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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of One Day's Courtship, by Robert Barr
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: One Day's Courtship
+       The Heralds of Fame
+
+Author: Robert Barr
+
+Posting Date: March 22, 2014 [EBook #9305]
+Release Date: November, 2005
+First Posted: September 29, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE DAY'S COURTSHIP ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders from images generously made
+available by the Canadian Institute for Historical
+Microreproductions
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ONE DAY'S
+
+COURTSHIP
+
+AND
+
+THE HERALDS OF FAME
+
+
+BY ROBERT BARR
+
+
+
+AUTHOR OF "A WOMAN INTERVENES," "IN THE MIDST OF ALARMS," "THE FACE AND
+THE MASK," "FROM WHOSE BOURNE," ETC.
+
+
+WITH FRONTISPIECE BY E. FREDERICK
+
+
+
+1896
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+John Trenton, artist, put the finishing touches to the letter he was
+writing, and then read it over to himself. It ran as follows:--
+
+  "MY DEAR ED.,
+
+  "I sail for England on the 27th. But before I leave I want to have
+  another look at the Shawenegan Falls. Their roar has been in my ears
+  ever since I left there. That tremendous hillside of foam is before my
+  eyes night and day. The sketches I took are not at all satisfactory,
+  so this time I will bring my camera with me, and try to get some
+  snapshots at the falls.
+
+  "Now, what I ask is this. I want you to hold that canoe for me against
+  all comers for Tuesday. Also, those two expert half-breeds. Tell them
+  I am coming, and that there is money in it if they take me up and back
+  as safely as they did before. I don't suppose there will be much
+  demand for the canoe on that day; in fact, it astonishes me that
+  Americans, who appreciate the good things of our country better than
+  we do ourselves, practically know nothing of this superb cataract
+  right at their own doors. I suppose your new canoe is not finished
+  yet, and as the others are up in the woods I write so that you will
+  keep this particular craft for me. I do not wish to take any risks, as
+  I leave so soon. Please drop me a note to this hotel at Quebec, and I
+  will meet you in Le Gres on Tuesday morning at daybreak.
+
+  "Your friend,
+
+  "JOHN TRENTON."
+
+Mason was a millionaire and a lumber king, but every one called him
+Ed. He owned baronial estates in the pine woods, and saw-mills without
+number. Trenton had brought a letter of introduction to him from
+a mutual friend in Quebec, who had urged the artist to visit the
+Shawenegan Falls. He heard the Englishman inquire about the cataract,
+and told him that he knew the man who would give him every facility
+for reaching the falls. Trenton's acquaintance with Mason was about a
+fortnight old, but already they were the firmest of friends. Any one who
+appreciated the Shawenegan Falls found a ready path to the heart of the
+big lumberman. It was almost impossible to reach the falls without the
+assistance of Mr. Mason. However, he was no monopolist. Any person
+wishing to visit the cataract got a canoe from the lumber king free
+of all cost, except a tip to the two boatmen who acted as guides and
+watermen. The artist had not long to wait for his answer. It was--
+
+  "My DEAR JOHN,
+
+  "The canoe is yours; the boatmen are yours: and the Shawenegan is
+  yours for Tuesday. Also,
+
+  "I am yours,
+
+  "E. MASON."
+
+On Monday evening John Trenton stepped off the C. P. R. train at Three
+Rivers. With a roughing-it suit on, and his camera slung over his
+shoulders, no one would have taken him for the successful landscape
+artist who on Piccadilly was somewhat particular about his attire.
+
+John Trenton was not yet R. A., nor even A. R. A., but all his friends
+would tell you that, if the Royal Academy was not governed by a clique,
+he would have been admitted long ago, and that anyhow it was only a
+question of time. In fact, John admitted this to himself, but to no one
+else.
+
+He entered the ramshackle 'bus, and was driven a long distance through
+very sandy streets to the hotel on the St. Lawrence, and, securing a
+room, made arrangements to be called before daybreak. He engaged the
+same driver who had taken him out to "The Greys," as it was locally
+called, on the occasion of his former visit.
+
+The morning was cold and dark. Trenton found the buckboard at the door,
+and he put his camera under the one seat--a kind of a box for the
+holding of bits of harness and other odds and ends. As he buttoned up
+his overcoat he noticed that a great white steamer had come in the
+night, and was tied up in front of the hotel.
+
+"The Montreal boat," explained the driver.
+
+As they drove along the silent streets of Three Rivers, Trenton called
+to mind how, on the former occasion, he thought the Lower Canada
+buckboard by all odds, the most uncomfortable vehicle he had ever ridden
+in, and he felt that his present experience was going to corroborate
+this first impression. The seat was set in the centre, between the front
+and back wheels, on springy boards, and every time the conveyance jolted
+over a log--a not unfrequent occurrence--the seat went down and the back
+bent forward, as if to throw him over on the heels of the patient horse.
+
+The road at first was long and straight and sandy, but during the latter
+part of the ride there were plenty of hills, up many of which a plank
+roadway ran; so that loads which it would be impossible to take through
+the deep sand, might be hauled up the steep incline.
+
+At first the houses they passed had a dark and deserted look; then a
+light twinkled here and there. The early habitant was making his fire.
+As daylight began gradually to bring out the landscape, the sharp sound
+of the distant axe was heard. The early habitant was laying in his day's
+supply of firewood.
+
+"Do you notice how the dawn slowly materialises the landscape?" said the
+artist to the boy beside him.
+
+The boy saw nothing wonderful about that. Daylight always did it.
+
+"Then it is not unusual in these parts? You see, I am very seldom up at
+this hour."
+
+The boy wished that was his case.
+
+"Does it not remind you of a photographer in a dark room carefully
+developing a landscape plate? Not one of those rapid plates, you know,
+but a slow, deliberate plate."
+
+No, it didn't remind him of anything of the kind. He had never seen
+either a slow or a rapid plate developed.
+
+"Then you have no prejudices as to which is the best developer,
+pyrogallic acid or ferrous oxalate, not to mention such recent
+decoctions as eikonogen, quinol, and others?"
+
+No, the boy had none.
+
+"Well, that's what I like. I like a young man whose mind is open to
+conviction."
+
+The boy was not a conversational success. He evidently did not enter
+into the spirit of the artist's remarks. He said most people got off at
+that point and walked to warm up, and asked Trenton if he would not like
+to follow their example.
+
+"No, my boy," said the Englishman, "I don't think I shall. You see, I
+have paid for this ride, and I want to get all I can out of it. I shall
+shiver here and try to get the worth of my money. But with you it is
+different. If you want to get down, do so. I will drive."
+
+The boy willingly handed over the reins, and sprang out on the road.
+Trenton, who was a boy himself that morning, at once whipped up the
+horse and dashed down the hill to get away from the driver. When a good
+half-mile had been worried out of the astonished animal, Trenton looked
+back to see the driver come panting after. The young man was calmly
+sitting on the back part of the buckboard, and when the horse began to
+walk again, the boy slid off, and, without a smile on his face, trotted
+along at the side.
+
+"That fellow has evidently a quiet sense of humour, although he is so
+careful not to show it," said Trenton to himself.
+
+On reaching the hilltop, they caught a glimpse of the rim of the sun
+rising gloriously over the treetops on the other side of the St. Maurice
+River. Trenton stopped the horse, and the boy looked up to see what was
+wrong. He could not imagine any one stopping merely to look at the sun.
+
+"Isn't that splendid?" cried Trenton, with a deep breath, as he watched
+the great globe slowly ascend into the sky. The distant branches of the
+trees were delicately etched against its glowing surface, and seemed to
+cling to it like tendrils, slipping further and further down as the sun
+leisurely disentangled itself, and at last stood in its incomparable
+grandeur full above the forest.
+
+The woods all around had on their marvellous autumn tints, and now the
+sun added a living lustre to them that made the landscape more brilliant
+than anything the artist had ever seen before.
+
+"Ye gods!" he cried enthusiastically, "that scene is worth coming from
+England to have one glimpse of."
+
+"See here," said the driver, "if you want to catch Ed. Mason before he's
+gone to the woods you'll have to hurry up. It's getting late."
+
+"True, O driver. You have brought me from the sun to the earth. Have you
+ever heard of the person who fell from the sun to the earth?"
+
+No, he hadn't.
+
+"Well, that was before your time. You will never take such a tumble. I--I
+suppose they don't worship the sun in these parts?"
+
+No, they didn't.
+
+"When you come to think of it, that is very strange. Have you ever
+reflected that it is always in warm countries they worship the sun? Now,
+I should think it ought to be just the other way about. Do you know that
+when I got on with you this morning I was eighty years old, every day of
+it. What do you think my age is now?"
+
+"Eighty years, sir."
+
+"Not a bit of it. I'm eighteen. The sun did it. And yet they claim there
+is no fountain of youth. What fools people are, my boy!"
+
+The young man looked at his fare slyly, and cordially agreed with him.
+
+"You certainly _have_ a concealed sense of humour," said the artist.
+
+They wound down a deep cut in the hill, and got a view of the lumber
+village--their destination. The roar of the waters tumbling over the
+granite rocks--the rocks from which the village takes its name--came up
+the ravine. The broad river swept in a great semicircle to their right,
+and its dark waters were flecked with the foam of the small falls near
+the village, and the great cataract miles up the river. It promised to
+be a perfect autumn day. The sky, which had seemed to Trenton overcast
+when they started, was now one deep dome of blue without even the
+suggestion of a cloud.
+
+The buckboard drew up at the gate of the house in which Mr. Mason lived
+when he was in the lumber village, although his home was at Three
+Rivers. The old Frenchwoman, Mason's housekeeper, opened the door for
+Trenton, and he remembered as he went in how the exquisite cleanliness
+of everything had impressed him during his former visit. She smiled
+as she recognised the genial Englishman. She had not forgotten his
+compliments in her own language on her housekeeping some months before,
+and perhaps she also remembered his liberality. Mr. Mason, she said, had
+gone to the river to see after the canoe, leaving word that he would
+return in a few minutes. Trenton, who knew the house, opened the door at
+his right, to enter the sitting-room and leave there his morning wraps,
+which the increasing warmth rendered no longer necessary. As he burst
+into the room in his impetuous way, he was taken aback to see standing
+at the window, looking out towards the river, a tall young woman.
