Part 12 (2/2)
At five o'clock on Thursday afternoon the Saronia slipped smoothly away from a Liverpool dock. Twenty-five hundred Americans--about twice the number the boat could comfortably carry--stood on her decks and cheered.
Some of those in that crowd who had millions of money were booked for the steerage. All of them were destined to experience during that crossing hunger, annoyance, discomfort. They were to be stepped on, sat on, crowded and jostled. They suspected as much when the boat left the dock. Yet they cheered!
Gayest among them was Geoffrey West, triumphant amid the confusion. He was safely aboard; the boat was on its way! Little did it trouble him that he went as a stowaway, since he had no ticket; nothing but an overwhelming determination to be on the good s.h.i.+p Saronia.
That night as the Saronia stole along with all deck lights out and every porthole curtained, West saw on the dim deck the slight figure of a girl who meant much to him. She was standing staring out over the black waters; and, with wildly beating heart, he approached her, not knowing what to say, but feeling that a start must be made somehow.
”Please pardon me for addressing--” he began. ”But I want to tell you--”
She turned, startled; and then smiled an odd little smile, which he could not see in the dark.
”I beg your pardon,” she said. ”I haven't met you, that I recall--”
”I know,” he answered. ”That's going to be arranged to-morrow. Mrs.
Tommy Gray says you crossed with them--”
”Mere steamer acquaintances,” the girl replied coldly.
”Of course! But Mrs. Gray is a darling--she'll fix that all right. I just want to say, before to-morrow comes--”
”Wouldn't it be better to wait?”
”I can't! I'm on this s.h.i.+p without a ticket. I've got to go down in a minute and tell the purser that. Maybe he'll throw me overboard; maybe he'll lock me up. I don't know what they do with people like me. Maybe they'll make a stoker of me. And then I shall have to stoke, with no chance of seeing you again. So that's why I want to say now--I'm sorry I have such a keen imagination. It carried me away--really it did!
I didn't mean to deceive you with those letters; but, once I got started--You know, don't you, that I love you with all my heart? From the moment you came into the Carlton that morning I--”
”Really--Mr.--Mr.--”
”West--Geoffrey West. I adore you! What can I do to prove it? I'm going to prove it--before this s.h.i.+p docks in the North River. Perhaps I'd better talk to your father, and tell him about the Agony Column and those seven letters--”
”You'd better not! He's in a terribly bad humor. The dinner was awful, and the steward said we'd be looking back to it and calling it a banquet before the voyage ends. Then, too, poor dad says he simply can not sleep in the stateroom they've given him--”
”All the better! I'll see him at once. If he stands for me now he'll stand for me any time! And, before I go down and beard a harsh-looking purser in his den, won't you believe me when I say I'm deeply in love--”
”In love with mystery and romance! In love with your own remarkable powers of invention! Really, I can't take you seriously--”
”Before this voyage is ended you'll have to. I'll prove to you that I care. If the purser lets me go free--”
”You have much to prove,” the girl smiled. ”To-morrow--when Mrs. Tommy Gray introduces us--I may accept you--as a builder of plots. I happen to know you are good. But--as--It's too silly! Better go and have it out with that purser.”
Reluctantly he went. In five minutes he was back. The girl was still standing by the rail.
”It's all right!” West said. ”I thought I was doing something original, but there were eleven other people in the same fix. One of them is a billionaire from Wall Street. The purser collected some money from us and told us to sleep on the deck--if we could find room.”
”I'm sorry,” said the girl. ”I rather fancied you in the role of stoker.” She glanced about her at the dim deck. ”Isn't this exciting?
I'm sure this voyage is going to be filled with mystery and romance.”
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