Part 21 (1/2)
”Poor fellow! When I told him last night that I was to be married within a year he actually trembled from head to foot. I never was so miserable over a thing in my life,” she said dismally. ”Really, Hugh, I can't bear to think of him finding out how we have played with him.”
”Shall I tell him all about it?” asked he in troubled tones.
”Then I should not be able to look him in the face. Dear me, elopements have their drawbacks, haven't they?”
Other pa.s.sengers joined them, Veath and Lady Huntingford among them. In the group were Captain Shadburn, Mr. and Mrs. Evarts, Mr. Higsworth and his daughter Rosella, Lieutenant Hamilton--a das.h.i.+ng young fellow who was an old and particularly good friend of Lady Huntingford. Hugh noted, with strange satisfaction, that Hamilton seemed unusually devoted to Miss Higsworth. In a most casual manner he took his stand at the rail beside her Ladys.h.i.+p, who had coaxed Captain Shadburn to tell them his story of the great typhoon.
Presently, a chance came to address her.
”Grace tells me that your name is an odd one, for a girl--woman, I mean--Tennyson. Were you named for the poet?”
”Yes. My father knew him well. Odd, isn't it? My friends call me Lady Tennys. By the way, you have not told Grace what I told you last night on deck, have you?” she asked.
”I should say not. Does she suspect that you know her secret and mine?”
he asked in return.
”She does not dream that I know. Ah, I believe I am beginning to learn what love is. I wors.h.i.+p your sweetheart, Hugh Ridgeway.”
”If you could love as she loves me, Lady Huntingford, you might know what love really is.”
”What a strange thing it must be that you and she can know it and I cannot,” she mused, looking wistfully at the land afar off.
At Aden everybody went ash.o.r.e while the s.h.i.+p coaled at Steamer Point, on the western side of the rock, three miles from the town proper.
Mult.i.tudes of Jewish ostrich-feather merchants and Somali boys gave the travellers amus.e.m.e.nt at the landing and in the coast part of the town.
The Americans began to breathe what Hugh called a genuinely oriental atmosphere.
They were far from Aden when night came down and with it the most gorgeous sunset imaginable. Everybody was on deck. The sky was aflame, the waters blazed and all the world seemed about to be swept up in the wondrous conflagration. Late in the afternoon a bank of clouds had grown up from the western line, and as the sun dropped behind them they glowed with the intensity of fiercely fanned coals of huge dimensions. At last the fiery hues faded away, the giant holocaust of the skies drew to an end, and the soft afterglow spread across the dome, covering it with a tranquil beauty more sublime than words can paint.
Grace looked eagerly among the impressed spectators for Henry Veath.
Somehow she longed for him to see all this beauty that had given her so much pleasure. He was not there and she was conscious of a guilty depression. She was sitting with Hugh and Lady Huntingford when, long afterward, Veath approached.
”I'd like a word with you, Hugh,” he said after the greetings, ”when the ladies have gone below.”
”It is getting late and I am really very tired,” said Grace. It was quite dark, or they could have seen that her face was pale and full of concern. She knew instinctively what it was that Veath wanted to say to Hugh. Then she did something she had never done before in the presence of another. She walked quickly to Hugh's side, bent over and kissed his lips, almost as he gasped in astonishment.
”Good-night, dear,” she said, quite audibly, and was gone with Lady Huntingford. The astounded lover was some time in recovering from the surprise inspired by her unexpected act. It was the first time she had ever been sisterly in that fas.h.i.+on before the eyes of others.
”I hope I have said nothing to offend them,” said Veath miserably. ”Was I too abrupt?”
”Not in the least. They've seen enough for one night anyhow, and I guess they were only waiting for an excuse to go below,” replied Hugh. To himself he said, ”I wonder what the d.i.c.kens Grace did that for? And why was Lady Huntingford so willing to leave?”
Veath sat nervously wriggling his thumbs, plainly ill at ease. His jaw was set, however, and there was a look in his eyes which signified a determination to brave it out.
”You know me pretty well by this time, Hugh,” he said. Hugh awoke from his abstraction and displayed immediate interest. ”You know that I am straightforward and honest, if nothing else. There is also in my make-up a pride which you may never have observed or suspected, and it is of this that I want to speak before attempting to say something which will depend altogether upon the way you receive the introduction.”
”Go ahead, Henry. You're serious to-night, and I can see that something heavy is upon your mind.”
”It is a very serious matter, I can a.s.sure you. Well, as you perhaps know from my remarks or allusions on previous occasions, I am a poor devil. I have nothing on earth but the salary I can earn, and you can guess what that will amount to in Manila. My father educated me as best he could, and I worked my way through college after he had given me to understand that he was unable to send me there himself. When I was graduated, I accepted a position with a big firm in its engineering service. Within a year I was notified that I could have a five months'
lay-off, as they call it. At the end of that period, if matters improved, I was to have my place back. Out of my wages I saved a couple of hundred dollars, but it dwindled as I drifted through weeks of idleness. There was nothing for me to do, try as I would to find a place. It was a hard pill to swallow, after four years of the kind of work I had done in college, but I had to throw every plan to the winds and go to the Philippines. My uncle, who is rich, sent me money enough to prepare for the voyage, and here I am, sneaking off to the jungles, disgusted, discouraged and disappointed. To-night I sit before you with less than one hundred dollars as the sum total of my earthly possessions.”