Part 10 (1/2)

”Excuse me,” said the other, with a smile; ”but I think you might have spent it better. That kind of literature only leads to disorder and anarchy. It may have been useful at one time; it is useful no longer.

Enough of ploughing has been done: we want sowing done now--we want writers who will build up instead of pulling down. Those Nihilists,” he added, almost with a sigh, ”are becoming more and more impracticable.

They aim at scarcely anything beyond destruction.”

Here Natalie changed the conversation. This was too bright and beautiful a day to admit of despondency.

”I suppose you love the sea, Mr. Brand?” she said. ”All Englishmen do.

And yachting--I suppose you go yachting?”

”I have tried it; but it is too tedious for me,” said Brand. ”The sort of yachting I like is in a vessel of five thousand tons, going three hundred and eighty miles a day. With half a gale of wind in your teeth in the 'rolling Forties,' then there is some fun.”

”I must go over to the States very soon,” Mr. Lind said.

”Papa!”

”The worst of it is,” her father said, without heeding that exclamation of protest, ”that I have so much to do that can only be done by word of mouth.”

”I wish I could take the message for you,” Brand said, lightly. ”When the weather looks decent, I very often take a run across to New York, put up for a few days at the Brevoort House, and take the next s.h.i.+p home. It is very enjoyable, especially if you know the officers. Then the bagman--I have acquired a positive love for the bagman.”

”The what?” said Natalie.

”The bagman. The 'commy' his friends call him. The commercial traveller, don't you know? He is a most capital fellow--full of life and fun, desperately facetious, delighting in practical jokes: altogether a wonderful creature. You begin to think you are in another generation--before England became melancholy--the generation, for example, that roared over the adventures of Tom and Jerry.”

Natalie did not know who Tom and Jerry were; but that was of little consequence; for at this moment they began to descry ”the white chalk-line beyond the sea”--the white line of the English coast. And they went on chatting cheerfully; and the sunlight flashed its diamonds on the blue waters around them, and the white chalk cliffs became more distinct.

”And yet it seems so heartless for one to be going back to idleness,”

Natalie Lind said, absently. ”Papa works as hard in England as anywhere else; but what can I do? To think of one going back to peaceful days, and comfort, and pleasant friends, when others have to go through such misery, and to fight against such persecution! When Vjera Sa.s.sulitch offered me her hand--”

She stopped abruptly, with a quick, frightened look, first at George Brand, then at her father.

”You need not hesitate, Natalie,” her father said, calmly. ”Mr. Brand has given me his word of honor he will reveal nothing he may hear from us.”

”I do not think you need be afraid,” said Brand; but all the same he was conscious of a keen pang of mortification. He, too, had noticed that quick look of fright and distrust. What did it mean, then? ”_You are beside us, you are near to us; but you are not of us, you are not with us._”

He was silent, and she was silent too. She seemed ashamed of her indiscretion, and would say nothing further about Vjera Sa.s.sulitch.

”Don't imagine, Mr. Brand,” said her father, to break this awkward silence, ”that what Natalie says is true. She is not going to be so idle as all that. No; she has plenty of hard work before her--at least, I think it hard work--translating from the German into Polish.”

”I wish I could help,” Brand said, in a low voice. ”I do not know a word of Polish.”

”You help?” she said, regarding him with the beautiful dark eyes, that had a sudden wonder in them. ”Would you, if you knew Polish?”

He met that straight, fearless glance without flinching; and he said ”Yes,” while they still looked at each other. Then her eyes fell; and perhaps there was the slightest flush of embarra.s.sment, or pleasure, on the pale, handsome face.

But how quickly her spirits rose! There was no more talk of politics as they neared England. He described the successive s.h.i.+ps to her; he called her attention to the strings of wild-duck flying up Channel; he named the various headlands to her. Then, as they got nearer and nearer, the little Anneli had to be sought out, and the various travelling impedimenta got together. It did not occur to Mr. Lind or his daughter as strange that George Brand should be travelling without any luggage whatever.

But surely it must have occurred to them as remarkable that a bachelor should have had a saloon-carriage reserved for himself--unless, indeed, they reflected that a rich Englishman was capable of any whimsical extravagance. Then, no sooner had Miss Lind entered this carriage, than it seemed as though everything she could think of was being brought for her. Such flowers did not grow in railway-stations--especially in the month of March. Had the fruit dropped from the telegraph-poles? Cakes, wine, tea, magazines and newspapers appeared to come without being asked for.

”Mr. Brand,” said Natalie, ”you must be an English Monte Cristo: do you clap your hands, and the things appear?”