Coleman did not seem to ignite. “I have been arrested four or five times already on fool matters connected with the newspaper business,” he observed, gloomily, “but I’ve never yet been hung. I think your scheme is a beauty.”
Sturgeon paused in astonishment. “Why, what happens to be the matter with you? What are you kicking about?”
Coleman made a slow gesture. “I’m tired,” he answered. “I need a vacation.”
“Vacation!” cried Sturgeon. “Why don’t you take one then?”
“That’s what I’ve come to see you about. I’ve had a pretty heavy strain on me for three years now, and I want to get a little rest.”
“Well, who in thunder has been keeping you from it? It hasn’t been me.”
“I know it hasn’t been you, but, of course, I wanted the paper to go and I wanted to have my share in its success, but now that everything is all right I think I might go away for a time if you don’t mind.”
“Mind!” exclaimed Sturgeon falling into his chair and reaching for his check book. “Where do you want to go? How long do you want to be gone? How much money do you want?”
“I don’t want very much. And as for where I want to go, I thought I might like to go to Greece for a while.”
Sturgeon had been writing a check. He poised his pen in the air and began to laugh. “That’s a queer place to go for a rest. Why, the biggest war of modern times — a war that may involve all Europe — is likely to start there at any moment. You are not likely to get any rest in Greece.”
“I know that,” answered Coleman. “I know there is likely to be a war there. But I think that is exactly what would rest me. I would like to report the war.”
“You are a queer bird,” answered Sturgeon deeply fascinated with this new idea. He had apparently forgotten his vision of a Cuban volunteer battalion. “War correspondence is about the most original medium for a rest I ever heard of.”
“Oh, it may seem funny, but really, any change will be good for me now. I’ve been whacking at this old Sunday edition until I’m sick of it, and sometimes I wish the Eclipse was in hell.”
“That’s all right,” laughed the proprietor of the Eclipse. “But I still don’t see how you are going to get any vacation out of a war that will upset the whole of Europe. But that’s your affair. If you want to become the chief correspondent in the field in case of any such war, why, of course, I would be glad to have you. I couldn’t get anybody better. But I don’t see where your vacation comes in.”
“I’ll take care of that,” answered Coleman. “When I take a vacation I want to take it my own way, and I think this will be a vacation because it will be different — don’t you see — different?”
“No, I don’t see any sense in it, but if you think that is the way that suits you, why, go ahead. How much money do you want?”
“I don’t want much. Just enough to see me through nicely.”
Sturgeon scribbled on his check book and then ripped a check from it. “Here’s a thousand dollars. Will that do you to start with?”
“That’s plenty.”
“When do you want to start?”
“To-morrow.”
“Oho,” said Sturgeon. “You’re in a hurry.” This impetuous manner of exit from business seemed to appeal to him. “To-morrow,” he repeated smiling. In reality he was some kind of a poet using his millions romantically, spending wildly on a sentiment that might be with beauty or without beauty, according to the momentary vacillation. The vaguely-defined desperation in Coleman’s last announcement appeared to delight him. He grinned and placed the points of his fingers together stretching out his legs in a careful attitude of indifference which might even mean disapproval. “To-morrow,” he murmured teasingly.
“By jiminy,” exclaimed Coleman, ignoring the other man’s mood, “I’m sick of the whole business. I’ve got out a Sunday paper once a week for three years and I feel absolutely incapable of getting out another edition. It would be all right if we were running on ordinary lines, but when each issue is more or less of an attempt to beat the previous issue, it becomes rather wearing, you know. If I can’t get a vacation now I take one later in a lunatic asylum.”
“Why, I’m not objecting to your having a vacation. I’m simply marvelling at the kind of vacation you want to take. And ‘to-morrow,’ too, eh?”
“Well, it suits me,” muttered Coleman, sulkily.
“Well, if it suits you, that’s enough. Here’s your check. Clear out now and don’t let me see you again until you are thoroughly rested, even if it takes a year.” He arose and stood smiling. He was mightily pleased with himself. He liked to perform in this way. He was almost seraphic as he thrust the check for a thousand dollars toward Coleman.
