The Red Rat's Daughter, Guy Boothby [most read book in the world TXT] 📗

of taking care of myself."

"Nasty things mountains," said Jimmy Foote to the company at large. "I don't trust 'em myself. I remember once on the Rigi going out with old Simeon Baynes, the American millionaire fellow, you know, and his daughter, the girl who married that Italian count who fought Constantovitch and was afterwards killed in Abyssinia. At one place we very nearly went over the edge, every man-jack of us, and I vowed I'd never do such a thing again. Fancy the irony of the position! After having been poverty-stricken all one's life, to drop through the air thirteen hundred feet in the company of over a million dollars. I'm perfectly certain of one thing, however: if it hadn't been for the girl's presence of mind I should not have been here to-day. As it was, she saved my life, and, until she married, I never could be sufficiently grateful to her."

"Only until she married!" said Lady Imogen, looking up from the novel she was reading. "How was it your gratitude did not last longer than that?"

"Doesn't somebody say that gratitude is akin to love?" answered Foote, with a chuckle. "Of course I argued that, since she was foolish enough to show her bad taste by marrying somebody else, it would scarcely have become me to be grateful."

Browne glanced at Foote rather sharply. What did he mean by talking of life-saving on mountains, on this evening of all others? Had he heard anything? But Jimmy's face was all innocence.

At that moment the dressing gong sounded, and every one rose, preparatory to departing to their respective cabins.

"Where is Maas?" Browne inquired of Marsh, who was the last to leave.

"He is on deck, I think," replied the other; but as he spoke the individual in question made his appearance down the companion-ladder, carrying in his hand a pair of field-glasses.

For some reason or another, dinner that night was scarcely as successful as usual. The English mail had come in, and the Duchess had had a worrying letter from the Duke, who had been commanded to Osborne among the salt of the earth, when he wanted to be in the Highlands among the grouse; Miss Verney had not yet recovered from what she considered Browne's ill-treatment of herself that afternoon; while one of the many kind friends of the American Ambassador had forwarded him information concerning a debate in Congress, in order that he might see in what sort of estimation he was held by a certain portion of his fellow-countrymen. Never a very talkative man, Browne this evening was even more silent than usual. The recollection of a certain pale face and a pair of beautiful eyes haunted him continually. Indeed, had it not been for Barrington-Marsh and Jimmy Foote, who did their duty manfully, the meal would have been a distinct failure as far as its general liveliness was concerned. As it was, no one was sorry when an adjournment was made for coffee to the deck above. Under the influence of this gentle stimulant, however, and the wonderful quiet of the fjord, things brightened somewhat. But the improvement was not maintained; the pauses gradually grew longer and more frequent, and soon after ten o'clock the ladies succumbed to the general inertness, and disappeared below.

According to custom, the majority of the men immediately adjourned to the smoking-room for cards. Browne, however, excused himself on the plea that he was tired and preferred the cool. Maas followed suit; and, when the others had taken themselves off, the pair stood leaning against the bulwarks, smoking and watching the lights of the village ashore.

"I wonder how you and I would have turned out," said Maas quietly, when they had been standing at the rails for some minutes, "if we had been born and bred in this little village, and had never seen any sort of life outside the Geiranger?"

"Without attempting to moralize, I don't doubt but that we should have been better in many ways," Browne replied. "I can assure you there are times when I get sick to death of the inane existence we lead."

"_Leben heisst traeumen; weise sein heisst angenehm traeumen_," quoted Maas, half to himself and half to his cigar. "Schiller was not so very far out after all."

"Excellent as far as the sentiment is concerned," said Browne, as he flicked the ash off his cigar and watched it drop into the water alongside. "But, however desirous we may be of dreaming agreeably, our world will still take good care that we wake up just at the moment when we are most anxious to go on sleeping."

"In order that we may not be disillusioned, my friend," said Maas. "The starving man dreams of City banquets, and wakes to the unpleasant knowledge that it does not do to go to sleep on an empty stomach. The debtor imagines himself the possessor of millions, and wakes to find the man-in-possession seated by his bedside. But there is one cure; and you should adopt it, my dear Browne."

"What is that?"

"Marriage, my friend! Get yourself a wife and you will have no time to think of such things. Doesn't your Ben Jonson say that marriage is the best state for a man in general?"

