One Day's Courtship, Robert Barr [best free ebook reader for android .TXT] 📗

/>
"Why, Mr. Buel," cried the girl admiringly, "you're beginning to talk just like an American yourself."

"Oh, now, you are trying to make me conceited."

Miss Jessop sighed, and shook her head.

"I had nearly forgotten," she said, "that I despised you. I remember now why I began to walk with you. It was not to talk frivolously, but to show you the depth of my contempt! Since yesterday you have gone down in my estimation from 190 to 56."

"Fahrenheit?"

"No, that was a Wall Street quotation. Your stock has 'slumped,' as we say on the Street."

"Now you are talking Latin, or worse, for I can understand a little Latin."

"'Slumped' sounds slangy, doesn't it? It isn't a pretty word, but it is expressive. It means going down with a run, or rather, all in a heap."

"What have I done?"

"Nothing you can say will undo it, so there is no use in speaking any more about it. Second thoughts are best. My second thought is to say no more."

"I must know my crime. Give me a chance to, at least, reach par again, even if I can't hope to attain the 90 above."

"I thought an Englishman had some grit. I thought he did not allow any one to walk over him. I thought he stood by his guns when he knew he was in the right. I thought he was a manly man, and a fighter against injustice!"

"Dear me! Judging by your conversation of a few minutes ago, one would imagine that you attributed exactly the opposite qualities to him."

"I say I thought all this--yesterday. I don't think so to-day."

"Oh, I see! And all on account of me?"

"All on account of you."

"Once more, what have I done?"

"What have you done? You have allowed that detestably selfish specimen of your race, Hodden, to evict you from your room."

The young man stopped abruptly in his walk, and looked at the girl with astonishment. She, her hands still coquettishly thrust in her jacket-pockets, returned his gaze with unruffled serenity.

"What do you know about it?" he demanded at last.

"Everything. From the time you meekly told the steward to take out your valise until the time you meekly apologised to Hodden for having told him the truth, and then meekly followed the purser to a room containing three others."

"But Hodden meekly, as you express it, apologised first. I suppose you know that too, otherwise I would not have mentioned it."

"Certainly he did. That was because he found his overbearing tactics did not work. He apologised merely to get rid of you, and did. That's what put me out of patience with you. To think you couldn't see through his scheme!"

"Oh! I thought it was the lack of manly qualities you despised in me. Now you are accusing me of not being crafty."

"How severely you say that! You quite frighten me! You will be making me apologise by-and-by, and I don't want to do that."

Buel laughed, and resumed his walk.

"It's all right," he said; "Hodden's loss is my gain. I've got in with a jolly lot, who took the trouble last night to teach me the great American game at cards--and counters."

Miss Jessop sighed.

"Having escaped with my life," she said, "I think I shall not run any more risks, but shall continue with your book. I had no idea you could look so fierce. I have scarcely gotten over it yet. Besides, I am very much interested in that book of yours."

"Why do you say so persistently 'that book of mine'?"

"Isn't it yours? You bought it, didn't you? Then it was written by your relative, you know."

"I said my namesake."

"So you did. And now I'm going to ask you an impudent question. You will not look wicked again, will you?"

"I won't promise. That depends entirely on the question."

"It is easily answered."

"I'm waiting."

"What is your Christian name, Mr. Buel?"

"My Christian name?" he repeated, uncomfortably.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Why do you wish to know?"

"A woman's reason--because."

They walked the length of the deck in silence.

"Come, now," she said, "confess. What is it?"

"John."

Miss Jessop laughed heartily, but quietly.

"You think John commonplace, I suppose?"

"Oh, it suits _you_, Mr. Buel. Goodbye."

As the young woman found her place in the book, she mused, "How blind men are, after all--with his name in full on the passage list." Then she said to herself, with a sigh, "I do wish I had bought this book instead of Hodden's."


CHAPTER V.