+Without changing her position, she looked slowly around at the intruder.
+Trenton's first thought was a hasty wish that he were better dressed.
+His roughing-it costume, which up to that time had seemed so
+comfortable, now appeared uncouth and out of place. He felt as if he had
+suddenly found himself in a London drawing-room with a shooting-jacket
+on. But this sensation was quickly effaced by the look which the beauty
+gave him over her shoulder. Trenton, in all his experience, had
+never encountered such a glance of indignant scorn. It was a look of
+resentment and contempt, with just a dash of feminine reproach in it.
+
+"What have I done?" thought the unhappy man; then he stammered aloud,
+"I--I--really--I beg your pardon. I thought the--ah--room was empty."
+
+The imperious young woman made no reply. She turned to the window again,
+and Trenton backed out of the room as best he could.
+
+"Well!" he said to himself, as he breathed with relief the outside air
+again, "that was the rudest thing I ever knew a lady to do. She _is_ a
+lady, there is no doubt of that. There is nothing of the backwoods
+about her. But she might at least have answered me. What have I done, I
+wonder? It must be something terrible and utterly unforgivable, whatever
+it is. Great heavens!" he murmured, aghast at the thought, "I hope that
+girl isn't going up to the Shawenegan Falls."
+
+Trenton was no ladies' man. The presence of women always disconcerted
+him, and made him feel awkward and boorish. He had been too much of a
+student in higher art to acquire the smaller art of the drawing-room. He
+felt ill at ease in society, and seemed to have a fatal predilection
+for saying the wrong thing, and suffered the torture afterwards of
+remembering what the right thing would have been.
+
+Trenton stood at the gate for a moment, hoping Mason would come.
+Suddenly he remembered with confusion that he was directly in range of
+those disdainful eyes in the parlour, and he beat a hasty retreat toward
+the old mill that stood by the falls. The roar of the turbulent water
+over the granite rocks had a soothing effect on the soul of the man who
+knew he was a criminal, yet could not for the life of him tell what his
+crime had been. Then he wandered up the river-bank toward where he saw
+the two half-breeds placing the canoe in the still water at the further
+end of the village. Half-way there he was relieved to meet the genial
+Ed. Mason, who greeted him, as Trenton thought, with a somewhat
+overwrought effusion. There evidently was something on the genial Ed.'s
+mind.
+
+"Hello, old man," he cried, shaking Trenton warmly by the hand. "Been
+here long? Well, I declare, I'm glad to see you. Going to have a
+splendid day for it, aren't you? Yes, sir, I _am_ glad to see you."
+
+"When a man says that twice in one breath, a fellow begins to doubt him.
+Now, you good-natured humbug, what's the matter? What have I done? How
+did you find me out? Who turned Queen's evidence? Look here, Edward
+Mason, why are you _not_ glad to see me?"
+
+"Nonsense; you know I am. No one could be more welcome. By the way, my
+wife's here. You never met her, I think?"
+
+"I saw a young lady remarkably----"
+
+"No, no; that is Miss ----. By the way, Trenton, I want you to do me a
+favour, now that I think of it. Of course the canoe is yours for to-day,
+but that young woman wants to go up to the Shawenegan. You wouldn't mind
+her going up with you, would you? You see, I have no other canoe to-day,
+and she can't stay till to-morrow."
+
+"I shall be delighted, I'm sure," answered Trenton. But he didn't look
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Eva Sommerton, of Boston, knew that she lived in the right portion of
+that justly celebrated city, and this knowledge was evident in the
+poise of her queenly head, and in every movement of her graceful form.
+Blundering foreigners--foreigners as far as Boston is concerned,
+although they may be citizens of the United States--considered Boston
+to be a large city, with commerce and railroads and busy streets and
+enterprising newspapers, but the true Bostonian knows that this view is
+very incorrect. The real Boston is penetrated by no railroads. Even
+the jingle of the street-car bell does not disturb the silence of the
+streets of this select city. It is to the ordinary Boston what the
+empty, out-of-season London is to the rest of the busy metropolis. The
+stranger, jostled by the throng, may not notice that London is empty,
+but his lordship, if he happens during the deserted period to pass
+through, knows there is not a soul in town.
+
+Miss Sommerton had many delusions, but fortunately for her peace of mind
+she had never yet met a candid friend with courage enough to tell her
+so. It would have required more bravery than the ordinary society person
+possesses to tell Miss Sommerton about any of her faults. The young
+gentlemen of her acquaintance claimed that she had no faults, and if her
+lady friends thought otherwise, they reserved the expression of such
+opinions for social gatherings not graced by the presence of Miss
+Sommerton.
+
+Eva Sommerton thought she was not proud, or if there was any tinge of
+pride in her character, it was pride of the necessary and proper sort.
+
+She also possessed the vain belief that true merit was the one
+essential, but if true merit had had the misfortune to be presented
+to Miss Sommerton without an introduction of a strictly unimpeachable
+nature, there is every reason to fear true merit would not have had the
+exquisite privilege of basking in the smiles of that young Bostonian.
+But perhaps her chief delusion was the belief that she was an artist.
+She had learned all that Boston could teach of drawing, and this thin
+veneer had received a beautiful foreign polish abroad. Her friends
+pronounced her sketches really wonderful. Perhaps if Miss Sommerton's
+entire capital had been something less than her half-yearly income, she
+might have made a name for herself; but the rich man gets a foretaste of
+the scriptural difficulty awaiting him at the gates of heaven, when he
+endeavours to achieve an earthly success, the price of which is hard
+labour, and not hard cash.
+
+We are told that pride must have a fall, and there came an episode in
+Miss Sommerton's career as an artist which was a rude shock to her
+self-complacency. Having purchased a landscape by a celebrated artist
+whose work she had long admired, she at last ventured to write to him
+and enclose some of her own sketches, with a request for a candid
+judgment of them--that is, she _said_ she wanted a candid judgment of
+them.
+
+The reply seemed to her so ungentlemanly, and so harsh, that, in her
+vexation and anger, she tore the letter to shreds and stamped her pretty
+foot with a vehemence which would have shocked those who knew her only
+as the dignified and self-possessed Miss Eva Sommerton.
+
+Then she looked at her libelled sketches, and somehow they did not
+appear to be quite so faultless as she had supposed them to be.
+
+This inspection was followed by a thoughtful and tearful period of
+meditation; and finally, with contriteness, the young woman picked up
+from her studio floor the shreds of the letter and pasted them carefully
+together on a white sheet of paper, in which form she still preserved
+the first honest opinion she had ever received.
+
+In the seclusion of her aesthetic studio Miss Sommerton made a heroic
+resolve to work hard. Her life was to be consecrated to art. She would
+win reluctant recognition from the masters. Under all this wave of
+heroic resolution was an under-current of determination to get even with
+the artist who had treated her work so contemptuously.
+
+Few of us quite live up to our best intentions, and Miss Sommerton
+was no exception to the rule. She did not work as devotedly as she had
+hoped to do, nor did she become a recluse from society. A year after she
+sent to the artist some sketches which she had taken in Quebec--some
+unknown waterfalls, some wild river scenery--and received from him a
+warmer letter of commendation than she had hoped for. He remembered
+her former sketches, and now saw a great improvement. If the waterfall
+sketches were not exaggerations, he would like to see the originals.
+Where were they? The lady was proud of her discoveries in the almost
+unknown land of Northern Quebec, and she wrote a long letter telling all
+about them, and a polite note of thanks for the information ended the
+correspondence.
+
+Miss Sommerton's favourite discovery was that tremendous downward plunge
+of the St. Maurice, the Falls of Shawenegan. She had sketched it from a
+dozen different standpoints, and raved about it to her friends, if such
+a dignified young person as Miss Sommerton could be said to rave over
+anything. Some Boston people, on her recommendation, had visited the
+falls, but their account of the journey made so much of the difficulties
+and discomforts, and so little of the magnificence of the cataract, that
+our amateur artist resolved to keep the falls, as it were, to herself.
+She made yearly pilgrimages to the St. Maurice, and came to have a kind
+of idea of possession which always amused Mr. Mason. She seemed to
+resent the fact that others went to look at the falls, and, worse than
+all, took picnic baskets there, actually lunching on its sacred shores,
+leaving empty champagne bottles and boxes of sardines that had evidently
+broken some one's favourite knife in the opening. This particular summer
+she had driven out to "The Greys," but finding that a party was going up
+in canoes every day that week, she promptly ordered her driver to take
+her back to Three Rivers, saying to Mr. Mason she would return when she
+could have the falls to herself.
+
+"You remind me of Miss Porter," said the lumber king.
+
+"Miss Porter! Who is she?"
+
+"When Miss Porter visited England and saw Mr. Gladstone, he asked her if
+she had ever seen the Niagara Falls. 'Seen them?' she answered. 'Why, I
+_own_ them!'"
+
+"What did she mean by that? I confess I don't see the point, or perhaps
+it isn't a joke."
+
+"Oh yes, it is. You mustn't slight my good stories in that way. She
+meant just what she said. I believe the Porter family own, or did
+own, Goat Island, and, I suppose, the other bank, and, therefore,
+the American Fall. The joke--I do dislike to have to explain
+jokes, especially to you cool, unsympathising Bostonians--is the
+ridiculousness of any mere human person claiming to own such a thing as
+the Niagara Falls. I believe, though, that you are quite equal to it--I
+do indeed."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Mason."
+
+"I knew you would be grateful when I made myself clearly understood.
+Now, what I was going to propose is this. You should apply to the
+Canadian Government for possession of the Shawenegan. I think they would
+let it go at a reasonable figure. They look on it merely as an annoying
+impediment to the navigation of the river, and an obstruction which
+has caused them to spend some thousands of dollars in building a slide
+by the side of it, so that the logs may come down safely."
+
+"If I owned it, the slide is the first thing I would destroy."
+
+"What? And ruin the lumber industry of the Upper St. Maurice? Oh, you
+wouldn't do such a thing! If that is your idea, I give you fair warning
+that I will oppose your claims with all the arts of the lobbyist. If
+you want to become the private owner of the falls, you should tell the
+Government that you have some thoughts of encouraging the industries of
+the province by building a mill----"
+
+"A mill?"
+
+"Yes; why not? Indeed, I have half a notion to put a saw-mill there
+myself. It always grieves me to see so much magnificent power going to
+waste."
