Rose Galbraith (25 page)

“Is this seat taken?” he asked courteously, touching his hat. He glanced at the full rack overhead, noting there was no room for his suitcase. The lady looked up and then he heard his own name.

“Gordon McCarroll! How perfectly gorgeous! Where did you turn up from, and can it be that you and I are going to the same place? How perfectly spiffy!”

And there was Sydney Repplier!

Gordon was very much afraid his dismay showed in his face, but he tried to muster his courtesy and turn a light of welcome into his eyes.

“Why, Sydney! This is most unexpected! I thought you were already on the way to the Pacific. Wasn't that what Mother wrote me last?”

“Oh, but I didn't go!” said Sydney, moving over toward the window hospitably to make room for him. “Fran Tallant called me up and stopped me just in time. So I turned in my ticket and stayed over. Say, isn't this perfectly spiffy, darling. You of all people! I thought you were so thoroughly engrossed in business that nobody could get anywhere near you. But luck does turn, doesn't it? Do you know, there isn't another soul I'd have been as pleased to find sitting down with me as you. It quite makes up for not being able to get a chair. It will be a consolation for having to travel with the angry mob. Are you really going to Silver Beach? Great day!”

Gordon swung his suitcase down in the aisle close to the seat and sat down, firmly endeavoring to adjust the disappointment in his face. He knew that courtesy demanded that he should say the idea was mutual or words to that effect, but he couldn't lie.

“Well, that's kind of you,” he said amusedly. “And do you mean that you are going to Fran Tallant's? Well, now, that's odd, isn't it? And it isn't anything that I expected to do, either. I had just come in from a hard week's work and Fran called me up and said her brother had failed her and wouldn't I come. She didn't know who else she could reach in time. I tried to beg off, for I was worn to a frazzle, but she pleaded so hard I finally said yes, and then had to rush to get the train. If I'd missed it, I would have had to send a telegram instead of going, for I understand this is the last train out there tonight.”

“Yes, so they told me. But say, isn't it grand you didn't miss it? I never met Fran's brother, and it will be darling to have an old friend instead to sport around with.”

She gave him an adoring look. She had evidently taken up a new line, and she no longer attempted to tell him all she knew. That line had failed with him, and she was wise enough to try another.

“Gordon, do you know, your mother was perfectly sweet to me. She took me up to New York and did her best to interest me in the musician of whom I had been told such great things. But he turned out to be rather a flat tire, and I couldn't see being under him all winter in a strange city, so I decided to have a really good time while I was east, and just leave myself free to go anywhere. And that's what I'm doing now. And to think my first date led me to an old friend! How wonderful!”

She edged nearer to him. He could smell the fragrance of the perfume she was using. Not bad! Sweet and subdued and refined. Her dress, too, was most attractive. And she was wearing the prettiest transparent gloves of delicate mesh that gave her hands a most alluring look. A couple of diamonds she was wearing sparkled deliciously through the white meshes, and her little wristwatch, delicately encircled with more small but perfect diamonds, made the hand a lovely thing to contemplate. Once the little hand flashed over to his in a beautiful gesture, not exactly shy, but very frank and free.

“Gordon, do you know you have the darlingest mother?” she said in a low, earnest tone, with a warm pressure of that meshed bejeweled hand on his.

He smiled and looked down at the little hand, half annoyed, half surprised. This wasn't like the former Sydney, this confiding childlikeness. He wanted to get away from her hand, yet not too obviously. He didn't like to be stirred by a warm, well-tended little hand like that. And yet was he a fool? He didn't really belong to anyone else, and he mustn't hurt this girl. Perhaps he had misjudged her. After all, hadn't his mother sort of wished her on him once? Maybe Mother was keener than he was. For Mother's sake, he mustn't hurt her.

“Oh yes,” he answered quickly, “She's a peach of a mother.” And then, “Excuse me,” he said suddenly, “I've just remembered something. Some important papers. I wonder if I've left them behind me in my hurry. If I have, I shall have to get off at the next station and go back, for I can't risk losing them.”

