A Rock in the Baltic Part 10

"I don't know why, but you are. No, it was not a case of love at first sight. It was a case of feminine vengeance. Yes, you may look surprised, but I'm telling the truth. After I walked so proudly off with his high mightiness, we had a most agreeable dance together; then I proposed to return to you, but the young man would not have it so, and for the moment I felt flattered. By and by I became aware, however, that it was not because of my company he avoided your vicinity, but that he was sacrificing himself for his friend."

"What friend?"

"Lieutenant Drummond, of course."

"How was he sacrificing himself for Lieutenant Drummond?"

"I surmise that the tall Lieutenant did not fall a victim to my wiles as I had at first supposed, but, in some unaccountable manner, one can never tell how these things happen; he was most anxious to be left alone with the coy Miss Dorothy Amhurst, who does not understand how long a time it takes to fall in love at first sight, although she has read of these things, dear, innocent girl. The first villain of the piece has said to the second villain of the piece: 'There's a superfluous young woman over on our bench; I'll introduce you to her. You lure her off to the giddy dance, and keep her away as long as you can, and I'll do as much for you some day.'

"Whereupon Jack Lamont probably swore--I understand that profanity is sometimes distressingly prevalent aboard s.h.i.+p--but nevertheless he allowed the Lieutenant to lead him like a lamb to the slaughter. Well, not being powerful enough to throw him overboard when I realized the state of the case, I did the next best thing. I became cloyingly sweet to him. I smiled upon him: I listened to his farrago of nonsense about the chemical components of his various notable inventions, as if a girl attends a ball to study chemistry! Before half an hour had pa.s.sed the infant had come to the conclusion that here was the first really sensible woman he had ever met. He soon got to making love to me, as the horrid phrase goes, as if love were a mixture to be compounded of this ingredient and that, and then shaken before taken. I am delighted to add, as a testimony to my own powers of pleasing, that Jack soon forgot he was a sacrifice, and really, with a little instruction, he would become a most admirable flirt. He is coming to call upon me this afternoon, and then he will get his eyes opened. I shall tread on him as if he were one of his own moujiks."

"What a wonderful imagination you have, Kate. All you have said is pure fancy. I saw he was taken with you from the very first. He never even glanced at me."

"Of course not: he wasn't allowed to."

"Nonsense, Kate. If I thought for a moment you were really in earnest, I should say you underestimate your own attractions."

"Oh, that's all very well, Miss Dorothy Dimple; you are trying to draw a red herring across the trail, because you know that what I want to hear is why Lieutenant Drummond was so anxious to get me somewhere else. What use did he make of the opportunity the good-natured Prince and my sweet complacency afforded him?"

"He said nothing which might not have been overheard by any one."

"Come down to particulars, Dorothy, and let me judge. You are so inexperienced, you know, that it is well to take counsel with a more sophisticated friend."

"I don't just remember--"

"No, I thought you wouldn't. Did he talk of himself or of you?"

"Of himself, of course. He told me why he was going to Russia, and spoke of some checks he had met in his profession."

"Ah! Did he cash them?"

"Obstacles--difficulties that were in his way, which he hoped to overcome."

"Oh, I see. And did you extend that sympathy which--"

There was a knock at the door, and the maid came in, bearing a card.

"Good gracious me!" cried Katherine, jumping to her feet. "The Prince has come. What a stupid thing that we have no mirror in this room, and it's a sewing and sitting room, too. Do I look all right, Dorothy?"

"To me you seem perfection."

"Ah, well, I can glance at a gla.s.s on the next floor. Won't you come down and see him trampled on?"

"No, thank you. I shall most likely drop off to sleep, and enjoy forty winks in this very comfortable chair. Don't be too harsh with the young man, Kate. You are quite wrong in your surmises about him. The Lieutenant never made any such arrangement as you suggest, because he talked of nothing but the most commonplace subjects all the time I was with him, as I was just about to tell you, only you seem in such a hurry to get away."

"Oh, that doesn't deceive me in the least. I'll be back shortly, with the young man's scalp dangling at my belt. Now we shan't be long," and with that Katherine went skipping downstairs.

Dorothy picked up a magazine that lay on the table, and for a few moments turned its leaves from one story to another, trying to interest herself, but failing. Then she lifted the newspaper that lay at her feet, but it also was soon cast aside, and she leaned back in her chair with half-closed eyes, looking out at the cruiser in the Bay. A slight haze arose between her and the s.h.i.+p, thickening and thickening until at last it obscured the vessel.