+
+"Oh, seriously, Mr. Mason, you would never think of committing such an
+act of sacrilege?"
+
+"Sacrilege, indeed! I like that. Why, the man who makes one saw-mill hum
+where no mill ever hummed before is a benefactor to his species. Don't
+they teach political economy at Boston? I thought you liked saw-mills.
+You drew a very pretty picture of the one down the stream."
+
+"I admire a _ruined_ saw-mill, as that one was; but not one in a state
+of activity, or of eruption, as a person might say."
+
+"Well, won't you go up to the falls to-day, Miss Sommerton? I assure you
+we have a most unexceptionable party. Why, one of them is a Government
+official. Think of that!"
+
+"I refuse to think of it; or, if I do think of it, I refuse to be
+dazzled by his magnificence. I want to see the Shawenegan, not a picnic
+party drinking.
+
+"You wrong them, really you do, Miss Sommerton, believe me. You have got
+your dates mixed. It is the champagne party that goes to-day. The beer
+crowd is not due until to-morrow."
+
+"The principle is the same."
+
+"The price of the refreshment is not. I speak as a man of bitter
+experience. Let's see. If recollection holds her throne, I think there
+was a young lady from New England--I forget the name of the town at
+the moment--who took a lunch with her the last time she went to the
+Shawenegan. I merely give this as my impression, you know. I am open to
+contradiction."
+
+"Certainly, I took a lunch. I always do. I would to-day if I were going
+up there, and Mrs. Mason would give me some sandwiches. You would give
+me a lunch, wouldn't you, dear?"
+
+"I'll tell them to get it ready now, if you will only stay," replied
+that lady, on being appealed to.
+
+"No, it isn't the lunch I object to. I object to people going there
+merely _for_ the lunch. I go for the scenery; the lunch is incidental."
+
+"When you get the deed of the falls, I'll tell you what we'll do," put
+in Mason. "We will have a band of trained Indians stationed at the
+landing, and they will allow no one to disembark who does not express
+himself in sufficiently ecstatic terms about the great cataract. You
+will draw up a set of adjectives, which I will give to the Indians,
+instructing them to allow no one to land who does not use at least three
+out of five of them in referring to the falls. People whose eloquent
+appreciation does not reach the required altitude will have to stay
+there till it does, that's all. We will treat them as we do our
+juries--starve them into a verdict, and the right verdict at that."
+
+"Don't mind him, Eva. He is just trying to exasperate you. Think of what
+I have to put up with. He goes on like that all the time," said Mrs.
+Mason.
+
+"Really, my dear, your flattery confuses me. You can't persuade any one
+that I keep up this brilliancy in the privacy of my own house. It is
+only turned on for company."
+
+"Why, Mr. Mason, I didn't think you looked on me as company. I thought I
+enjoyed the friendship of the Mason family."
+
+"Oh, you do, you do indeed! The company I referred to was the official
+party which has just gone to the falls. This is some of the brilliancy
+left over. But, really, you had better stay after coming all this
+distance."
+
+"Yes, do, Eva. Let me go back with you to the Three Rivers, and then you
+stay with me till next week, when you can visit the falls all alone. It
+is very pleasant at Three Rivers just now. And besides, we can go for a
+day's shopping at Montreal."
+
+"I wish I could."
+
+"Why, of course you can," said Mason. "Imagine the delight of smuggling
+your purchases back to Boston. Confess that this is a pleasure you
+hadn't thought of."
+
+"I admit the fascination of it all, but you see I am with a party that
+has gone on to Quebec, and I just got away for a day. I am to meet them
+there to-night or to-morrow morning. But I will return in the autumn,
+Mrs. Mason, when it is too late for the picnics. Then, Mr. Mason, take
+warning. I mean to have a canoe to myself, or--well, you know the way we
+Bostonians treated you Britishers once upon a time."
+
+"Distinctly. But we will return good for evil, and give you warm tea
+instead of the cold mixture you so foolishly brewed in the harbour."
+
+As the buckboard disappeared around the corner, and Mr. and Mrs. Mason
+walked back to the house, the lady said--
+
+"What a strange girl Eva is."
+
+"Very. Don't she strike you as being a trifle selfish?"
+
+"Selfish? Eva Sommerton? Why, what could make you think such a thing?
+What an absurd idea! You cannot imagine how kind she was to me when I
+visited Boston."
+
+"Who could help it, my dear? I would have been so myself if I had
+happened to meet you there."
+
+"Now, Ed., don't be absurd."
+
+"There is something absurd in being kind to a person's wife, isn't
+there? Well, it struck me her objection to any one else being at the
+falls, when her ladyship was there, might seem--not to me, of course,
+but to an outsider--a trifle selfish."
+
+"Oh, you don't understand her at all. She has an artistic temperament,
+and she is quite right in wishing to be alone. Now, Ed., when she does
+come again I want you to keep anyone else from going up there. Don't
+forget it, as you do most of the things I tell you. Say to anybody who
+wants to go up that the canoes are out of repair."
+
+"Oh, I can't say that, you know. Anything this side of a crime I am
+willing to commit; but to perjure myself, no, not for Venice. Can you
+think of any other method that will combine duplicity with a clear
+conscience? I'll tell you what I'll do. I will have the canoe drawn up,
+and gently, but firmly, slit it with my knife. One of the men can mend
+it in ten minutes. Then I can look even the official from Quebec in the
+face, and tell him truly that the canoe will not hold water. I suppose
+as long as my story will hold water you and Miss Sommerton will not
+mind?"
+
+"If the canoe is ready for her when she comes, I shall be satisfied.
+Please to remember I am going to spend a week or two in Boston next
+winter."
+
+"Oh ho, that's it, is it? Then it was not pure philanthropy----"
+
+"Pure nonsense, Ed. I want the canoe to be ready, that's all."
+
+When Mrs. Mason received the letter from Miss Sommerton, stating the
+time the young woman intended to pay her visit to the Shawenegan, she
+gave the letter to her husband, and reminded him of the necessity of
+keeping the canoe for that particular date. As the particular date was
+some weeks off, and as Ed. Mason was a man who never crossed a stream
+until he came to it, he said, "All right," put the letter in his inside
+pocket, and the next time he thought of it was on the fine autumn
+afternoon--Monday afternoon--when he saw Mrs. Mason drive up to the
+door of his lumber-woods residence with Miss Eva Sommerton in the buggy
+beside her. The young lady wondered, as Mr. Mason helped her out, if
+that genial gentleman, whom she regarded as the most fortunate of men,
+had in reality some secret, gnawing sorrow the world knew not of.
+
+"Why, Ed., you look ill," exclaimed Mrs. Mason; "is there anything the
+matter?"
+
+"Oh, it is nothing--at least, not of much consequence. A little business
+worry, that's all."
+
+"Has there been any trouble?"
+
+"Oh no--at the least, not _yet_."
+
+"Trouble about the men, is it?"
+
+"No, not about the men," said the unfortunate gentleman, with a somewhat
+unnecessary emphasis on the last word.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Mason, I am afraid I have come at a wrong time. If so, don't
+hesitate to tell me. If I can do anything to help you, I hope I may be
+allowed."
+
+"You have come just at the right time," said the lumberman, "and you are
+very welcome, I assure you. If I find I need help, as perhaps I may, you
+will be reminded of your promise."
+
+To put off as long as possible the evil time of meeting his wife,
+Mason went with the man to see the horse put away, and he lingered an
+unnecessarily long time in ascertaining that everything was right in the
+stable. The man was astonished to find his master so particular that
+afternoon. A crisis may be postponed, but it can rarely be avoided
+altogether, and knowing he had to face the inevitable sooner or later,
+the unhappy man, with a sigh, betook himself to the house, where he
+found his wife impatiently waiting for him. She closed the door and
+confronted him.
+
+"Now, Ed., what's the matter?"
+
+"Where's Miss Sommerton?" was the somewhat irrelevant reply.
+
+"She has gone to her room. Ed., don't keep me in suspense. What is
+wrong?"
+
+"You remember John Trenton, who was here in the summer?"
+
+"I remember hearing you speak of him. I didn't meet him, you know."
+
+"Oh, that's so. Neither you did. You see, he's an awful good fellow,
+Trenton is--that is, for an Englishman."
+
+"Well, what has Trenton to do with the trouble?"
+
+"Everything, my dear--everything."
+
+"I see how it is. Trenton visited the Shawenegan?"
+
+"He did."
+
+"And he wants to go there again?"
+
+"He does."
+
+"And you have gone and promised him the canoe for to-morrow?"
+
+"The intuition of woman, my dear, is the most wonderful thing on earth."
+
+"It is not half so wonderful as the negligence of man--I won't say the
+stupidity."
+
+"Thank you, Jennie, for not saying it, but I really think I would feel
+better if you did."
+
+"Now, what are you going to do about it?"
+
+"Well, my dear, strange as it may appear, that very question has been
+racking my brain for the last ten minutes. Now, what would you do in my
+position?"
+
+"Oh, I couldn't be in your position."
+
+"No, that's so, Jennie. Excuse me for suggesting the possibility. I
+really think this trouble has affected my mind a little. But if you had
+a husband--if a sensible woman like you _could_ have a husband who got
+himself into such a position--what would you advise him to do?"
+
+"Now, Ed., don't joke. It's too serious."
+
+"My dear, no one on earth can have such a realisation of its seriousness
+as I have at this moment. I feel as Mark Twain did with that novel he
+never finished. I have brought things to a point where I can't go any
+further. The game seems blocked. I wonder if Miss Sommerton would accept
+ten thousand feet of lumber f.o.b. and call it square."
+
+"Really, Ed., if you can't talk sensibly, I have nothing further to say."
+
+"Well, as I said, the strain is getting too much for me. Now, don't
+go away, Jennie. Here is what I am thinking of doing. I'll speak to
+Trenton. He won't mind Miss Sommerton's going in the canoe with him. In
+fact, I should think he would rather like it."
+
+"Dear me, Ed., is that all the progress you've made? I am not troubling
+myself about Mr. Trenton. The difficulty will be with Eva. Do you think
+for a moment she will go if she imagined herself under obligations to a
+stranger for the canoe? Can't you get Mr. Trenton to put off his visit
+until the day after tomorrow? It isn't long to wait."
