The Lady and the Pirate, Emerson Hough [best time to read books TXT] 📗

morning meal very much indeed in mufti, although Hiroshimi is always most exact himself. On this morning it occurred to us all that pajamas made a garb more piratical and more nautical than anything else obtainable, so we took breakfast—and I think Hiroshimi never served me a breakfast more delicate and tempting—clad as perhaps the Romans were, if they had pajamas in those times. All went well until the keen eyes of Jimmy, wandering about my place, noted a certain photograph which rested on the top of my piano—where I was much comforted always to have it, especially of an evening, when sometimes I played Mendelssohn’s Spring Song, or other music of the like. It was the picture of the woman who did not know and very likely did not care where, or how, I lived—Helena Emory, to my mind one of the most beautiful women of her day; and I have seen the world’s portraits of the world’s beauties of all recorded days in beauty. Toward this Jimmy ran excitedly—I, with equal speed, endeavoring to divert him from his purpose.

“But it’s my Auntie Helen!” he protested, when I recovered it and placed it in my pocket.

“It is your Auntie fiddlesticks, Jimmy,” said I hastily, hoping my color was not heightened. “It is your grandmother! Finish your breakfast.”

“I guess I ought to know—” he began.

“What!” I rejoined. “Wouldst pit your wisdom against one who has the second sight; have a care, shipmate.”

“It was!” he reiterated. “I know ain’t anybody pretty as she is, so it was.”

“Jimmy L’Olonnois,” said I, “let us reason about this. I——”

“Lemme see it, then. I can tell in a minute. Why don’t you lemme see it, then?” He was eager.

“Shipmate,” I replied to him, “the hand is sometimes quicker than the eye, and the mind slower than the heart. For that reason I can not agree to your request.”

“But what’d he be doing with Miss Emory’s picture, Jimmy?” argued Lafitte.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” I added. “It may be that, in your haste, you have confused in your mind, Jimmy, some portrait with that of the Princess Amèlie Louise, of Furstenburg.” (I had indeed sometimes commented on the likeness of Helena Emory to that light-hearted old-world beauty.) Jimmy did not know that a photograph of the princess herself, also, stood upon the piano top, nor did he fully grasp the truth of that old saying that the hand is quicker than the eye. At least, he gazed somewhat confused at the portrait which I now produced before his eyes.

“Who was she?” he inquired.

“A very charming young lady of rank, who eloped with a young man not of rank. In short, although she did not marry a chauffeur, she did marry an automobile agent. And surely, Jimmy, your Auntie Helen—whoever she may be—would do no such thing as that and still claim to be a cousin of a L’Olonnois?”

“I don’t know. You can’t always tell what a girl’s going to do,” said Jimmy sagely. “But I don’t think Auntie Helen’s going to marry a auto man.”

“Why, Jimmy?” (I found pleasure and dread alike in this conversation.)

“Because everybody says she’s going to get married to Mr. Davidson, and he’s a commission man.”

Now, I am sure, my face did not flush. It may have paled. I tried to be composed. I reached for the melon dish and remarked, “Yes? And who is he? And really, who is your Auntie Helena, Jimmy, and what does she look like?” I spoke with a fine air of carelessness.

“She looks like the princess, you said,” replied Jimmy. “And Mr. Davidson’s rich. He’s got a house on our lake, this summer, and he lives in New York and has offices in Chicago, and travels a good deal. He has some sort of factory, too, and he’s awful rich. I like him pretty well. He knows how all the ball clubs stand, both leagues, every day in the year. You ought to know him, because then you might get to know my Auntie Helena. If they got married, like as not, I could take you up to their house. I thought everybody knew Mr. Davidson, and my Auntie Helena, too.”

Everybody did. Why should I not know Cal Davidson, one of the decentest chaps in the world? Why not, since we belonged to half a dozen of the same clubs in New York and other cities? Why not, since this very summer I had put my private yacht (named oddly enough, the Belle Helène) in commission for the first season in three years, and chartered her for the summer around Mackinaw, and a cruise down the Mississippi to the Gulf that fall? Why not, since I had still unbanked the handsome check Davidson had insisted on my taking as charter money for the last quarter?

Davidson! Of all men I had counted him my friend. And now here was he, reputed to be about to marry the girl who, as he knew, must have known, ought to have known, was all the world to me! Even if she would have none of me, and even though I had no shadow of claim on her—even though we had parted not once but a dozen times, and at last in a final parting—Davidson ought to have known, must have known! And my own yacht! Why, no man may know what may go forward in a yachting party. And, if perchance that fall he could persuade to accompany him Helena and her chaperon (I made no doubt that would be her Aunt Lucinda; for Helena’s mother died when she was a child, and she was somewhat alone, although in rather comfortable circumstances) what could not so clever a man as Davidson, I repeat, one with so much of a way with women, accomplish in a journey so long as that, with no other man as his rival? It would be just like Cal Davidson to go ashore at St. Louis long enough to find a chaplain, and then go on ahead for a honeymoon around the world—on my boat, with my.... No, she was not mine ... but then....

All my life I have tried to be fair, even with my own interests at stake. I tried now to be fair; and I failed! I could see but one side to this case. Davidson must be found at once, must be halted in mid-career.

It was about this time that Hiroshimi came in with the morning’s mail and telegrams, all of which at my place come in from the railway, ten miles or so, by rural free delivery. I paid small attention to him, most of my mail, these days, having to do with gasoline pumps or patent hay rakes and lists from my gun and tackle dealers and such like.

Hiroshimi coughed. “Supposing Honorable like to see these yellow wire envelopings.”

I glanced down and idly opened the telegram. It was from Cal Davidson himself, and read: