Part 35 (1/2)

”I--am afraid we must wait for another time,” said Annesley. ”My husband has business. He can't waste a day----”

”Surely you won't turn your back on New York the day you arrive, the first time you've ever seen it!” cried the New York woman. ”Why, it's sacrilege! You must stay with us one night. If you could see the _darling_ new room we'll put you in: old rose and pearl gray, and Cupids holding up the bed curtains!”

In desperation the girl stuck to her point, no longer daring to look at Knight.

”Indeed we mustn't stay, even for one night. If there's a train the same afternoon----”

”There's a lovely train,” Mrs. Waldo admitted, unable to resist praising the American railway system. ”We call it the 'Limited.' You can have a beautiful stateroom, and run right through to Chicago without changing.

If they must go, we'll see them off, won't we, Steve?” with a glance for the silent husband, ”and bring them books and chocolates and flowers?”

What was left for Annesley to say? Short of informing the kindly couple that they were not wanted and had better mind their own business, and refusing to decide upon a train, she could do nothing except thank Mrs.

Waldo.

”Perhaps,” she thought, ”they will forget, and things will settle themselves between now and then. Or else I shall patch up some excuse.”

When the invitation was given, the _Minnewanda_ was still four days distant from New York; but the four days, though seeming long, were not long enough to produce the prayed-for inspiration. Mrs. Waldo referred to the journey whenever she saw Annesley, so there was no hope of her scheme being forgotten; and the nearer loomed the new world, the more clearly the girl was forced to see the thing to which a few hasty words had committed her.

She and Knight had staterooms adjoining, with a door between. That was to save appearances, and it was no one's business that the door was never opened. In reality, they might as well have had the length of the s.h.i.+p between their cabins.

Annesley kept to her own quarters as constantly as her jangled nerves would allow; but the sea was provokingly smooth, and she proved to be a good sailor. She felt as if she might become hysterical, and perhaps do something foolish, if she tried the experiment of shutting herself up from morning to night. She paced the deck, therefore, and was dimly grateful to Knight because he seemed always to be in the smoking room when she took her walks.

At meals, however, unless she ate in her stateroom, they could not avoid each other; and again she felt cause for grat.i.tude because Knight had accepted the Waldos' suggestion that they should take a table for four.

In spite of the Waldos' unwelcome attentions, their society was preferable--infinitely preferable--to a duet with Knight.

They talked on such occasions; and the sharpest-eared scandal mongers could have guessed at nothing strange from their manner. But, save at these luncheons and these dinners, they scarcely spoke to each other.

Knight took his cue from Annesley. After the night when he had knelt at her feet and begged her forgiveness he had never forced himself upon his wife. He seemed to have a dread of being thought an intruder, and even withdrew his eyes guiltily if the girl caught him looking at her with the old wistful gaze to whose mystery she had now a tragic clue.

Annesley hoped that, before they landed, Knight might make some opportunity to discuss ways and means of getting out of the dilemma created by the Waldos. But he never attempted to begin a conversation with her, and she put off the evil moment from day to day, telling herself that there was time yet, and he had probably solved the problem--he, who was a specialist in solving problems.

Loving the man no longer, her heart seeming to die anew whenever she even thought of him, there remained still a ghost of her old trust; an almost resentful confidence that he who was so clever, so hideously clever, would be capable of overcoming any difficulty.

”I told him that I'd go with him on the s.h.i.+p, and that then we must part,” she a.s.sured herself, lying awake at night, wondering feverishly what was to happen in New York. ”He said we'd see about all that later, but he must know by the way I act that I haven't changed my mind. He will have to get me out of the trouble about the train.”

The girl, in mapping the future, had thought of herself as being a governess for American children. She did not know many things which governesses ought to know, but if the children were small enough, she did not see why she mightn't do very well.

She could sing and play as nine girls out of ten could. She had been told that she had quite a Parisian accent in French; and as for arithmetic and geography and other alarming things which children ought to know and grown-up people forget, one could teach them with the proper books.

Besides, she had heard that Americans liked to have English governesses for their children; it was considered ”smart.”

She would go to an agent, and it ought to be easy to find a place in the country or suburbs. It must not be New York, for fear of some chance meeting with the Waldos. But if worst came to worst, and because of those everlasting Waldos she had to get into the train with Knight, she would get out again at the first good-sized place where it stopped. There must be agencies for governesses and companions in every large town. One would serve as well as another.

As for money, she knew that she must have some to go on with until she could begin to earn. So far she had been forced to let Knight pay her way, as he said, out of the ”good” fund. Her coming with him had been for his sake, and to spare him from gossip. For herself, she was in no mood to care what people said.

But now, in sailing to America as his wife, she had done all that she had ever promised to do. He would have to arrange things as best he could.

Somehow the right time did not come to ask him what he intended to do; for at the table, or if occasionally they were on deck together, they were never alone.

The s.h.i.+p docked late in the morning, and Knight was busy with the custom-house men. It was noon when their luggage had been examined and could be sent away; and the Waldos, under letter ”W,” were released at the same moment that the Nelson Smiths, under ”S,” were able to escape.