+
+"No, that is impossible. You see, he has just time to catch his steamer
+as it is. No, he has the promise in writing, while Miss Sommerton has no
+legal evidence if this thing ever gets into the courts. Trenton has my
+written promise. You see, I did not remember the two dates were the
+same. When I wrote to Trenton----"
+
+"Ed., don't try to excuse yourself. You had her letter in your pocket,
+you know you had. This is a matter for which there is no excuse, and it
+cannot be explained away."
+
+"That's so, Jennie. I am down in the depths once more. I shall not try
+to crawl out again--at least, not while my wife is looking."
+
+"No, your plan will not work. I don't know that any will. There is only
+one thing to try, and it is this--Miss Sommerton must think that the
+canoe is hers. You must appeal to her generosity to let Mr. Trenton go
+with her."
+
+"Won't you make the appeal, Jen?"
+
+"No, I will not. In the first place she'll be sorry for you, because you
+will make such a bungle of it. Trial is your only hope."
+
+"Oh, if success lies in bungling, I will succeed."
+
+"Don't be too sure. I suppose that man will be here by daybreak
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Not so bad as that, Jennie. You always try to put the worst face on
+things. He won't be here till sunrise at the earliest."
+
+"I will ask Eva to come down."
+
+"You needn't hurry just because of me. Besides, I would like a few
+moments to prepare myself for my fate. Even a murderer is given a little
+time."
+
+"Not a moment, Ed. We had better get this thing settled as soon as
+possible."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," he murmured, with a deep sigh. "Well, if we
+Britishers, as Miss S. calls us, ever faced the Americans with as faint
+a heart as I do now, I don't wonder we got licked."
+
+"Don't say 'licked,' Ed."
+
+"I believe it's historical. Oh, I see. You object to the word, not to
+the allegation. Well, I won't cavil about that. All my sympathy just now
+is concentrated on one unfortunate Britisher. My dear, let the sacrifice
+begin."
+
+Mrs. Mason went to the stairway and called--
+
+"Eva, dear, can you come down for a moment? We want you to help us out
+of a difficulty."
+
+Miss Sommerton appeared smilingly, smoothing down the front of the dress
+that had taken the place of the one she travelled in. She advanced
+towards Mason with sweet compassion in her eyes, and that ill-fated
+man thought he had never seen any one look so altogether
+charming--excepting, of course, his own wife in her youthful days. She
+seemed to have smoothed away all the Boston stiffness as she smoothed
+her dress.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Mason," she said, sympathetically, as she approached, "I am
+so sorry anything has happened to trouble you, and I do hope I am not
+intruding."
+
+"Indeed, you are not, Miss Eva. In fact, your sympathy has taken away
+half the trouble already, and I want to beg of you to help me off with
+the other half."
+
+A glance at his wife's face showed him that he had not made a bad
+beginning.
+
+"Miss Sommerton, you said you would like to kelp me. Now I am going to
+appeal to you. I throw myself on your mercy."
+
+There was a slight frown on Mrs. Mason's face, and her husband felt that
+he was perhaps appealing too much.
+
+"In fact, the truth is, my wife gave me----"
+
+Here a cough interrupted him, and he paused and ran his hand through
+his hair. "Pray don't mind me, Mr. Mason," said Miss Sommerton, "if you
+would rather not tell----"
+
+"Oh, but I must; that is, I want you to know."
+
+He glanced at his wife, but there was no help there, so he plunged in
+headlong.
+
+"To tell the truth, there is a friend of mine who wants to go to the
+falls tomorrow. He sails for Europe immediately, and has no other day."
+
+The Boston rigidity perceptibly returned.
+
+"Oh, if that is all, you needn't have had a moment's trouble. I can just
+as well put off my visit."
+
+"Oh, can you?" cried Mason, joyously.
+
+His wife sat down in the rocking-chair with a sigh of despair. Her
+infatuated husband thought he was getting along famously.
+
+"Then your friends are not waiting for you at Quebec this time, and you
+can stay a day or two with us."
+
+"Eva's friends are at Montreal, Edward, and she cannot stay."
+
+"Oh, then--why, then, to-morrow's _your_ only day, too?"
+
+"It doesn't matter in the least, Mr. Mason. I shall be most glad to put
+off my visit to oblige your friend--no, I didn't mean that," she cried,
+seeing the look of anguish on Mason's face, "it is to oblige you. Now,
+am I not good?"
+
+"No, you are cruel," replied Mason. "You are going up to the falls. I
+insist on that. Let's take that as settled. The canoe is yours." He
+caught an encouraging look from his wife. "If you want to torture me you
+will say you will not go. If you want to do me the greatest of favours,
+you will let my friend go in the canoe with you to the landing."
+
+"What! go alone with a stranger?" cried Miss Sommerton, freezingly.
+
+"No, the Indians will be there, you know."
+
+"Oh, I didn't expect to paddle the canoe myself."
+
+"I don't know about that. You strike me as a girl who would paddle her
+own canoe pretty well."
+
+"Now, Edward," said his wife. "He wants to take some photographs of the
+falls, and----"
+
+"Photographs? Why, Ed., I thought you said he was an artist."
+
+"Isn't a photographer an artist?"
+
+"You know he isn't."
+
+"Well, my dear, you know they put on their signs, 'artist--photographer,
+pictures taken in cloudy weather.' But he's an amateur photographer; an
+amateur is not so bad as a professional, is he, Miss Sommerton?"
+
+"I think he's worse, if there is any choice. A professional at least
+takes good pictures, such as they are."
+
+"He is an elderly gentleman, and I am sure----"
+
+"Oh, is he?" cried Miss Sommerton; "then the matter is settled. He shall
+go. I thought it was some young fop of an amateur photographer."
+
+"Oh, quite elderly. His hair is grey, or badly tinged at least."
+
+The frown on Miss Sommerton's brow cleared away, and she smiled in a
+manner that was cheering to the heart of her suppliant. He thought it
+reminded him of the sun breaking through the clouds over the hills
+beyond the St. Maurice.
+
+"Why, Mr. Mason, how selfishly I've been acting, haven't I? You really
+must forgive me. It is so funny, too, making you beg for a seat in your
+own canoe."
+
+"Oh no, it's your canoe--that is, after twelve o'clock to-night. That's
+when your contract begins."
+
+"The arrangement does not seem to me quite regular; but, then, this
+is the Canadian woods, and not Boston. But, I want to make my little
+proviso. I do not wish to be introduced to this man; he must have no
+excuse for beginning a conversation with me. I don't want to talk
+to-morrow."
+
+"Heroic resolution," murmured Mason.
+
+"So, I do not wish to see the gentleman until I go into the canoe. You
+can be conveniently absent. Mrs. Perrault will take me down there; she
+speaks no English, and it is not likely he can speak French."
+
+"We can arrange that."
+
+"Then it is settled, and all I hope for is a good day to-morrow."
+
+Mrs. Mason sprang up and kissed the fair Bostonian, and Mason felt a
+sensation of joyous freedom that recalled his youthful days when a
+half-holiday was announced.
+
+"Oh, it is too good of you," said the elder lady.
+
+"Not a bit of it," whispered Miss Sommerton; "I hate the man before I
+have seen him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+When John Trenton came in to breakfast, he found his friend Mason
+waiting for him. That genial gentleman was evidently ill at ease, but he
+said in an offhand way--
+
+"The ladies have already breakfasted. They are busily engaged in the
+preparations for the trip, and so you and I can have a snack together,
+and then we will go and see to the canoe."
+
+After breakfast they went together to the river, and found the canoe and
+the two half-breeds waiting for them. A couple of rugs were spread on
+the bottom of the canoe rising over the two slanting boards which served
+as backs to the lowly seats.
+
+"Now," said Mason with a blush, for he always told a necessary lie with
+some compunction, "I shall have to go and see to one of my men who was
+injured in the mill this morning. You had better take your place in the
+canoe, and wait for your passenger, who, as is usual with ladies, will
+probably be a little late. I think you should sit in the back seat, as
+you are the heavier of the two. I presume you remember what I told you
+about sitting in a canoe? Get in with caution while these two men hold
+the side of it; sit down carefully, and keep steady, no matter what
+happens. Perhaps you may as well put your camera here at the back, or in
+the prow."
+
+"No," said Trenton, "I shall keep it slung over my shoulder. It isn't
+heavy, and I am always afraid of forgetting it if I leave it anywhere."
+
+Trenton got cautiously into the canoe, while Mason bustled off with
+a very guilty feeling at his heart. He never thought of blaming Miss
+Sommerton for the course she had taken, and the dilemma into which she
+placed him, for he felt that the fault was entirely his own.
+
+John Trenton pulled out his pipe, and, absent-mindedly, stuffed it full
+of tobacco. Just as he was about to light it, he remembered there was to
+be a lady in the party, and so with a grimace of disappointment he put
+the loaded pipe into his pocket again.
+
+It was the most lovely time of the year. The sun was still warm, but the
+dreaded black fly and other insect pests of the region had disappeared
+before the sharp frosts that occurred every night. The hilly banks of
+the St. Maurice were covered with unbroken forest, and "the woods of
+autumn all around, the vale had put their glory on." Presently Trenton
+saw Miss Sommerton, accompanied by old Mrs. Perrault, coming over the
+brow of the hill. He attempted to rise, in order to assist the lady to a
+seat in the canoe, when the half-breed-said in French--:
+
+"Better sit still. It is safer. We will help the lady."
+
+Miss Sommerton was talking rapidly in French--with rather overdone
+eagerness--to Mrs. Perrault. She took no notice of her fellow-voyager as
+she lightly stepped exactly in the centre of the canoe, and sank down on
+the rug in front of him, with the ease of one thoroughly accustomed to
+that somewhat treacherous craft. The two stalwart boatmen--one at the
+prow, the other at the stern of the canoe--with swift and dexterous
+strokes, shot it out into the stream. Trenton could not but admire the
+knowledge of these two men and their dexterous use of it. Here they
+were on a swiftly flowing river, with a small fall behind them and a
+tremendous cataract several miles in front, yet these two men, by their
+knowledge of the currents, managed to work their way up stream with the
+least possible amount of physical exertion. The St. Maurice at this
+point is about half a mile wide, with an island here and there, and now
+and then a touch of rapids. Sometimes the men would dash right across
+the river to the opposite bank, and there fall in with a miniature Gulf
+Stream that would carry them onward without exertion. Sometimes they
+were near the densely wooded shore, sometimes in the center of the
+river. The half-breed who stood behind Trenton, leant over to him, and
+whispered--
+
+"You can now smoke if you like, the wind is down stream."
