A New Sensation Part 6

I agreed with him to a great extent, but remarked that there was always the disadvantage that the "man" might "figure us up" at the same time. I said further that I had found some most delightful companions on board s.h.i.+p who had proved insufferable bores when encountered later on terra firma.

"Your extra berth is reserved still," said a clerk, coming forward and addressing me, "the one in the opposite stateroom. I don't wish to hasten you, but the list is filling up very fast."

"You won't have to wait but a day or two more, I think," was my reply.

"Hold it till Sat.u.r.day, unless you hear from me. Perhaps I may be able to tell you positively to-morrow."

"If the lady is willing to have another share the room with her," he said, "I have an application that I can fill at once. A very pleasant young woman, too, if I may be allowed to judge. She is to be accompanied by her uncle, and as he is not entirely well he is anxious to have her as near him as possible."

I answered that I must ask a little delay before deciding that question.

I told him I had three cousins, and as I could not yet say which would go I could not tell whether she would consent to share her cabin with another person. If I could arrange it, I would gladly do so.

"You are to have a travelling companion, then," remarked Mr. Wesson.

"Excuse me for saying I envy you. Mrs. Wesson expected to go with me, but the doctor has forbidden it. She is quite frail, and he fears the seasickness she is almost sure to have. I made a canva.s.s of my female relations that are eligible, and one after another found reasons for declining. I am not used to travelling alone, and I don't fancy it in the least. One of the pleasantest things in visiting foreign parts is to have some one along to share the pleasures."

As we parted he asked me if I would exchange cards, and I readily did so. I already felt better acquainted with him that I am with some men whom I have known for months.

"If you find you are to bunk with a specially ugly customer," I said, in parting, "take my other berth. You can keep it for an 'anchor to windward,' as our distinguished statesman from Maine might have said. I don't think you and I will quarrel."

He thanked me profusely, and it was plain that the suggestion was the very one he would have made himself, had he felt warranted in doing so.

He mentioned that he would be at the Imperial for several days and asked me, if I found it convenient, to dine with him there some evening before he returned to Boston; which I told him I would try to do.

It was now lunch-time and I thought with exultation of the closeness of the hour when I might call at the lodging of Miss Marjorie May on Forty-fifth Street, and see the lady whom I had already surrounded with the most charming attributes of which a young and impulsive mind could conceive. That I might be disappointed I had also thought, in a vague way, but I had little apprehension on that score.

I went over to the club, and partook of a light repast. Then I looked at my watch and found that, if I walked slowly, I need not reach the number at which I was to call before two o'clock.

But I did not walk slowly. It still lacked ten minutes of the hour when I found myself in front of the residence. I took a turn down Seventh Avenue, and through Forty-fourth Street, to dispose of the remaining minutes. Then, with my heart beating in a way that Dr. Chambers would not have approved--and for which I could give no sensible reason--I climbed the tall steps and rang the bell.

A colored servant answered, after what seemed ages, and when I asked if Miss May was in, invited me to walk into the parlor. She then requested my card, and I had nearly given it to her, when I recollected that it was not my intention to reveal my true name, at this stage.

I said I had forgotten my card case and that she need only say it was the gentleman from the Herald.

During the next ten minutes I did my best to compose my nerves, for I dreaded exhibiting their shaky condition to one in whose presence I would need all my firmness. The room was darkened, and I could see the objects in it but dimly, while the windows, being tightly curtained, afforded me no relief in that direction.

"Why does she not come?" I said to myself, over and over. "If she wanted the situation for which she wrote, a little more celerity of movement would be becoming."

I rose and walked up and down the room. The minutes lengthened horribly.

I grew almost angry at the delay and had half a mind to drop the whole business, when I heard a low voice at the door, and saw the outlines of a graceful young form.

"I am Miss May," said a bright voice, that I liked instantly. "If you don't mind coming up stairs I think we can see each other better."

Mind coming up stairs! I would have climbed to the top of the World Building, never minding the elevator.