Then his manner changed abruptly. “Hold on a minute. I must think a little about this thing if you are going to manage the correspondence. Of course it will be a long and bloody war.”
“You bet.”
“The big chance is that all Europe will be dragged into it. Of course then you would have to come out of Greece and take up a better position — say Vienna.”
“No, I wouldn’t care to do that,” said Coleman positively. “I just want to take care of the Greek end of it.”
“It will be an idiotic way to take a vacation,” observed Sturgeon.
“Well, it suits me,” muttered Coleman again. “I tell you what it is—” he added suddenly. “I’ve got some private reasons — see?
Sturgeon was radiant with joy. “Private reasons.” He was charmed by the sombre pain in Coleman’s eyes and his own ability to eject it. “Good. Go now and be blowed. I will cable final instruction to meet you in London. As soon as you get to Greece, cable me an account of the situation there and we will arrange our plans.” He began to laugh. Private reasons. Come out to dinner with me.
“I can’t very well,” said Coleman. “If I go tomorrow, I’ve got to pack—”
But here the real tyrant appeared, emerging suddenly from behind the curtain of sentiment, appearing like a red devil in a pantomine. “You can’t?” snapped Sturgeon. “Nonsense—”
CHAPTER VII.
SWEEPING out from between two remote, halfsubmerged dunes on which stood slender sentry lighthouses, the steamer began to roll with a gentle insinuating motion. Passengers in their staterooms saw at rhythmical intervals the spray racing fleetly past the portholes. The waves grappled hurriedly at the sides of the great flying steamer and boiled discomfited astern in a turmoil of green and white. From the tops of the enormous funnels streamed level masses of smoke which were immediately torn to nothing by the headlong wind. Meanwhile as the steamer rushed into the northeast, men in caps and ulsters comfortably paraded the decks and stewards arranged deck chairs for the reception of various women who were coming from their cabins with rugs.
In the smoking room, old voyagers were settling down comfortably while new voyagers were regarding them with a diffident respect. Among the passengers Coleman found a number of people whom he knew, including a wholesale wine merchant, a Chicago railway magnate and a New York millionaire. They lived practically in the smoking room. Necessity drove them from time to time to the salon, or to their berths. Once indeed the millionaire was absent from the group while penning a short note to his wife.
When the Irish coast was sighted Coleman came on deck to look at it. A tall young woman immediately halted in her walk until he had stepped up to her. “Well, of all ungallant men, Rufus Coleman, you are the star,” she cried laughing and held out her hand.
“Awfully sorry, I’m sure,” he murmured. “Been playing poker in the smoking room all voyage. Didn’t have a look at the passenger list until just now. Why didn’t you send me word?” These lies were told so modestly and sincerely that when the girl flashed her brilliant eyes full upon their author there was a mixture of admiration in the indignation.
“Send you a card? I don’t believe you can read, Rufus, else you would have known I was to sail on this steamer. If I hadn’
t been ill until to-day you would have seen me in the salon. I open at the Folly Theatre next week. Dear ol’ Lunnon, y’ know.”
“Of course, I knew you were going,” said Coleman. “But I thought you were to go later. What do you open in?”
“Fly by Night. Come walk along with me. See those two old ladies? They’ve been watching for me like hawks ever since we left New York. They expected me to flirt with every man on board. But I’ve fooled them. I’ve been just as g-o-o-d. I had to be.” As the pair moved toward the stern, enormous and radiant green waves were crashing futilely after the steamer. Ireland showed a dreary coast line to the north. A wretched man who had crossed the Atlantic eighty-four times was declaiming to a group of novices. A venerable banker, bundled in rugs, was asleep in his deck chair.
“Well, Nora,” said Coleman, “I hope you make a hit in London. You deserve it if anybody does. You’ve worked hard.”
“Worked hard,” cried the girl. “I should think so. Eight years ago I was in the rear row. Now I have the centre of the stage whenever I want it. I made Chalmers cut out that great scene in the second act between the queen and Rodolfo. The idea! Did he think I would stand that? And just because he was in love with Clara Trotwood, too.”