+
+Naturally, Mr. Trenton wished to smoke. The requesting of permission to
+do so, it struck him, might open the way to conversation. He was not an
+ardent conversationalist, but it seemed to him rather ridiculous that
+two persons should thus travel together in a canoe without saying a word
+to each other.
+
+"I beg your pardon, madam," he began; "but would you have any objection
+to my smoking? I am ashamed to confess that I am a slave to the
+pernicious habit."
+
+There was a moment or two of silence, broken only by the regular dip of
+the paddle, then Miss Sommerton said, "If you wish to desecrate this
+lovely spot by smoking, I presume anything I can say will not prevent
+you."
+
+Trenton was amazed at the rudeness of this reply, and his face flushed
+with anger. Finally he said, "You must have a very poor opinion of me!"
+
+Miss Sommerton answered tartly, "I have no opinion whatever of you."
+Then, with womanly inconsistency, she proceeded to deliver her opinion,
+saying, "A man who would smoke here would smoke in a cathedral."
+
+"I think you are wrong there," said Mr. Trenton, calmly. "I would smoke
+here, but I would not think of smoking in a cathedral. Neither would I
+smoke in the humblest log-cabin chapel."
+
+"Sir," said Miss Sommerton, turning partly round, "I came to the St.
+Maurice for the purpose of viewing its scenery. I hoped to see it alone.
+I have been disappointed in that, but I must insist on seeing it in
+silence. I do not wish to carry on a conversation, nor do I wish to
+enter into a discussion on any subject whatever. I am sorry to have to
+say this, but it seems to be necessary."
+
+Her remarks so astonished Trenton that he found it impossible to get
+angrier than he had been when she first spoke. In fact, he found his
+anger receding rather than augmenting. It was something so entirely
+new to meet a lady who had such an utter disregard for the rules of
+politeness that obtain in any civilized society that Mr. Trenton felt he
+was having a unique and valuable experience.
+
+"Will you pardon me," he said, with apparent submissiveness--"will you
+pardon me if I disregard your request sufficiently to humbly beg
+forgiveness for having spoken to you in the first place?"
+
+To this Miss Sommerton made no reply, and the canoe glided along.
+
+After going up the river for a few miles the boatmen came to a difficult
+part of the voyage. Here the river was divided by an island. The dark
+waters moved with great swiftness, and with the smoothness of oil, over
+the concealed rocks, breaking into foam at the foot of the rapids. Now
+for the first time the Indians had hard work. For quite half an hour
+they paddled as if in despair, and the canoe moved upward inch by inch.
+It was not only hard work, but it was work that did not allow of a
+moment's rest until it was finished. Should the paddles pause but an
+instant, the canoe would be swept to the bottom of the rapids. When
+at last the craft floated into the still water above the rapids, the
+boatmen rested and mopped the perspiration from their brows. Then,
+without a word, they resumed their steady, easy swing of the paddle. In
+a short time the canoe drew up at a landing, from which a path ascended
+the steep hill among the trees. The silence was broken only by the deep,
+distant, low roar of the Shawenegan Falls. Mr. Trenton sat in his place,
+while the half-breeds held the canoe steady. Miss Sommerton rose and
+stepped with firm, self-reliant tread on the landing. Without looking
+backward she proceeded up the steep hill, and disappeared among the
+dense foliage. Then Trenton leisurely got out of the canoe.
+
+"You had a hard time of it up that rapid," said the artist in French to
+the boatmen. "Here is a five-dollar bill to divide when you get down;
+and, if you bring us safely back, I shall have another ready for you."
+
+The men were profusely grateful, as indeed they had a right to be, for
+the most they expected was a dollar each as a fee.
+
+"Ah," said the elder, "if we had gentlemen like you to take up every
+day," and he gave an expressive shrug.
+
+"You shouldn't take such a sordid view of the matter," said the artist.
+"I should think you would find great pleasure in taking up parties of
+handsome ladies such as I understand now and then visit the falls."
+
+"Ah," said the boatman, "it is very nice, of course; but, except from
+Miss Sommerton, we don't get much."
+
+"Really," said the artist; "and who is Miss Sommerton, pray?"
+
+The half-breed nodded up the path.
+
+"Oh, indeed, that is her name. I did not know."
+
+"Yes," said the man, "she is very generous, and she always brings us
+tobacco in her pocket--good tobacco."
+
+"Tobacco!" cried the artist. "The arrant hypocrite. She gives you
+tobacco, does she? Did you understand what we were talking about coming
+up here?"
+
+The younger half-breed was about to say "Yes," and a gleam of
+intelligence came into his face; but a frown on the other's brow checked
+him, and the elder gravely shook his head.
+
+"We do not understand English," he said.
+
+As Trenton walked slowly up the steep hillside, he said to himself,
+"That young woman does not seem to have the slightest spark of gratitude
+in her composition. Here I have been good-natured enough to share my
+canoe with her, yet she treats me as if I were some low ruffian instead
+of a gentleman."
+
+As Miss Sommerton was approaching the Shawenegan Falls, she said to
+herself, "What an insufferable cad that man is? Mr. Mason doubtless told
+him that he was indebted to me for being allowed to come in the canoe,
+and yet, although he must see I do not wish to talk with him, he tried
+to force conversation on me."
+
+Miss Sommerton walked rapidly along the very imperfect woodland path,
+which was completely shaded by the overhanging trees. After a walk
+of nearly a mile, the path suddenly ended at the top of a tremendous
+precipice of granite, and opposite this point the great hillside of
+tumbling white foam plunged for ever downward. At the foot of the falls
+the waters flung themselves against the massive granite barrier, and
+then, turning at a right angle, plunged downward in a series of wild
+rapids that completely eclipsed in picturesqueness and grandeur and
+force even the famous rapids at Niagara. Contemplating this incomparable
+scene, Miss Sommerton forgot all about her objectionable travelling
+companion. She sat down on a fallen log, placing her sketch-book on her
+lap, but it lay there idly as, unconscious of the passing time, she
+gazed dreamily at the great falls and listened to their vibrating
+deafening roar. Suddenly the consciousness of some one near startled
+her from her reverie. She sprang to her feet, and had so completely
+forgotten her companion that she stared at him for a moment in dumb
+amazement. He stood back some distance from her, and beside him on its
+slender tripod was placed a natty little camera. Connected with the
+instantaneous shutter was a long black rubber tube almost as thin as a
+string. The bulb of this instantaneous attachment Mr. Trenton held in
+his hand, and the instant Miss Sommerton turned around, the little
+shutter, as if in defiance of her, gave a snap, and she knew her picture
+had been taken, and also that she was the principal object in the
+foreground.
+
+"You have photographed me, sir!" cried the young woman, with her eyes
+blazing.
+
+"I have photographed the falls, or, at least, I hope I have," replied
+Trenton.
+
+"But my picture is in the foreground. You must destroy that plate."
+
+"You will excuse me, Miss Sommerton, if I tell you I shall do nothing of
+the kind. It is very unusual with me to deny the request of a lady, but
+in this case I must do so. This is the last plate I have, and it may be
+the one successful picture of the lot. I shall, therefore, not destroy
+the plate."
+
+"Then, sir, you are not a gentleman!" cried the impetuous young lady,
+her face aflame with anger.
+
+"I never claimed to be one," answered Trenton, calmly.
+
+"I shall appeal to Mr. Mason; perhaps he has some means of making you
+understand that you are not allowed to take a lady's photograph without
+her permission, and in defiance of her wishes."
+
+"Will you allow me to explain why it is unnecessary to destroy the
+plate? If you understand anything about photography, you must be aware
+of the fact----"
+
+"I am happy to say I know nothing of photography, and I desire to know
+nothing of it. I will not hear any explanation from you, sir. You have
+refused to destroy the plate. That is enough for me. Your conduct to-day
+has been entirely contemptible. In the first place you have forced
+yourself, through Mr. Mason, into my company. The canoe was mine for
+to-day, and you knew it. I granted you permission to come, but I made it
+a proviso that there should be no conversation. Now, I shall return in
+the canoe alone, and I shall pay the boatmen to come back for you this
+evening." With this she swept indignantly past Mr. Trenton, leaving the
+unfortunate man for the second or third time that day too much
+dumbfounded to reply. She marched down the path toward the landing.
+Arriving at the canoe, she told the boatmen they would have to return
+for Mr. Trenton; that she was going back alone, and she would pay them
+handsomely for their extra trip. Even the additional pay offered did not
+seem to quite satisfy the two half-breeds.
+
+"It will be nearly dark before we can get back," grumbled the elder
+boatman.
+
+"That does not matter," replied Miss Sommerton, shortly.
+
+"But it is dangerous going down the river at night."
+
+"That does not matter," was again the reply.
+
+"But he has nothing----"
+
+"The longer you stand talking here the longer it will be before you get
+back. If you are afraid for the safety of the gentleman, pray stay here
+with him and give me the paddle--I will take the boat down alone."
+
+The boatman said nothing more, but shot the canoe out from the landing
+and proceeded rapidly down the stream.
+
+Miss Sommerton meditated bitterly on the disappointments and annoyances
+of the day. Once fairly away, conscience began to trouble her, and she
+remembered that the gentleman so unceremoniously left in the woods
+without any possibility of getting away was a man whom Mr. Mason, her
+friend, evidently desired very much to please. Little had been said by
+the boatmen, merely a brief word of command now and then from the elder
+who stood in the stern, until they passed down the rapids. Then Miss
+Sommerton caught a grumbling word in French which made her heart stand
+still.
+
+"What is that you said?" she cried to the elder boatman.
+
+He did not answer, but solemnly paddled onward.
+
+"Answer me," demanded Miss Sommerton. "What is that you said about the
+gentleman who went up with us this morning?"
+
+"I said," replied the half-breed, with a grim severity that even the
+remembrance of gifts of tobacco could not mitigate, "that the canoe
+belonged to him today."
+
+"How dare you say such a thing! The canoe was mine. Mr. Mason gave it to
+me. It was mine for to-day."