"Certainly," I responded, and I followed her up two long flights, and into a front chamber, where in the bright light I saw her distinctly for the first time.

The reader will expect--certainly the feminine reader--a description of the sight that met my eyes, and how can I give it? A relation of that sort always seems to me but a modified version of the record of a prisoner at a police station, where he is put under a measuring machine, stood on scales and pumped as to his ancestry and previous record as a criminal.

The impression made on me at that moment by Miss May was wholly general.

She was not handsome, in the ordinary acceptation of that term, but very engaging. Her smile put me much at my ease.

I could have told you no more, had you met me that evening. All that I knew or cared to know, before I had taken the chair to which she motioned me, was that out of the million women in Greater New York, I would choose her, and only her, were they presented for my approval one by one.

She was evidently waiting for me to begin the conversation, after the manner of a discreet young woman in the presence for the first time of a possible employer. I made the excuse that the stairs were long, to explain my shortness of breath. For I found it very difficult to talk.

She was kind enough to admit that the stairs were hard. She also made some allusion to the weather, and to the unseasonableness of the temperature, for although it was at the very end of the year there had been hardly any snow and very little cold. This helped me along and finally I managed to reach the business on hand.

"I have received a great many answers to my advertis.e.m.e.nt," I said, "and a certain number seem to have been sent in a spirit of mischief rather than seriousness. I hope that was not the case with yours."

She shook her head and smiled faintly.

"How shall we begin, then?" I asked. "Shall I submit a few questions to you, or would you rather put some queries of your own?"

"As you please," she said, and I noted that there was a confidence in her manner that seemed at variance with her appearance. "Perhaps I may inquire, to commence with, what are the duties of the position."

I hesitated a moment, feeling my breath coming shorter, and this time I had not the stairs to fall back upon as an excuse.

"I have recently recovered from a severe illness," I finally managed to say, "although you might not guess it from my appearance. I may as well admit that while I have use for the services of a typewriter in some work I wish to do, I need quite as much an intelligent person to travel with me--as--a--"

"Companion?" she interpolated, quickly.

"Well, yes, perhaps that is as good a word as any. My physician says I ought not to go alone. I have the literary work to do. Under all the circ.u.mstances a combination of a.s.sistant in that respect and friendly companions.h.i.+p seems advisable."

She bowed affably, doing her best to put me at my ease.

"You are a younger man than I expected," she said.

"I hope that is not a serious objection," I remarked, "for I see no way to overcome it at present. I want this considered as a business matter--in a way. I should pay a regular salary, and give you the best of travelling accommodations. I am only twenty-four, and you wrote me that you are twenty-two, but I cannot understand how the addition of fifty years to either of those ages would make my proposition more agreeable."

She bowed again, still pleasantly, and inquired what sort of work I was engaged on. I told her, after which she asked what machine I preferred to use. This I left to her, although I mentioned that I owned a Hammond, which had the advantage of being more easily carried than some. She said she had never used that machine, but could easily learn.

"Only give me three or four days alone with it," she smiled. "And now, as these things must all be settled, what salary do you wish to pay?"

I wonder what salary I would not have paid, at that moment, rather than hear her decline the position on the ground that it was insufficient, but I realized that I must not seem over-anxious.

"I would prefer you to name the price," I replied, "I do not think we shall quarrel on that score."

"When do you wish me to leave the city?" was her question.

"I have already engaged berths in the 'Madiana,' of the Quebec SS. Line, which will leave her dock on the North River, Jan. 12th next."

"Berths? You have engaged two?"

"It was necessary to secure them. I have determined that I will not go alone. The list is filling up and I had to put down the names."

"What names?" she asked. "You can hardly have given them mine."

I was getting more and more at my ease. I said I had registered for "self and friend," with the understanding that the "friend" would be a lady.

"Ah!" she said. "Now, how do you intend that I shall travel--if it is decided that I am to go?"