Part 56 (1/2)

”You must know men here whom it would be good for him to see; why don't you offer to----” Mrs. Fair ceased and there was no response, except that Barbara said, behind her smiling lips,

”It's because he's in bad hands, and still I have not warned him!”

March did not see them again that day. In the evening, two men, friends, sitting in the hotel's rotunda, were conjecturing who yonder guest might be to whose inquiries the clerk was so promptly attentive.

”He's a Southerner, that's plain; and a gentleman, that's just as certain.”

”Yes, if he were not both he would not be so perfectly at home in exactly the right clothes and yet look as if he had spent most of his life in swimming.”

”He hasn't got exactly the right overcoat; it's too light and thin.”

”No, but that's the crowning proof that he's a Southerner.” It was John.

They hearkened to the clerk. ”He's just gone to the theatre, Mr. March, he and both ladies. He was asking for you. I think he wanted you to go.”

”I reckon not,” said John, abstractedly, and in his fancy saw Miss Garnet explaining to her friends, with a restrained smile, that in Suez to join the church was to abjure the theatre. But another clerk spoke:

”Mr. March, did you--here's a note for you.”

The clerk knew it was from Miss Garnet, and was chagrined to see John, after once reading it, dreamily tear it up and drop it to the floor.

Still it increased his respect for the young millionaire--Mr. March, that is. It was as if he had lighted his cigar with a ten-dollar bill.

John wrote his answer upstairs, taking a good deal of time and pains to give it an air of dash and haste, and accepting, with cordial thanks, Mr. and Mrs. Fair's cordial invitation to go with them (and Miss Garnet, writing at their request) next day to church. Which in its right time he did.

On his way back to the hotel with Miss Garnet after service, John was nothing less than pained--though he took care not to let her know it--to find how far astray she was as to some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. For fear she might find out his distress, he took his midday meal alone. And indeed, Miss Garnet may have had her suspicions, for over their ice-cream and coffee she said amusedly to Mrs. Fair, and evidently in reference to him,

”I am afraid it was only the slightness of our acquaintance that kept him from being pos-i-tive-ly pet-u-lent.”

She seemed amused, I say, but an hour or so later, in her own room, she called herself a goose and somebody else another, and glancing at the mirror, caught two tears attempting to escape. She drove them back with a vigorous stamp of the foot and proceeded to dress for a cold afternoon walk among the quieted wonders of a resting city, without the Fairs, but not wholly alone.

LIX.

THIS TIME SHE WARNS HIM

As Miss Garnet and her escort started forth upon this walk, I think you would have been tempted to confirm the verdict of two men who, meeting and pa.s.sing them, concluded that the escort was wasting valuable time when they heard him say,

”It did startle me to hear how lightly you regard what you call a memorized religion.”

But this mood soon pa.s.sed. A gentleman and lady, presently overtaking them, heard her confess, ”I know I don't know as much as I think I do; I only wish I knew as much as I don't.” Whereat her escort laughed admiringly, and during the whole subsequent two hours of their promenade scarcely any observer noticed the slightness of their acquaintance.

Across the fields around Suez their conversation would have been sprightly enough, I warrant. But as here they saw around them one and another amazing triumph of industry and art, they grew earnest, spoke exaltedly of this great age, and marvelled at the tangle of chances that had thrown them here together. John called it, pensively, a most happy fortune for himself, but Barbara in reply only invited his attention to the beauty of the street vista behind them.

Half a square farther on he came out of a brown study.

”Miss Barb”--It was the first time he had ever said that, and though she lifted her glance in sober inquiry, the music of it ran through all her veins.

”--Miss Barb, isn't it astonis.h.i.+ng, the speed with which acquaintance can grow, under favorable conditions?”