+
+"I know nothing about that," returned the boatman doggedly; "but I do
+know that three days ago Mr. Mason came to me with this gentleman's
+letter in his hand and said, 'Pierre, Mr. Trenton is to have the canoe
+for Tuesday. See it is in good order, and no one else is to have it for
+that day.' That is what Mr. Mason said, and when they were down at the
+canoe this morning, Mr. Mason asked Mr. Trenton if he would let you go
+up to the falls in his canoe, and he said 'Yes.'"
+
+Miss Sommerton sat there too horrified to speak. A wild resentment
+against the duplicity of Ed. Mason arose for a moment in her heart, but
+it speedily sank as she viewed her own conduct in the light of this
+astounding revelation. She had abused an unknown gentleman like a
+pickpocket, and had finally gone off with his canoe, leaving him
+marooned, as it were, to whose courtesy she was indebted for being there
+at all. Overcome by the thoughts that crowded so quickly upon her, she
+buried her face in her hands and wept. But this was only for an instant.
+Raising her head again, with the imperious air characteristic of her,
+she said to the boatman--
+
+"Turn back at once, please."
+
+"We are almost there now," he answered, amazed at the feminine
+inconsistency of the command.
+
+"Turn back at once, I say. You are not too tired to paddle up the river
+again, are you?"
+
+"No, madame," he answered, "but it is so useless; we are almost there.
+We shall land you, and then the canoe will go up lighter."
+
+"I wish to go with you. Do what I tell you, and I will pay you."
+
+The stolid boatman gave the command; the man at the bow paddled one way,
+while the man at the stern paddled another, and the canoe swung round
+upstream again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+The sun had gone down when Miss Sommerton put her foot once more on the
+landing.
+
+"We will go and search for him," said the boatman.
+
+"Stay where you are," she commanded, and disappeared swiftly up the
+path. Expecting to find him still at the falls, she faced the prospect
+of a good mile of rough walking in the gathering darkness without
+flinching. But at the brow of the hill, within hearing distance of the
+landing, she found the man of whom she was in search. In her agony of
+mind Miss Sommerton had expected to come upon him pacing moodily up and
+down before the falls, meditating on the ingratitude of womankind. She
+discovered him in a much less romantic attitude. He was lying at full
+length below a white birch-tree, with his camera-box under his head for
+a pillow. It was evident he had seen enough of the Shawenegan Falls for
+one day, and doubtless, because of the morning's early rising, and the
+day's long journey, had fallen soundly asleep. His soft felt hat lay on
+the ground beside him. Miss Sommerton looked at him for a moment, and
+thought bitterly of Mason's additional perjury in swearing that he was
+an elderly man. True, his hair was tinged with grey at the temples, but
+there was nothing elderly about his appearance. Miss Sommerton saw that
+he was a handsome man, and wondered this had escaped her notice before,
+forgetting that she had scarcely deigned to look at him. She thought he
+had spoken to her with inexcusable bluntness at the falls, in refusing
+to destroy his plate; but she now remembered with compunction that he
+had made no allusion to his ownership of the boat for that day, while
+she had boasted that it was hers. She determined to return and send one
+of the boatmen up to awaken him, but at that moment Trenton suddenly
+opened his eyes, as a person often does when some one looks at him
+in his sleep. He sprang quickly to his feet, and put up his hand in
+bewilderment to remove his hat, but found it wasn't there. Then he
+laughed uncomfortably, stooping to pick it up again.
+
+"I--I--I wasn't expecting visitors," he stammered--
+
+"Why did you not tell me," she said, "that Mr. Mason had promised you
+the boat for the day?"
+
+"Good gracious!" cried Trenton, "has Ed. Mason told you that?"
+
+"I have not seen Mr. Mason," she replied; "I found it out by catching an
+accidental remark made by one of the boatmen. I desire very humbly to
+apologise to you for my conduct."
+
+"Oh, that doesn't matter at all, I assure you."
+
+"What! My conduct doesn't?"
+
+"No, I didn't mean quite that; but I----Of course, you did treat me
+rather abruptly; but then, you know, I saw how it was. You looked on me
+as an interloper, as it were, and I think you were quite justified, you
+know, in speaking as you did. I am a very poor hand at conversing with
+ladies, even at my best, and I am not at my best to-day. I had to get
+up too early, so there is no doubt what I said was said very awkwardly
+indeed. But it really doesn't matter, you know--that is, it doesn't
+matter about anything you said."
+
+"I think it matters very much--at least, it matters very much to me. I
+shall always regret having treated you as I did, and I hope you will
+forgive me for having done so."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Mr. Trenton, swinging his camera over his
+shoulder. "It is getting dark, Miss Sommerton; I think we should hurry
+down to the canoe."
+
+As they walked down the hill together, he continued--
+
+"I wish you would let me give you a little lesson in photography, if you
+don't mind."
+
+"I have very little interest in photography, especially amateur
+photography," replied Miss Sommerton, with a partial return of her old
+reserve.
+
+"Oh, I don't wish to make an amateur photographer of you. You sketch
+very nicely, and--"
+
+"How do you know that?" asked Miss Sommerton, turning quickly towards
+him: "you have never seen any of my sketches."
+
+"Ah, well," stammered Trenton, "no--that is--you know--are not those
+water-colours in Mason's house yours?"
+
+"Mr. Mason has some of my sketches. I didn't know you had seen them."
+
+"Well, as I was saying," continued Trenton, "I have no desire to convert
+you to the beauties of amateur photography. I admit the results in many
+cases are very bad. I am afraid if you saw the pictures I take myself
+you would not be much in love with the art. But what I wish to say is in
+mitigation of my refusal to destroy the plate when you asked me to."
+
+"Oh, I beg you will not mention that, or refer to anything at all I have
+said to you. I assure you it pains me very much, and you know I have
+apologised once or twice already."
+
+"Oh, it isn't that. The apology should come from me; but I thought I
+would like to explain why it is that I did not take your picture, as you
+thought I did."
+
+"Not take my picture? Why I _saw_ you take it. You admitted yourself you
+took it."
+
+"Well, you see, that is what I want to explain. I took your picture, and
+then again I didn't take it. This is how it is with amateur photography.
+Your picture on the plate will be a mere shadow, a dim outline, nothing
+more. No one can tell who it is. You see, it is utterly impossible to
+take a dark object and one in pure white at the instantaneous snap. If
+the picture of the falls is at all correct, as I expect it will be, then
+your picture will be nothing but a shadow unrecognisable by any one."
+
+"But they do take pictures with the cataract as a background, do they
+not? I am sure I have seen photos of groups taken at Niagara Falls; in
+fact, I have seen groups being posed in public for that purpose, and
+very silly they looked, I must say. I presume that is one of the things
+that has prejudiced me so much against the camera."
+
+"Those pictures, Miss Sommerton, are not genuine; they are not at all
+what they pretend to be. The prints that you have seen are the results
+of the manipulation of two separate plates, one of the plates containing
+the group or the person photographed, and the other an instantaneous
+picture of the falls. If you look closely at one of those pictures you
+will see a little halo of light or dark around the person photographed.
+That, to an experienced photographer, shows the double printing. In
+fact, it is double dealing all round. The deluded victim of the camera
+imagines that the pictures he gets of the falls, with himself in the
+foreground, is really a picture of the falls taken at the time he is
+being photographed. Whereas, in the picture actually taken of him, the
+falls themselves are hopelessly over-exposed, and do not appear at all
+on the plate. So with the instantaneous picture I took; there will
+really be nothing of you on that plate that you would recognise as
+yourself. That was why I refused to destroy it."
+
+"I am afraid," said Miss Sommerton, sadly, "you are trying to make my
+punishment harder and harder. I believe in reality you are very cruel.
+You know how badly I feel about the whole matter, and now even the one
+little point that apparently gave me any excuse is taken away by your
+scientific explanation."
+
+"Candidly, Miss Sommerton, I am more of a culprit than you imagine, and
+I suppose it is the tortures of a guilty conscience that caused me to
+make this explanation. I shall now confess without reserve. As you sat
+there with your head in your hand looking at the falls, I deliberately
+and with malice aforethought took a timed picture, which, if developed,
+will reveal you exactly as you sat, and which will not show the falls at
+all."
+
+Miss Sommerton walked in silence beside him, and he could not tell just
+how angry she might be. Finally he said, "I shall destroy that plate, if
+you order me to."
+
+Miss Sommerton made no reply, until they were nearly at the canoe. Then
+she looked up at him with a smile, and said, "I think it a pity to
+destroy any pictures you have had such trouble to obtain."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Sommerton," said the artist. He helped her into the
+canoe in the gathering dusk, and then sat down himself. But neither of
+them saw the look of anxiety on the face of the elder boatman. He knew
+the River St. Maurice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+From the words the elder boatman rapidly addressed to the younger, it
+was evident to Mr. Trenton that the half-breed was anxious to pass the
+rapids before it became very much darker.
+
+The landing is at the edge of comparatively still water. At the bottom
+of the falls the river turns an acute angle and flows to the west. At
+the landing it turns with equal abruptness, and flows south.
+
+The short westward section of the river from the falls to the point
+where they landed is a wild, turbulent rapid, in which no boat can live
+for a moment. From the Point downwards, although the water is covered
+with foam, only one dangerous place has to be passed. Toward that spot
+the stalwart half-breeds bent all their energy in forcing the canoe down
+with the current. The canoe shot over the darkening rapid with the speed
+of an arrow. If but one or two persons had been in it, the chances are
+the passage would have been made in safety. As it was one wrong turn of
+the paddle by the younger half-breed did the mischief. The bottom barely
+touched a sharp-pointed hidden rock, and in an instant the canoe was
+slit open as with a knife.
+
+As he sat there Trenton felt the cold water rise around him with a
+quickness that prevented his doing anything, even if he had known what
+to do.
+
+"Sit still!" cried the elder boatman; and then to the younger he shouted
+sharply, "The shore!"
+
+They were almost under the hanging trees when the four found themselves
+in the water. Trenton grasped an overhanging branch with one hand, and
+with the other caught Miss Sommerton by the arm. For a moment it was
+doubtful whether the branch would hold. The current was very swift, and
+it threw each of them against the rock bank, and bent the branch down
+into the water.
+
+"Catch hold of me!" cried Trenton. "Catch hold of my coat; I need both
+hands."
