The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories

by George Barr McCutcheon

  “She’s supposed to be very good-looking. I’ve never seen her.”

  “How queer to be asking me if I know her, then. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve heard so much about her lately. She is the daughter of William Blithers, the great capitalist.”

  “Oh, I know who he is,” she exclaimed. “Perfect roodles of money, hasn’t he?”

  “Roodles?”

  “Loads, if it means more to you. I forgot that you are a foreigner. He gave that wonderful ball last week for the Prince of—of—Oh, some insignificant little place over in Europe. There are such a lot of queer little duchies and principalities, don’t you know; it is quite impossible to tell one from the other. They don’t even appear on the maps.”

  He took it with a perfectly straight face, though secretly annoyed. “It was the talk of the town, that ball. It must have cost roodles of money. Is that right?”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t sound right when you say it. Naturally one doesn’t say roodles in Vienna.”

  “We say noodles,” said he. “I am very fond of them. But to resume; I supposed every one in New York knew Miss Blithers. She’s quite the rage, I’m told.”

  “Indeed? I should think she might be, Mr. Schmidt, with all those lovely millions behind her.”

  He smiled introspectively. “Yes; and I am told that, in spite of them, she is the prettiest girl in New York.”

  She appeared to lose interest in the topic. “Oh, indeed?”

  “But,” he supplemented gracefully, “it isn’t true.”

  “What isn’t true?”

  “The statement that she is the prettiest girl in New York.”

  “How can you say that, when you admit you’ve never seen her?”

  “I can say it with a perfectly clear conscience, Miss Guile,” said he, and was filled with delight when she bit her lip as a sign of acknowledgment.

  “Oh, here comes the tea,” she cried, with a strange eagerness in her voice. “I am so glad.” She scrambled gracefully out of her rug and arose to her feet.

  “Aren’t you going to have some?” he cried.

  “Yes,” she said, quite pointedly. “In my room, Mr. Schmidt,” and before he could get to his feet she was moving away without so much as a nod or smile for him. Indeed, she appeared to have dismissed him from her thoughts quite as completely as from her vision. He experienced a queer sensation of shrivelling.

  At dinner that night, she failed to look in his direction, a circumstance that may not appear extraordinary when it is stated that she purposely or inadvertently exchanged seats with Mrs. Gaston and sat with her back to the table occupied by R. Schmidt and his friends. He had to be content with a view of the most exquisite back and shoulders that good fortune had ever allowed him to gaze upon. And then there was the way that her soft brown hair grew above the slender neck, to say nothing of—but Mrs. Gaston was watching him with most unfriendly eyes, so the feast was spoiled.

  The following day was as unlike its predecessor as black is like white. During the night the smooth grey pond had been transformed into a turbulent, storm-threshed ocean; the once gentle wind was now a howling gale that swept the decks with a merciless lash in its grip and whipped into submission all who vaingloriously sought to defy its chill dominion. Not rain, but spray from huge, swashing billows, clouded the decks, biting and cutting like countless needles, each drop with the sting of a hornet behind it. Now the end of the world seemed far away, and the jumping off place was a rickety wall of white and black, leaning against a cold, drear sky.

  Only the hardiest of the passengers ventured on deck; the exhilaration they professed was but another name for bravado. They shivered and gasped for breath as they forged their bitter way into the gale, and few were they who took more than a single turn of the deck. Like beaten cowards they soon slunk into the sheltered spots, or sought even less heroic means of surrender by tumbling into bed with the considerate help of unsmiling stewards. The great ship went up and the great ship came down: when up so high that the sky seemed to be startlingly near and down so horribly low that the bottom of the ocean was even nearer. And it creaked and groaned and sighed even above the wild monody of the wind, like a thing in misery, yet all the while holding its sides to keep from bursting with laughter over the plight of the little creature whom God made after His own image but not until after all of the big things of the universe had been designed.