Dorothy was oppressed by a sense of something forgotten, and she strove in vain to remember what it was. It was of the utmost importance, she was certain, and this knowledge made her mental anxiety the greater.

At last out of the gloom she saw Sabina approach, clothed in rags, and then a flash of intuition enabled her to grasp the difficulty. Through her remissness the ball dress was unfinished, and the girl, springing to her feet, turned intuitively to the sewing-machine, when the ringing laugh of Katherine dissolved the fog.

"Why, you poor girl, what's the matter with you? Are you sitting down to drudgery again? You've forgotten the fortune!"

"Are--are you back already?" cried Dorothy, somewhat wildly.

"Already! Why, bless me, I've been away an hour and a quarter. You dear girl, you've been asleep and in slavery again!"

"I think I was," admitted Dorothy with a sigh.

CHAPTER VI --FROM SEA TO MOUNTAIN

THREE days later the North Atlantic squadron of the British Navy sailed down the coast from Halifax, did not even pause at Bar Harbor, but sent a wireless telegram to the "Consternation," which pulled up anchor and joined the fleet outside, and so the war-s.h.i.+ps departed for another port.

Katherine stood by the broad window in the sewing room in her favorite att.i.tude, her head sideways against the pane, her eyes languidly gazing upon the Bay, fingers drumming this time a very slow march on the window sill. Dorothy sat in a rocking-chair, reading a letter for the second time. There had been silence in the room for some minutes, accentuated rather than broken by the quiet drumming of the girl's fingers on the window sill. Finally Katherine breathed a deep sigh and murmured to herself:

"'Far called our Navy fades away, On dune and headland sinks the fire.

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.'

I wonder if I've got the lines right," she whispered to herself. She had forgotten there was anyone else in the room, and was quite startled when Dorothy spoke.

"Kate, that's a solemn change, from Gilbert to Kipling. I always judge your mood by your quotations. Has life suddenly become too serious for 'Pinafore' or the 'Mikado'?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Katherine, without turning round. "They are humorous all, and so each furnishes something suitable for the saddened mind. Wisdom comes through understanding your alphabet properly.

For instance, first there was Gilbert, and that gave us G; then came Kipling, and he gave us K; thus we get an algebraic formula, G.K., which are the initials of Chesterton, a still later arrival, and as the mind increases in despondency it sinks lower and lower down the alphabet until it comes to S, and thus we have Barn-yard Shaw, an improvement on the Kail-yard school, who takes the O pshaw view of life. And relaxing hold of him I sink deeper until I come to W--W. W. Jacobs--how I wish he wrote poetry! He should be the humorist of all sailors, and perhaps some time he will desert barges for battles.h.i.+ps. Then I shall read him with increased enjoyment."

"I wouldn't give Mark Twain for the lot," commented Dorothy with decision.

"Mark Twain isn't yours to give, my dear. He belongs to me also. You've forgotten that comparisons are odious. Our metier is not to compare, but to take what pleases us from each.

'How doth the little busy bee Improve each s.h.i.+ning hour, And gather honey all the day From every opening flower.

Watts. You see, I'm still down among the W's. Oh, Dorothy, how can you sit there so placidly when the 'Consternation' has just faded from sight? Selfish creature!

'Oh, give me tears for others' woes And patience for mine own.'

I don't know who wrote that, but you have no tears for others' woes, merely greeting them with ribald laughter," for Dorothy, with the well-read letter in her hand, was making the rafters ring with her merriment, something that had never before happened during her long tenancy of that room. Kate turned her head slowly round, and the expression on her face was half-indignant, half-humorous, while her eyes were uncertain weather prophets, and gave equal indication of suns.h.i.+ne or rain."

"Why, Katherine, you look like a tragedy queen, rather than the spirit of comedy! Is it really a case of 't.i.t-willow, t.i.t-willow, t.i.t-willow'?

You see, I'm a-rescuing you from the bottom of the alphabet, and bringing you up to the Gilbert plane, where I am more accustomed to you, and understand you better. Is this despondency due to the departure of the 'Consternation,' and the fact that she carries away with her Jack Lamont, blacksmith?"

The long sigh terminated in a woeful "yes."