He went wildly feeling through his pockets, and suddenly came upon the little sheaf of letters in the outside pocket next the aisle, the letter he had entirely forgotten. His mother's letter! And now there wouldn't be any chance to read it, as he had hoped. His mother's letters were always a delight, but he didn't like to share them with strangers.

He took the bunch of letters out of his pocket and ran them through lightly, as if he were hunting for some special paper, and it was then he saw Rose's letter, hidden between a business letter and his mother's. The sight of it and the touch of it thrilled him, as no dainty diamond-studded hand could do.

“Oh!” he said, shuffling the letters together and covering them deftly with his hand as he stuffed them into his inner pocket where they seemed to warm his tired heart. “Now I remember where I put it.”

“Have you found it?” asked Sydney eagerly. “You don't have to go back, do you? Because you couldn't anyway. This train is an express and doesn't stop till we get to Silver Beach. What was it that was so important? Couldn't it wait till Monday morning? It's horrid that you have to be tied so to business. You don't seem like a businessman to me. You ought to be having a good time. You're too young to settle down to business. What was your old paper anyway, that was so important?”

“Just something that I was afraid I had mislaid, something I was entrusted with that I couldn't leave around for others to see.” Gordon was half musing as he spoke. Speaking in parables with a double meaning for his own soul. For the thing that he had really been afraid of losing, he told his own heart as he talked, was the precious loyalty that belonged to a kiss he had once given almost casually, a kiss that he found later had been real. And that little hand laid on his, those large handsome eyes looking warmly into his eyes had been reaching out for his fleshly soul and trying to seize that loyalty of his for their own. But he was glad beyond anything, with a great relief, that he had drawn away from that detaining little hand, and could now feel the letter over his heart. Perhaps he was being dramatic, but it seemed to him that that letter had come just in time to bring him to himself, before he dallied with a situation that would have always brought him a memory of weakness. He didn't want to have such memories in his life. They would seem to discount the memory of that kiss on shipboard. It had lived already too long in his heart for him to dishonor it now, even by a passing sensation that belonged to a girl he did not love. If he had wondered but a moment since whether she could ever become one whom he could love, he had no doubt about it now. He felt that Rose had come, with a look of her clear blue eyes, to make him sure that he wanted no girl like this one beside him.

“By the way,” he said animatedly, suddenly rousing himself to distract her attention from the paper he had professed to lose, “have you ever been down to this house at Silver Beach? Do you know what an altogether delightful place it is? You know it is built practically out on the water, at the end of a long, wide pier. And when there is a storm at sea the beauty is wild, tempestuous. You feel as if you were on a ship and about to go down.”

“Oh, horrid! I shouldn't like that. Do you mean we'll be in a place like that tonight? Now you've spoiled the whole thing for me. I shan't sleep a wink tonight, thinking of a possible storm.”

“Oh, you wouldn't anyway, with all the jamboree they'll have going on. They always have a good time, lots of fun and frolic for those who like it.”

“But don't you like it?”

“Well, some of it, but most of it is too sophisticated. I can't say I'm fond of the modern world. And besides, I'm tired as the dickens after the heat and the hard work of the week.”

“You poor thing!” pitied Sydney. “Why can't we go out in the woods? Aren't there woods around there? It seems to me I've heard that.”

“There are trees, yes, and a lovely garden built on the pier, and quiet places here and there. Sometimes moonlight on the sea. But you seldom see much of it at such affairs. There's too much else going on. I fancy you'll find that out as soon as you get there.”

“Oh Gordon! You're spoiling it all! And I thought we were to have such a wonderful time among the pines or something like that. But darling, couldn't you and I wander off and have a quiet restful talk together? That's just what I'm longing for.”

“Try and do it!” laughed Gordon. “You'll probably find that everybody else would rather wander off with us. Besides, if I should go where it's quiet, I'd probably fall asleep, I'm that weary. But don't you worry. You'll find something pleasant for every hour of the day and night. Do you play tennis? They have a wonderful tennis court, and a swimming pool. Isn't that odd, a swimming pool right out above the ocean. Me, I'd much rather have the real ocean than to have it piped through a line and put in a painted pool. However, everything there is odd as it can be, and of course delightful. I'm told there is a very fine collection of Chinese pottery there that the uncle has just brought home from China. He's quite a collector. Are you much up on that sort of thing? You've studied so many odd subjects, have you ever looked into that?”