  R. Schmidt, being a good sailor and a hardy young chap, albeit a prince of royal blood, was abroad early, after a breakfast that staggered the few who remained unstaggered up to that particular crisis. A genial sailor-man and an equally ungenial deck swabber advised him, in totally different styles of address, to stay below if he knew what was good for him, only to be thanked with all the blitheness of a man who jolly well knows what is good for him, or who doesn’t care whether it is good for him or not so long as he is doing the thing that he wants to do.

  He took two turns about the deck, and each time as he passed the spot he sent a covert glance into the corner where Miss Guile’s chair was standing. Of course he did not expect to find her there in weather like this, but—well, he looked and that is the end to the argument. The going was extremely treacherous and unpleasant he was free to confess to the genial sailor-man after the second breathless turn, and gave that worthy a bright silver dollar upon receiving a further bit of advice: to sit down somewhere out of the wind, sir.

  Quinnox and Dank were hopelessly bed-ridden, so to speak. They were very disagreeable, cross and unpleasant, and somehow he felt that they hated their cheerful, happy-faced Prince. Never before had Count Quinnox scowled at him, no matter how mad his pranks as a child or how silly his actions as a youth. Never before had any one told him to go to the devil. He rather liked it. And he rather admired poor Dank for ordering him out of his cabin, with a perfectly astounding oath as a climax to the command. Moreover, he thought considerably better of the faithful Hobbs for an amazing exposition of human equality in the matter of a pair of boots that he desired to wear that morning but which happened to be stowed away in a cabin trunk. He told Hobbs to go to the devil and Hobbs repeated the injunction, with especial heat, to the boots, when he bumped his head in hauling them out of the trunk. Whereupon R. Schmidt said to Hobbs: “Good for you. Hobbs. Go on, please. Don’t mind me. It was quite a thump, wasn’t it?” And Hobbs managed, between other words, to say that it was a whacking thump, and one he would not forget to his dying day—(if he lived through this one!).

  “And you’d do well to sit in the smoke-room, sir,” further advised the sailor-man, clinging to the rail with one hand and pocketing the coin with the other.

  “No,” said R. Schmidt resolutely. “I don’t like the air in the smoke-room.”

  “There’s quite a bit of air out ’ere, sir.”

  “I need quite a bit.”

  “I should think you might, sir, being a ’ealthy, strappin’ sort of a chap, sir. ’Elp yourself. All the chairs is yours if you’ll unpile ’em.”

  The young man battled his way down the deck and soon found himself in the well-protected corner. A half-dozen unoccupied chairs were cluttered about, having been abandoned by persons who over-estimated their hardiness. One of the stewards was engaged in stacking them up and making them fast.

  Miss Guile’s chair and that of Mrs. Gaston were staunchly fastened down and their rugs were in place. R. Schmidt experienced an exquisite sensation of pleasure. Here was a perfect exemplification of that much-abused thing known as circumstantial evidence. She contemplated coming on deck. So he had his chair put in place, called for his rug, shrugged his chin down into the collar of his thick ulster, and sat down to wait.

  CHAPTER X

  AN HOUR ON DECK

  She literally was blown into his presence. He sprang to his feet to check her swift approach before she could be dashed against the wall or upon the heap of chairs in the corner. The deep roll of the vessel had ended so suddenly that she was thrown off her balance, at best precar
iously maintained in the hurricane that swept her along the deck. She was projected with considerable violence against the waiting figure of R. Schmidt, who had hastily braced himself for the impact of the slender body in the thick sea-ulster. She uttered an excited little shriek as she came bang up against him and found his ready arms closing about her shoulders.

  “Oh, goodness!” she gasped, with what little breath she had left, and then began to laugh as she freed herself in confusion—a very pretty confusion he recalled later on, after he had recovered to some extent from the effects of an exceedingly severe bump on the back of his head. “How awkward!”

  “Not at all,” he proclaimed, retaining a grip on one of her arms until the ship showed some signs of resuming its way eastward instead of downward.

  “I am sure it must have hurt dreadfully,” she cried. “Nothing hurts worse than a bump. It seemed as though you must have splintered the wall.”

  “I have a singularly hard head,” said he, and forthwith felt of the back of it.