"Marriage!" retorted Browne scornfully. "It always comes back to that. I tell you I have come to hate the very sound of the word. From the way people talk you might think marriage is the pivot on which our lives turn. They never seem to realise that it is the rock upon which we most of us go to pieces. What is a London season but a monstrous market, in which men and women are sold to the highest bidders, irrespective of inclination or regard? I tell you, Maas, the way these things are managed in what we call English society borders on the indecent. Lord A. is rich; consequently a hundred mothers offer him their daughters. He may be what he pleases--an honourable man, or the greatest blackguard at large upon the earth. In nine cases out of ten it makes little or no difference, provided, of course, he has a fine establishment and the settlements are satisfactory. At the commencement of the season the girls are brought up to London, to be tricked out, regardless of expense, by the fashionable dressmakers of the day. They are paraded here, there, and everywhere, like horses in a dealer's yard; are warned off the men who have no money, but who might very possibly make them happy; while they are ordered by the 'home authorities' to encourage those who have substantial bank balances and nothing else to recommend them. As the question of love makes no sort of difference, it receives no consideration. After their friends have sent them expensive presents, which in most cases they cannot afford to give, but do so in order that they may keep up appearances with their neighbours and tradesmen, the happy couple stand side by side before the altar at St. George's and take the most solemn oath of their lives; that done, they spend their honeymoon in Egypt, Switzerland, or the Riviera, where they are presented with ample opportunity of growing tired of one another. Returning to town, the man usually goes back to his old life and the woman to hers. The result is a period of mutual distrust and deceit; an awakening follows, and later on we have the _cause celebre_, and, holding up our hands in horror, say, 'Dear me, how very shocking!' In the face of all this, we have the audacity to curl our lips and to call the French system unnatural!"

"I am afraid, dear Browne, you are not quite yourself to-night," said Maas, with a gentle little laugh, at the end of the other's harangue. "The mistake of believing that a marriage, with money on the side of the man and beauty on that of the woman, must irretrievably result in misfortune is a very common one. For my part, I am singular enough to believe it may turn out as well if not better than any other."

"I wasn't aware that optimism was your strong point," retorted Browne. "For my part I feel, after the quiet of this fjord, as if I could turn my back on London and never go near it again."

He spoke with such earnestness that Maas, for once in his life, was almost astonished. He watched his companion as he lit another cigar.

"One thing is quite certain," he said at length, "your walk this afternoon did you more harm than good. The fog must have got into your blood. And yet, if you will not think me impertinent for saying so, Miss Verney gave you a welcome such as many men would go through fire and water to receive."

Browne grunted scornfully. He was not going to discuss Miss Verney's opinion of himself with his companion. Accordingly he changed the subject abruptly by inquiring whether Maas had made any plans for the ensuing winter.

"I am a methodical man," replied the latter, with a smile at his companion's naive handling of the situation, "and all my movements are arranged some months ahead. When this charming voyage is at an end, and I have thanked you for your delightful hospitality, I shall hope to spend a fortnight with our dear Duchess in the Midlands; after that I am due in Paris for a week or ten days; then, like the swallow, I fly south; shall dawdle along the Mediterranean for three or four months, probably cross to Cairo, and then work my way slowly back to England in time for the spring. What do you propose doing?"

"Goodness knows," Browne replied lugubriously. "At first I thought of Rajputana; but I seem to have done, and to be tired of doing, everything. They tell me tigers are scarce in India. This morning I felt almost inclined to take a run out to the Cape and have three months with the big game."

"You said as much in the smoking-room last night, I remember," Maas replied. "Pray, what has occurred since then to make you change your mind?"

"I do not know, myself," said Browne. "I feel restless and unsettled to-night, that is all. Do you think I should care for Russia?"

"For Russia?" cried his companion in complete surprise. "What on earth makes you think of Russia?"

Browne shook his head.

"It's a notion I have," he answered; though, for my own part, I am certain that, until that moment, he had never thought of it. "Do you remember Demetrovitch, that handsome fellow with the enormous moustache who stayed with me last year at Newmarket?"

"I remember him perfectly," Maas replied; and had Browne been watching his face, instead of looking at the little hotel ashore, he would in all probability have noticed that a peculiar smile played round the corners of his mouth as he said it. "But what has Demetrovitch to do with your proposed trip to Russia? I had an idea that he was ordered by the Czar to spend two years upon his estates."

"Exactly! so he was. That accounts for my notion. He has often asked me to pay him a visit. Besides, I have never seen Petersburg in the winter, and I'm told it's