“Oh, yes,” said Sydney, dropping easily into her former character of mentor. “I spent quite a good deal of time studying Ming. Do you know the characteristics of that? It's fascinating. I'm just wild about them. I have an adorable Ming bowl that I wouldn't part with for a fortune.” She launched into an intricate description of her Ming bowl that lasted while they whirled past several stations. Gordon, who didn't know Ming from a pussy cat, had his mind dreamily on the letters in his pocket, trying to decide which to read first when he got a chance to read either one, then trying to think of another good subject to launch with his young instructor that would occupy the rest of the time until they reached Silver Beach. The less he knew about the subject the better it would be, for she would have all the more to explain to him. And while she was eagerly talking about something in which she was interested, she didn't seem to sit quite so close to him, nor appeal to him with her dainty hands on his arm or his knee quite so often. He loathed being touched. He wondered why she did it. Was it a new line she was practicing? She had seemed too matter-of-fact to be a real flirt, he thought.

It was strange about minds. You could keep yours going, asking an almost intelligent question about a thing of which you were wholly ignorant, and yet in another part or section of your mind you could keep up a wholly different line of thoughts, with visions of absent ones, and imagined conversations running along much nearer to your real self than the actual conversation.

But at this stage the train slid into a station with the obvious intention of stopping. Sydney looked out and then cried ecstatically, “Here we are at last! Silver Beach! And oh, Gordon, I'm so
proud
to be arriving in your company!”

She slid her pretty gloved hand inside his arm and nestled closer, emphasizing every word with a little sort of squeeze. My! How he hated it.

Quietly but firmly, he removed her hand from his arm and rose, saying in a matter-of-fact tone, “Yes, it seems we have arrived. Is this all your baggage up here?”

“Oh, yes,” she said deprecatingly. “I had to bring everything I had with me, for I didn't know just where I was going next, you know. Don't you bother. Call the porter, please.”

But Gordon swung her things down, bags and boxes and magazines, and a big box of candy, in addition to the suitcase at her feet, and piled them up, a barricade between himself and her, as he stood out in the aisle while the train came to a stop.

He was relieved to find a big limousine at the station waiting for them, with a couple of girls and a young man he knew already in it, and amid the clamorous greetings he managed to place Miss Sydney Repplier in the back seat with one of the girls and the young man while he and the other girl took the middle seats. He could see that Miss Repplier made several attempts to change with the other girl, without success, and he felt a wicked glee that he had escaped. What was it about Sydney, anyway, that made him feel almost afraid of her, afraid of that delicately pretty firm white hand on his hand, on his arm, afraid of her big pleading eyes looking into his. Why did he feel as if she had some kind of drawing power like quicksand that might even yet overwhelm him and spoil the beauty of his future? She was a nice girl, a beautiful girl in a way. But not a girl he wanted.

Amid the bevy of servants when they arrived at their destination, he managed to escape from her purring possession and was rejoiced to have a few moments in his room by himself to read his letters before the other fellows came in. Somehow he didn't feel a part of this affair at all. He wanted to get out and away. And after he had read Rose's letter he felt even more so. There were thoughts in that letter that he wanted time and quiet to digest. Thoughts that seemed too wholly sacred for any touch with this world in which he had been caught for the evening and the morrow. Conformed to the image of His Son! How could this experience in which he had allowed himself to be involved help in any way toward conforming him to the Son of God?

He was glad when they came down to dinner to discover that he was not seated next to Sydney, though he could see there was annoyance on her face, and he heard her telling in a clear voice that all could hear, that she had come down in company with Gordon McCarroll. He smiled affably at the young woman on his right and absorbed himself so fully in conversation that Sydney could not possibly think he had heard her. And he managed to convince Fran, whose troubled gaze was wandering up and down the table to make sure she had seated people pleasantly, that he was entirely satisfied with the way she had arranged matters, even if Sydney wasn't. He set his jaw a bit firmly in an interval of talk, resolving to make some excuse and find a way to get back to the city tonight or very early in the morning if it could possibly be done.