Coleman was dreamy. “Remember when I was dramatic man for the Gazette and wrote the first notice?”
“Indeed, I do,” answered the girl affectionately. “Indeed, I do, Rufus. Ah, that was a great lift. I believe that was the first thing that had an effect on old Oliver. Before that, he never would believe that I was any good. Give me your arm, Rufus. Let’s parade before the two old women.” Coleman glanced at her keenly. Her voice had trembled slightly. Her eyes were lustrous as if she were about to weep.
“Good heavens,” he said. “You are the same old Nora Black. I thought you would be proud and ‘aughty by this time.”
“Not to my friends,” she murmured. “Not to my friends. I’m always the same and I never forget, Rufus.”
“Never forget what?” asked Coleman.
“If anybody does me a favour I never forget it as long as I live,” she answered fervently.
“Oh, you mustn’t be so sentimental, Nora. You remember that play you bought from little Ben Whipple just because he had once sent you some flowers in the old days when you were poor and happened to be sick. A sense of gratitude cost you over eight thousand dollars that time, didn’t it?” Coleman laughed heartily.
“Oh, it wasn’t the flowers at all,” she interrupted seriously. “Of course Ben was always a nice boy, but then his play was worth a thousand dollars. That’s all I gave him. I lost some more in trying to make it go. But it was too good. That was what was the matter. It was altogether too good for the public. I felt awfully sorry for poor little Ben.”
“Too good?” sneered Coleman. “Too good? Too indifferently bad, you mean. My dear girl, you mustn’t imagine that you know a good play. You don’t, at all.”
She paused abruptly and faced him. This regal creature was looking at him so sternly that Coleman felt awed for a moment as if he were in the presence of a great mind. “Do you mean to say that I’m not an artist?” she asked.
Coleman remained cool. “I’ve never been decorated for informing people of their own affairs,” he observed, “but I should say that you were about as much of an artist as I am.”
Frowning slightly, she reflected upon this reply. Then, of a sudden, she laughed. “There is no use in being angry with you, Rufus. You always were a hopeless scamp. But,” she added, childishly wistful, “have you ever seen Fly by Night? Don’t you think my dance in the second act is artistic?”
“No,” said Coleman, “I haven’t seen Fly by Night yet, but of course I know that you are the most beautiful dancer on the stage. Everybody knows that.” It seemed that her hand tightened on his arm. Her face was radiant. “There,” she exclaimed. “Now you are forgiven. You are a nice boy, Rufus — sometimes.”
When Miss Black went to her cabin, Coleman strolled into the smoking room. Every man there covertly or openly surveyed him. He dropped lazily into a chair at a table where the wine merchant, the Chicago railway king and the New York millionaire were playing cards. They made a noble pretense of not being aware of him. On the oilcloth top of the table the cards were snapped down, turn by turn.
Finally the wine merchant, without lifting his head to address a particular person, said: “New conquest.” -
Hailing a steward Coleman asked for a brandy and soda.
The millionaire said: “He’s a sly cuss, anyhow.” The railway man grinned. After an elaborate silence the wine merchant asked: “Know Miss Black long, Rufus?” Coleman looked scornfully at his friends. “What’s wrong with you there, fellows, anyhow?” The Chicago man answered airily. “Oh, nothin’. Nothin’, whatever.”
At dinner in the crowded salon, Coleman was aware that more than one passenger glanced first at Nora Black and then at him, as if connecting them in some train of thought, moved to it by the narrow horizon of shipboard and by a sense of the mystery that surrounds the lives of the beauties of the stage. Near the captain’s right hand sat the glowing and splendid Nora, exhibiting under the gaze of the persistent eyes of many meanings, a practiced and profound composure that to the populace was terrfying dignity.
Strolling toward the smoking room after dinner, Coleman met the New York millionaire, who seemed agitated. He took Coleman fraternally by the arm. “Say, old man, introduce me, won’t you? I’m crazy to know her.”