  “Will you please stand ready to receive boarders? My maid is following me, poor thing, and I can’t afford to have her smashed to pieces. Here she is!”

  Quite a pretty maid, with wide, horrified eyes and a pale green complexion came hustling around the corner. R. Schmidt, albeit a prince, received her with open arms.

  “Merci, M’sieur!” she squealed and added something in muffled French that strangely reminded him of what Hobbs had said in English. Then she deposited an armful of rugs and magazines at Robin’s feet, and clutched wildly at a post actually some ten feet away but which appeared to be coming toward her with obliging swiftness, so nicely was the deck rotating for her. “Mon dieu! Mon dieu!”

  “You may go back to bed, Marie,” cried her mistress in some haste.

  “But ze rug, I feex it—” groaned the unhappy maid, and then once more: “Merci, M’sieur!” She clung to the arm he extended, and tried bravely to smile her thanks.

  “Here! Go in through this door,” he said, bracing the door open with his elbow. “You’ll be all right in a little while. Keep your nerve.” He closed the door after her and turned to the amused Miss Guile. “Well, it’s an ill wind that blows no good,” he said enigmatically, and she flushed under the steady smile in his eyes. “Allow me to arrange your rug for you. Miss Guile.”

  “Thank you, no. I think I would better go inside. It is really too windy—”

  “The wind can’t get at you back here in this cubbyhole,” he protested. “Do sit down. I’ll have you as snug as a bug in a rug before you can say Jack Robinson. See! Now stick ’em out and I’ll wrap it around them. There! You’re as neatly done up as a mummy and a good deal better off, because you are a long way short of being two thousand years old.”

  “How is your head, Mr. Schmidt?” she inquired with grave concern. “You seem to be quite crazy. I hope—”

  “Every one is a little bit mad, don’t you think? Especially in moments of great excitement. I daresay my head has been turned quite appreciably, and I’m glad that you’ve been kind enough to notice it. Where is Mrs. Gaston?” He was vastly exhilarated.

  She regarded him with eyes that sparkled and belied the unamiable nature of her reply.

  “The poor lady is where she is not at all likely to be annoyed, Mr. Schmidt.”

  Then she took up a magazine and coolly began to run through the pages. He waited for a moment, considerably dashed, and then said “Oh,” in a very unfriendly manner. She found her place in the magazine, assumed a more comfortable position, and, with noteworthy resolution, set about reading as if her life depended upon it.

  He sat down, pulled the rug up to his chin, and stared out at the great, heaving billows. Suddenly remembering another injury, he felt once more of the back of his head.

  “By jove!” he exclaimed. “There is a lump there.”

  “I can’t hear you,” she said, allowing the magazine to drop into her lap, but keeping her place carefully marked with one of her fingers.

  “I can hear you perfectly,” he said.

  “It’s the way the wind blows,” she explained.

  “Easily remedied,” said he. “I’ll move into Mrs. Gaston’s chair if you think it will help any.”

  “Do!” she said promptly. “You will not disturb me in the least,—unless you talk.” She resumed her reading, half a page above the finger tip.

  He moved over and arranged himself comfortably, snugly in Mrs. Gaston’s chair. Their elbows almost met. He was prepared to be very patient. For a long time she continued to read, her warm, rosy cheek half-averted, her eyes applied to their task with irritating constancy. He did not despair. Some wise person once had told him that it was only necessary to give a woman sufficient time and she would be the one to despair.

  A few passengers possessed of proud sea-legs, staggered past the snug couple on their ridiculous rounds of the ship. If they thought of Miss Guile and R. Schmidt at all it was with the scorn that is usually devoted to youth at its very best. There could be no doubt in the passing mind that these two were sweethearts who managed to thrive on the smallest of comforts.

  At last his patience was rewarded. She lowered the magazine and stifled a yawn—but not a real one.

  “Have you read it?” she inquired composedly.

  “A part of it,” he said. “Over your shoulder.”

  “Is that considered polite in Vienna?”

  “If you only knew what a bump I’ve got on the back of my head you wouldn’t be so ungracious.” he said.