+
+Miss Sommerton, who had acted with commendable bravery throughout, did
+as she was directed. Trenton, with his released hand, worked himself
+slowly up the branch, hand over hand, and finally catching a sapling
+that grew close to the water's edge, with a firm hold, reached down and
+helped Miss Sommerton on the bank. Then he slowly drew himself up to a
+safe position and looked around for any signs of the boatmen. He shouted
+loudly, but there was no answer.
+
+"Are they drowned, do you think?" asked Miss Sommerton, anxiously.
+
+"No, I don't suppose they are; I don't think you _could_ drown a
+half-breed. They have done their best to drown us, and as we have
+escaped I see no reason why they should drown."
+
+"Oh, it's all my fault! all my fault!" wailed Miss Sommerton.
+
+"It is, indeed," answered Trenton, briefly.
+
+She tried to straighten herself up, but, too wet and chilled and limp to
+be heroic, she sank on a rock and began to cry.
+
+"Please don't do that," said the artist, softly. "Of course I shouldn't
+have agreed with you. I beg pardon for having done so, but now that we
+are here, you are not to shirk your share of the duties. I want you to
+search around and get materials for a fire."
+
+"Search around?" cried Miss Sommerton dolefully.
+
+"Yes, search around. Hunt, as you Americans say. You have got us into
+this scrape, so I don't propose you shall sit calmly by and not take any
+of the consequences."
+
+"Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Trenton, now that I am helpless?"
+
+"If it is an insult to ask you to get up and gather some wood and bring
+it here, then I do mean to insult you most emphatically. I shall gather
+some, too, for we shall need a quantity of it."
+
+Miss Sommerton rose indignantly, and was on the point of threatening to
+leave the place, when a moment's reflection showed her that she didn't
+know where to go, and remembering she was not as brave in the darkness
+and in the woods as in Boston, she meekly set about the search for dry
+twigs and sticks. Flinging down the bundle near the heap Trenton had
+already collected, the young woman burst into a laugh.
+
+"Do you see anything particularly funny in the situation?" asked
+Trenton, with chattering teeth. "I confess I do not."
+
+"The funniness of the situation is that we should gather wood, when, if
+there is a match in your pocket, it must be so wet as to be useless."
+
+"Oh, not at all. You must remember I come from a very damp climate, and
+we take care of our matches there. I have been in the water before now
+on a tramp, and my matches are in a silver case warranted to keep out
+the wet." As he said this Trenton struck a light, and applied it to the
+small twigs and dry autumn leaves. The flames flashed up through the
+larger sticks, and in a very few moments a cheering fire was blazing,
+over which Trenton threw armful after armful of the wood he had
+collected.
+
+"Now," said the artist, "if you will take off what outer wraps you have
+on, we can spread them here, and dry them. Then if you sit, first facing
+the fire and next with your back to it, and maintain a sort of rotatory
+motion, it will not be long before you are reasonably dry and warm."
+
+Miss Sommerton laughed, but there was not much merriment in her
+laughter.
+
+"Was there ever anything so supremely ridiculous?" she said. "A
+gentleman from England gathering sticks, and a lady from Boston gyrating
+before the fire. I am glad you are not a newspaper man, for you might be
+tempted to write about the situation for some sensational paper."
+
+"How do you know I am not a journalist?"
+
+"Well, I hope you are not. I thought you were a photographer."
+
+"Oh, not a professional photographer, you know."
+
+"I am sorry; I prefer the professional to the amateur."
+
+"I like to hear you say that."
+
+"Why? It is not very complimentary, I am sure."
+
+"The very reason I like to hear you say it. If you were complimentary
+I would be afraid you were going to take a chill and be ill after this
+disaster; but now that you are yourself again, I have no such fear."
+
+"Myself again!" blazed the young woman. "What do you know about me?
+How do you know whether I am myself or somebody else? I am sure our
+acquaintance has been very short."
+
+"Counted by time, yes. But an incident like this, in the wilderness,
+does more to form a friendship, or the reverse, than years of ordinary
+acquaintance in Boston or London. You ask how I know that you are
+yourself. Shall I tell you?"
+
+"If you please."
+
+"Well, I imagine you are a young lady who has been spoilt. I think
+probably you are rich, and have had a good deal of your own way in this
+world. In fact, I take it for granted that you have never met any one
+who frankly told you your faults. Even if such good fortune had been
+yours, I doubt if you would have profited by it. A snub would have
+been the reward of the courageous person who told Miss Sommerton her
+failings."
+
+"I presume you have courage enough to tell me my faults without the fear
+of a snub before your eyes."
+
+"I have the courage, yes. You see I have already received the snub
+three or four times, and it has lost its terrors for me."
+
+"In that case, will you be kind enough to tell me what you consider my
+faults?"
+
+"If you wish me to."
+
+"I do wish it."
+
+"Well, then, one of them is inordinate pride."
+
+"Do you think pride a fault?"
+
+"It is not usually reckoned one of the virtues."
+
+"In this country, Mr. Trenton, we consider that every person should have
+a certain amount of pride."
+
+"A certain amount may be all right. It depends entirely on how much the
+certain amount is."
+
+"Well, now for fault No. 2."
+
+"Fault No. 2 is a disregard on your part for the feelings of others.
+This arises, I imagine, partly from fault No. 1. You are in the habit of
+classing the great mass of the public very much beneath you in intellect
+and other qualities, and you forget that persons whom you may perhaps
+dislike, have feelings which you have no right to ignore."
+
+"I presume you refer to this morning," said Miss Sommerton, seriously.
+"I apologised for that two or three times, I think. I have always
+understood that a gentleman regards an apology from another gentleman as
+blotting out the original offence. Why should he not regard it in the
+same light when it comes from a woman?"
+
+"Oh, now you are making a personal matter of it. I am talking in an
+entirely impersonal sense. I am merely giving you, with brutal rudeness,
+opinions formed on a very short acquaintance. Remember, I have done so
+at your own request."
+
+"I am very much obliged to you, I am sure. I think you are more than
+half right. I hope the list is not much longer."
+
+"No, the list ends there. I suppose you imagine that I am one of the
+rudest men you ever met?"
+
+"No, we generally expect rudeness from Englishmen."
+
+"Oh, do you really? Then I am only keeping up the reputation my
+countrymen have already acquired in America. Have you had the
+pleasure of meeting a rude Englishman before?"
+
+"No, I can't say that I have. Most Englishmen I have met have been what
+we call very gentlemanly indeed. But the rudest letter I ever received
+was from an Englishman; not only rude, but ungrateful, for I had bought
+at a very high price one of his landscapes. He was John Trenton, the
+artist, of London. Do you know him?"
+
+"Yes," hesitated Trenton, "I know him. I may say I know him very well.
+In fact, he is a namesake of mine."
+
+"Why, how curious it is I had never thought of that. Is your first name
+J----, the same as his?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Not a relative, is he?"
+
+"Well, no. I don't think I can call him a relative. I don't know that I
+can even go so far as to call him my friend, but he is an acquaintance."
+
+"Oh, tell me about him," cried Miss Sommerton, enthusiastically. "He
+is one of the Englishmen I have longed very much to meet."
+
+"Then you forgave him his rude letter?"
+
+"Oh, I forgave that long ago. I don't know that it was rude, after all.
+It was truthful. I presume the truth offended me."
+
+"Well," said Trenton, "truth has to be handled very delicately, or it is
+apt to give offence. You bought a landscape of his, did you? Which one,
+do you remember?"
+
+"It was a picture of the Thames valley."
+
+"Ah, I don't recall it at the moment. A rather hackneyed subject, too.
+Probably he sent it to America because he couldn't sell it in England."
+
+"Oh, I suppose you think we buy anything here that the English refuse, I
+beg to inform you this picture had a place in the Royal Academy, and was
+very highly spoken of by the critics. I bought it in England."
+
+"Oh yes, I remember it now, 'The Thames at Sonning.' Still, it was a
+hackneyed subject, although reasonably well treated."
+
+"Reasonably well! I think it one of the finest landscape pictures of the
+century."
+
+"Well, in that at least Trenton would agree with you."
+
+"He is very conceited, you mean?"
+
+"Even his enemies admit that."
+
+"I don't believe it. I don't believe a man of such talent could be so
+conceited."
+
+"Then, Miss Sommerton, allow me to say you have very little knowledge of
+human nature. It is only reasonable that a great man should know he is
+a great man. Most of our great men are conceited. I would like to see
+Trenton's letter to you. I could then have a good deal of amusement at
+his expense when I get back."
+
+"Well, in that case I can assure you that you will never see the
+letter."
+
+"Ah, you destroyed it, did you?"
+
+"Not for that reason."
+
+"Then you _did_ destroy it?"
+
+"I tore it up, but on second thoughts I pasted it together again, and
+have it still."
+
+"In that case, why should you object to showing me the letter?"
+
+"Well, because I think it rather unusual for a lady to be asked by a
+gentleman show him a letter that has been written to her by another
+gentleman."
+
+"In matters of the heart that is true; but in matters of art it is not."
+
+"Is that intended for a pun?"
+
+"It is as near to one as I ever allow myself to come, I should like very
+much to see Mr. Trenton's letter. It was probably brutally rude. I know
+the man, you see."
+
+"It was nothing of the sort," replied Miss Sommerton, hotly. "It was a
+truthful, well-meant letter."
+
+"And yet you tore it up?"
+
+"But that was the first impulse. The pasting it together was the
+apology."
+
+"And you will not show it to me?"
+
+"No, I will not."
+
+"Did you answer it?"
+
+"I will tell you nothing more about it. I am sorry I spoke of the letter
+at all. You don't appreciate Mr. Trenton's work."
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon, I do. He has no greater admirer in England than
+I am--except himself, of course."
+
+"I suppose it makes no difference to you to know that I don't like a
+remark like that."
+
+"Oh, I thought it would please you. You see, with the exception of
+myself, Mr. Trenton is about the rudest man in England. In fact, I begin
+to suspect it was Mr. Trenton's letter that led you to a wholesale
+condemning of the English race, for you admit the Englishmen you have
+met were not rude."
+
+"You forget I have met you since then."
+
+"Well bowled, as we say in cricket."
+
+"Has Mr. Trenton many friends in London?"