At first Mr. Hodden held somewhat aloof from his fellow-passengers; but, finding perhaps that there was no general desire to intrude upon him, he condescended to become genial to a select few. He walked the deck alone, picturesquely attired. He was a man who paid considerable attention to his personal appearance. As day followed day, Mr. Hodden unbent so far as to talk frequently with Miss Jessop on what might almost be called equal terms. The somewhat startling opinions and unexpected remarks of the American girl appeared to interest him, and doubtless tended to confirm his previous unfavourable impressions of the inhabitants of the Western world. Mr. Buel was usually present during these conferences, and his conduct under the circumstances was not admirable. He was silent and moody, and almost gruff on some occasions. Perhaps Hodden's persistent ignoring of him, and the elder man's air of conscious superiority, irritated Buel; but if he had had the advantage of mixing much in the society of his native land he would have become accustomed to that. People thrive on the condescension of the great; they like it, and boast about it. Yet Buel did not seem to be pleased. But the most astounding thing was that the young man should actually have taken it upon himself to lecture Miss Jessop once, when they were alone, for some remarks she had made to Hodden as she sat in her deck-chair, with Hodden loquacious on her right and Buel taciturn on her left. What right had Buel to find fault with a free and independent citizen of another country? Evidently none. It might have been expected that Miss Jessop, rising to the occasion, would have taught the young man his place, and would perhaps have made some scathing remark about the tendency of Englishmen to interfere in matters that did not concern them. But she did nothing of the kind. She looked down demurely on the deck, with the faint flicker of a smile hovering about her pretty lips, and now and then flashed a quick glance at the serious face of the young man. The attitude was very sweet and appealing, but it was not what we have a right to expect from one whose ruler is her servant towards one whose ruler is his sovereign. In fact, the conduct of those two young people at this time was utterly inexplicable.

"Why did you pretend to Hodden that you had never heard of him, and make him state that he was a writer of books?" Buel had said.

"I did it for his own good. Do you want me to minister to his insufferable vanity? Hasn't he egotism enough already? I saw in a paper a while ago that his most popular book had sold to the extent of over 100,000 copies in America. I suppose that is something wonderful; but what does it amount to after all? It leaves over fifty millions of people who doubtless have never heard of him. For the time being I merely went with the majority. We always do that in the States."

"Then I suppose you will not tell him you bought his latest book in London, and so you will not have the privilege of bringing it up on deck and reading it?"

"No. The pleasure of reading that book must be postponed until I reach New York. But my punishment does not end there. Would you believe that authors are so vain that they actually carry with them the books they have written?"

"You astonish me."

"I thought I should. And added to that, would you credit the statement that they offer to lend their works to inoffensive people who may not be interested in them and who have not the courage to refuse? Why do you look so confused, Mr. Buel? I am speaking of Mr. Hodden. He kindly offered me his books to read on the way over. He has a prettily bound set with him. He gave me the first to-day, which I read ever so many years ago."

"I thought you liked his books?"

"For the first time, yes; but I don't care to read them twice."

The conversation was here interrupted by Mr. Hodden himself, who sank into the vacant chair beside Miss Jessop. Buel made as though he would rise and leave them together, but with an almost imperceptible motion of the hand nearest him, Miss Jessop indicated her wish that he should remain, and then thanked him with a rapid glance for understanding. The young man felt a glow of satisfaction at this, and gazed at the blue sea with less discontent than usual in his eyes.

"I have brought you," said the novelist, "another volume."

"Oh, _thank_ you," cried Miss Duplicity, with unnecessary emphasis on the middle word.

"It has been considered," continued Mr. Hodden, "by those whose opinions are thought highly of in London, to be perhaps my most successful work. It is, of course, not for me to pass judgment on such an estimate; but for my own part I prefer the story I gave you this morning. An author's choice is rarely that of the public."

"And was this book published in America?"

"I can hardly say it was published. They did me the honour to pirate it in your most charming country. Some friend--or perhaps I should say enemy--sent me a copy. It was a most atrocious production, in a paper cover, filled with mistakes, and adorned with the kind of spelling, which is, alas! prevalent there."

"I believe," said Buel, speaking for the first time, but with his eyes still on the sea, "there is good English authority for much that we term American spelling."

"English authority, indeed!" cried Miss Jessop; "as if we needed English authority for anything. If we can't spell better than your great English authority, Chaucer--well!" Language seemed to fail the young woman.

"Have you read Chaucer?" asked Mr. Hodden, in surprise.

"Certainly not; but I have looked at his poems, and they always remind me of one of those dialect stories in the magazines."

Miss Jessop turned over the pages of the book which had been given her, and as she did so a name caught her attention. She remembered a problem that had troubled her when she read the book before. She cried impulsively--"Oh, Mr. Hodden, there is a question I want to ask you about this book. Was--" Here she checked herself in some confusion.

Buel, who seemed to realise the situation, smiled grimly.

"The way of the transgressor is hard," he whispered in a tone too low for Hodden to hear.

"Isn't it?" cordially agreed the unblushing young woman.

"What did you wish to ask me?" inquired the novelist.

"Was it the American spelling or the American piracy that made you dislike the United States?"

Mr. Hodden raised his eyebrows.