“Do you mean Miss Black?” asked Coleman.
“Why, I don’t know that I have a right. Of course, you know, she hasn’t been meeting anybody aboard. I’ll ask her, though — certainly.”
“Thanks, old man, thanks. I’d be tickled to death. Come along and have a drink. When will you ask her?”
“Why, I don’t know when I’ll see her. To-morrow, I suppose—”
They had not been long in the smoking room, however, when the deck steward came with a card to Coleman. Upon it was written: “Come for a stroll?” Everybody saw Coleman read this card and then look up and whisper to the deck steward. The deck steward bent his head and whispered discreetly in reply. There was an abrupt pause in the hum of conversation. The interest was acute.
Coleman leaned carelessly back in his chair, puffing at his cigar. He mingled calmly in a discussion of the comparative merits of certain trans-Atlantic lines. After a time he threw away his cigar and arose. Men nodded. “Didn’t I tell you?” His studiously languid exit was made dramatic by the eagle-eyed attention of the smoking room.
On deck, he found Nora pacing to and fro. “You didn’t hurry yourself,” she said, as he joined her. The lights of Queenstown were twinkling. A warm wind, wet with the moisture of rain-stricken sod, was coming from the land.
“Why,” said Coleman, “we’ve got all these duffers very much excited.”
“Well, what do you care?” asked the girl. “You don’t care, do you?”
“No, I don’t care. Only it’s rather absurd to be watched all the time.” He said this precisely as if he abhorred being watched in this case. “Oh, by the way,” he added. Then he paused for a moment. “Aw — a friend of mine — not a bad fellow — he asked me for an introduction. Of course, I told him I’d ask you.”
She made a contemptuous gesture. “Oh, another Willie. Tell him no. Tell him to go home to his family. Tell him to run away.”
“He isn’t a bad fellow. He—” said Coleman diffidently, “he would probably be at the theatre every night in a box.”
“Yes, and get drunk and throw a wine bottle on the stage instead of a bouquet. No,” she declared positively, “I won’t see him.”
Coleman did not seem to be oppressed by this ultimatum. “Oh, all right. I promised him — that was all.”
“Besides, are you in a great hurry to get rid of me?”
“Rid of you? Nonsense.”
They walked in the shadows. “How long are you going to be in London, Rufus?” asked Nora softly.<
br />
“Who? I? Oh, I’m going right off to Greece. First train. There’s going to be a war, you know.”
“A war? Why, who is going to fight? The Greeks and the — the — the what?”
“The Turks. I’m going right over there.”
“Why, that’s dreadful, Rufus,” said the girl, mournful and shocked. “You might get hurt or something.” Presently she asked: “And aren’t you going to be in London any time at all?”
“Oh,” he answered, puffing out his lips, “I may stop in London for three or four days on my way home. I’m not sure of it.”
“And when will that be?”
“Oh, I can’t tell. It may be in three or four months, or it may be a year from now. When the war stops.” There was a long silence as they walked up and down the swaying deck.
“Do you know,” said Nora at last, “I like you, Rufus Coleman. I don’t know any good reason for it, either, unless it is because you are such a brute. Now, when I was asking you if you were to be in London, you were perfectly detestable. You knew I was anxious.”
“I — detestable?” cried Coleman, feigning amazement. “Why, what did I say?”
“It isn’t so much what you said—” began Nora slowly. Then she suddenly changed her manner. “Oh, well, don’t let’s talk about it any more. It’s too foolish. Only — you are a disagreeable person sometimes.”
In the morning, as the vessel steamed up the Irish channel, Coleman was on deck, keeping furtive watch on the cabin stairs. After two hours of waiting, he scribbled a message on a card and sent it below. He received an answer that Miss Black had a headache, and felt too ill to come on deck. He went to the smoking room. The three card-players glanced up, grinning. “What’s the matter?” asked the wine merchant. “You look angry.” As a matter of fact, Coleman had purposely wreathed his features in a pleasant and satisfied expression, so he was for a moment furious at the wine merchant.
Complete Works of Stephen Crane Page 43