  “I couldn’t possibly know, could I?”

  He leaned forward and indicated the spot on the back of his head, first removing his cap. She laughed nervously, and then gently rubbed her fingers over the thick hair.

  “There is a dreadful lump!” she exclaimed. “Oh, how sorry I am. Do—do you feel faint or—or—I mean, is it very painful?”

  “Not now,” he replied, replacing his cap and favouring her with his most engaging smile.

  She smiled in response, betraying not the slightest sign of embarrassment. As a matter of fact, she was, if anything, somewhat too self-possessed.

  “I remember falling down stairs once,” she said, “and getting a stupendous bump on my forehead. But that was a great many years ago and I cried. How was I to know that it hurt you, Mr. Schmidt, when you neglected to cry?”

  “Heroes never cry,” said he. “It isn’t considered first-class fiction, you know.”

  “Am I to regard you as a hero?”

  “If you will be so kind, please.”

  She laughed outright at this. “I think I rather like you, Mr. Schmidt,” she said, with unexpected candour.

  “Oh, I fancy I’m not at all bad,” said he, after a momentary stare of astonishment. “I am especially good in rough weather,” he went on, trying to forget that he was a prince of the royal blood, a rather difficult matter when one stops to consider he was not in the habit of hearing people say that they rather liked him.

  “Do your friends come from Vienna?” she inquired abruptly.

  “Yes,” he said, and then saved his face as usual by adding under his breath: “but they don’t live there.” It was not in him to lie outright, hence the handy way of appeasing his conscience.

  “They are very interesting looking men, especially the younger. I cannot remember when I have seen a more attractive man.”

  “He is a splendid chap,” exclaimed Robin, with genuine enthusiasm. “I am very fond of Dank.”

  She was silent for a moment. Something had failed, and she was rather glad of it.

  “Do you like New York?” she asked.

  “Immensely. I met a great many delightful people there. Miss Guile. You say you do not know the Blithers family? Mr. Blithers is a rare old bird.”

  “Isn’t there some talk of his daughter being engaged to the Prince of Graustark?”

  He felt that his ears were red. “The newspapers hinted at something of the sort, I believe.” He was suddenly possessed by the curi
ous notion that he was being “pumped” by his fair companion. Indeed, a certain insistent note had crept into her voice and her eyes were searching his with an intentness that had not appeared in them until now.

  “Have you seen him?”

  “The Prince?”

  “Yes. What is he like?”

  “I’ve seen pictures of him,” he equivocated. “Rather nice looking, I should say.”

  “Of course he is like all foreign noblemen and will leap at the Blithers millions if he gets the chance. I sometimes feel sorry for the poor wretches.” There was more scorn than pity in the way she said it, however, and her velvety eyes were suddenly hard and uncompromising.

  He longed to defend himself, in the third person, but could not do so for very strong and obvious reasons. He allowed himself the privilege, however, of declaring that foreign noblemen are not always as black as they are painted. And then, for a very excellent reason, he contrived to change the subject by asking where she was going on the continent.

  “I may go to Vienna,” she said, with a smile that served to puzzle rather than to delight him. He was more than ever convinced that she was playing with him. “But pray do not look so gloomy, Mr. Schmidt, I shall not make any demands upon your time while I am there. You may—”

  “I am quite sure of that,” he interrupted, with his ready smile. “You see, I am a person of no consequence in Vienna, while you—Ah, well, as an American girl you will be hobnobbing with the nobility while the humble Schmidt sits afar off and marvels at the kindness of a fate that befell him in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and yet curses the fate that makes him unworthy of the slightest notice from the aforesaid American girl. For, I daresay, Miss Guile, you, like all American girls, are ready to leap at titles.”

  “That really isn’t fair, Mr. Schmidt,” she protested, flushing. “Why should you and I quarrel over a condition that cannot apply to either of us? You are not a nobleman, and I am not a title-seeking American girl. So, why all this beautiful irony?”

  “It only remains for me to humbly beg your pardon and to add that if you come to Vienna my every waking hour shall be devoted to the pleasure of—”