, repeatedly.

I looked over the harbor just before dinner was served and saw the Madiana getting under way, bound for St. Croix (or Santa Cruz, as we are more apt to call it.) Eggert rigged his powerful telescope for me in the doorway, where I could see without being seen.

I easily picked out the pa.s.sengers who were on deck. Mr. and Miss Howes and Mr. Edgerly were in one group. They were talking earnestly, and I guessed that Miss May and myself were quite likely the subject of their conversation.

I imagined them wondering whether our stay on sh.o.r.e was the result of design or accident. I hoped Howes was getting his money's worth and that his "niece" was satisfied with the fish she had caught with her Herald hook. As far as I could judge neither of them had thus far repented of their bargain.

I could hardly believe the lady had taken Miss May's ring, that she had entered my room and walked off with my s.h.i.+rt-stud. There was a big difference, it seemed to me, between a love affair based on natural law and a deliberate theft. The mysterious disappearance of the jewelry would probably never be accounted for and I certainly cared very little about it.

My companion came to the table, but ate sparingly. The meal suited me to perfection, especially the fresh fish, drawn that day from the Caribbean, which swarms in the most appetizing varieties. The b.u.t.ter came in tins from Denmark, and was not bad. There was a ragout, some cakes, plenty of oranges and "figs," as the small yellow bananas are called in the Islands, good black coffee and cheese, and a fine _pet.i.t verre_ of brandy to top off with.

Eggert and his wife dined with us at my earnest request.

The quarantine master filled up the time with little reminiscences of my former stay, which he remembered much better than I. He pointed to the exact spot where each of the "famous party" sat at the table and laughed himself nearly into a fit as he spoke of the jokes Mapp played on the good-natured Haytian Jew we had named from his home town--"Puerta Plata." One of the guests of that day was the grandson of an American president and another the son of an American senator, but that did not harm either. A more diversified party, it is safe to say, were never placed together in a quarantine, or made the time pa.s.s in livelier fas.h.i.+on.

When dinner ended the Madiana was out of sight. Miss May's headache had vanished and she pa.s.sed the evening with me on the veranda, inspecting the stars through the telescope. They seemed brighter and larger than in America and what knowledge I had of their names and locations (gained princ.i.p.ally three years before from the grandson of the President, who was an amateur astronomer of no mean acquirements) I imparted freely.

"You seem ever so much better in health than when we left New York,"

said my companion.

"I am," was my reply. "The sea always does wonders for me. I have lost entirely the nervous feeling I had before we started."

"I wish I could say as much," she said. "I dread, for instance, going to bed alone in this strange place. Those shadows dancing on the gra.s.s almost terrify me."

"I will get Eggert to put a lock on your door," I said. "He must have one somewhere and he is an excellent carpenter."

She shuddered till her teeth chattered.

"Not for the world!" she said. "I could not sleep with the door locked.

I should feel as if I were choking. There is always a chance that one may be taken ill and have to call for help. With a locked door, what could I do? No, no! I will conquer my fears, which I admit are foolish ones."