+
+"Not a great number. He is a man who sticks rather closely to his work,
+and, as I said before, he prides himself on telling the truth. That
+doesn't do in London any more than it does in Boston."
+
+"Well, I honour him for it."
+
+"Oh, certainly; everybody does in the abstract. But it is not a quality
+that tends to the making or the keeping of friends, you know."
+
+"If you see Mr. Trenton when you return, I wish you would tell him there
+is a lady in America who is a friend of his; and if he has any pictures
+the people over there do not appreciate, ask him to send them to Boston,
+and his friend will buy them."
+
+"Then you must be rich, for his pictures bring very good prices, even in
+England."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Sommerton, "I am rich."
+
+"Well, I suppose it's very jolly to be rich," replied the artist, with a
+sigh.
+
+"You are not rich, then, I imagine?"
+
+"No, I am not. That is, not compared with your American fortunes. I have
+enough of money to let me roam around the world if I wish to, and get
+half drowned in the St. Maurice River."
+
+"Oh, is it not strange that we have heard nothing from those boatmen?
+You surely don't imagine they could have been drowned?"
+
+"I hardly think so. Still, it is quite possible."
+
+"Oh, don't say that; it makes me feel like a murderer."
+
+"Well, I think it was a good deal your fault, don't you know." Miss
+Sommerton looked at him.
+
+"Have I not been punished enough already?" she said.
+
+"For the death of two men--if they are dead? Bless me! no. Do you
+imagine for a moment there is any relation between the punishment and
+the fault?"
+
+Miss Sommerton buried her face in her hands.
+
+"Oh, I take that back," said Trenton. "I didn't mean to say such a
+thing."
+
+"It is the truth--it is the truth!" wailed the young woman. "Do you
+honestly think they did not reach the shore?"
+
+"Of course they did. If you want to know what has happened, I'll tell
+you exactly, and back my opinion by a bet if you like. An Englishman is
+always ready to back his opinion, you know. Those two men swam with the
+current until they came to some landing-place. They evidently think we
+are drowned. Nevertheless, they are now making their way through the
+woods to the settlement. Then comes the hubbub. Mason will stir up the
+neighbourhood, and the men who are back from the woods with the other
+canoes will be roused and pressed into service, and some time to-night
+we will be rescued."
+
+"Oh, I hope that is the case," cried Miss Sommerton, looking brightly at
+him.
+
+"It is the case. Will you bet about it?"
+
+"I never bet," said Miss Sommerton.
+
+"Ah, well, you miss a good deal of fun then. You see I am a bit of a
+mind reader. I can tell just about where the men are now."
+
+"I don't believe much in mind reading."
+
+"Don't you? Shall I give you a specimen of it? Take that letter we have
+spoken so much about. If you think it over in your mind I will read you
+the letter--not word for word, perhaps, but I shall give you gist of it,
+at least."
+
+"Oh, impossible!"
+
+"Do you remember it?"
+
+"I have it with me."
+
+"Oh, have you? Then, if you wish to preserve it, you should spread it
+out upon the ground to dry before the fire."
+
+"There is no need of my producing the letter," replied Miss Sommerton;
+"I remember every word it."
+
+"Very well, just think it over in your mind, and see if I cannot repeat
+it. Are you thinking about it?"
+
+"Yes, I am thinking about it."
+
+"Here goes, then. 'Miss Edith Sommerton----'"
+
+"Wrong," said that young lady.
+
+"The Sommerton is right, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, but the first name is not."
+
+"What is it, then?"
+
+"I shall not tell you."
+
+"Oh, very well. Miss Sommerton,--'I have some hesitation in answering
+your letter.' Oh, by the way, I forgot the address. That is the first
+sentence of the letter, but the address is some number which I cannot
+quite see, 'Beacon Street, Boston.' Is there any such street in that
+city?"
+
+"There is," said Miss Sommerton. "What a question to ask."
+
+"Ah, then Beacon Street is one of the principal streets, is it?"
+
+"One of them? It is _the_ street. It is Boston."
+
+"Very good. I will now proceed with the letter. 'I have some hesitation
+in answering your letter, because the sketches you send are so bad, that
+it seems to me no one could seriously forward them to an artist for
+criticism. However, if you really desire criticism, and if the pictures
+are sent in good faith, I may say I see in them no merit whatever, not
+even good drawing; while the colours are put on in a way that would seem
+to indicate you have not yet learned the fundamental principle of mixing
+the paints. If you are thinking of earning a livelihood with your
+pencil, I strongly advise you to abandon the idea. But if you are a lady
+of leisure and wealth, I suppose there is no harm in your continuing as
+long as you see fit.--Yours truly, JOHN TRENTON.'"
+
+Miss Sommerton, whose eyes had opened wider and wider as this reading
+went on, said sharply--
+
+"He has shown you the letter. You have seen it before it was sent."
+
+"I admit that," said the artist.
+
+"Well--I will believe all you like to say about Mr. John Trenton."
+
+"Now, stop a moment; do not be too sweeping in your denunciation of him.
+I know that Mr. Trenton showed the letter to no one."
+
+"Why, I thought you said a moment ago that he showed it to you."
+
+"He did. Yet no one but himself saw the letter."
+
+The young lady sprang to her feet.
+
+"Are you, then, John Trenton, the artist?"
+
+"Miss Sommerton, I have to plead guilty."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Miss Eva Sommerton and Mr. John Trenton stood on opposite sides of the
+blazing fire and looked at each other. A faint smile hovered around the
+lips of the artist, but Miss Sommerton's face was very serious. She was
+the first to speak.
+
+"It seems to me," she said, "that there is something about all this that
+smacks of false pretences."
+
+"On my part, Miss Sommerton?"
+
+"Certainly on your part. You must have known all along that I was the
+person who had written the letter to you. I think, when you found that
+out, you should have spoken of it."
+
+"Then you do not give me credit for the honesty of speaking now. You
+ought to know that I need not have spoken at all, unless I wished to be
+very honest about the matter."
+
+"Yes, there is that to be said in your favour, of course."
+
+"Well, Miss Sommerton, I hope you will consider anything that happens to
+be in my favour. You see, we are really old friends, after all."
+
+"Old enemies, you mean."
+
+"Oh, I don't know about that. I would rather look on myself as your
+friend than your enemy."
+
+"The letter you wrote me was not a very friendly one."
+
+"I am not so sure. We differ on that point, you know."
+
+"I am afraid we differ on almost every point."
+
+"No, I differ with you there again. Still, I must admit I would prefer
+being your enemy----"
+
+"To being my friend?" said Miss Sommerton, quickly.
+
+"No, to being entirely indifferent to you."
+
+"Really, Mr. Trenton, we are getting along very rapidly, are we not?"
+said the young lady, without looking up at him.
+
+"Now, I am pleased to be able to agree with you there, Miss Sommerton.
+As I said before, an incident like this does more to ripen acquaintance
+or friendship, or----" The young man hesitated, and did not complete his
+sentence.
+
+"Well," said the artist, after a pause, "which is it to be, friends or
+enemies?"
+
+"It shall be exactly as you say," she replied.
+
+"If you leave the choice to me, I shall say friends. Let us shake hands
+on that."
+
+She held out her hand frankly to him as he crossed over to her side,
+and as he took it in his own, a strange thrill passed through him, and
+acting on the impulse of the moment, he drew her toward him and kissed
+her.
+
+"How dare you!" she cried, drawing herself indignantly from him. "Do you
+think I am some backwoods girl who is flattered by your preference after
+a day's acquaintance?"
+
+"Not a day's acquaintance, Miss Sommerton--a year, two years, ten years.
+In fact, I feel as though I had known you all my life."
+
+"You certainly act as if you had. I did think for some time past that
+you were a gentleman. But you take advantage now of my unprotected
+position."
+
+"Miss Sommerton, let me humbly apologise!"
+
+"I shall not accept your apology. It cannot be apologised for. I must
+ask you not to speak to me again until Mr. Mason comes. You may consider
+yourself very fortunate when I tell you I shall say nothing of what has
+passed to Mr. Mason when he arrives."
+
+John Trenton made no reply, but gathered another armful of wood and
+flung it on the fire.
+
+Miss Sommerton sat very dejectedly looking at the embers.
+
+For half an hour neither of them said anything.
+
+Suddenly Trenton jumped up and listened intently.
+
+"What is it?" cried Miss Sommerton, startled by his action.
+
+"Now," said Trenton, "that is unfair. If I am not to be allowed to speak
+to you, you must not ask me any questions."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Miss Sommerton, curtly.
+
+"But really I wanted to say something, and I wanted you to be the first
+to break the contract imposed. May I say what I wish to? I have just
+thought about something."
+
+"If you have thought of anything that will help us out of our
+difficulty, I shall be very glad to hear it indeed."
+
+"I don't know that it will help us _out_ of our difficulties, but I
+think it will help us now that we're _in_ them. You know, I presume,
+that my camera, like John Brown's knapsack, was strapped on my back, and
+that it is one of the few things rescued from the late disaster?"
+
+He paused for a reply, but she said nothing. She evidently was not
+interested in his camera.
+
+"Now, that camera-box is water-tight. It is really a very natty
+arrangement, although you regard it so scornfully."
+
+He paused a second time, but there was no reply.
+
+"Very well; packed in that box is, first the camera, then the dry
+plates, but most important of all, there are at least two or three very
+nice Three Rivers sandwiches. What do you say to our having supper?"
+
+Miss Sommerton smiled in spite of herself, and Trenton busily unstrapped
+the camera-box, pulled out the little instrument, and fished up from
+the bottom a neatly-folded white table-napkin, in which were wrapped
+several sandwiches.
+
+"Now," he continued, "I have a folding drinking-cup and a flask of
+sherry. It shows how absent-minded I am, for I ought to have thought of
+the wine long ago. You should have had a glass of sherry the moment we
+landed here. By the way, I wanted to say, and I say it now in case I
+shall forget it, that when I ordered you so unceremoniously to go around
+picking up sticks for the fire, it was not because I needed assistance,
+but to keep you, if possible, from getting a chill."
+
+"Very kind of you," remarked Miss Sommerton.
+
+But the Englishman could not tell whether she meant just what she said
+or not.
+
+"I wish you would admit that you are hungry. Have you had anything to
+eat to-day?"
+
+"I had, I am ashamed to confess," she answered. "I took lunch with me
+and I ate it coming down in the canoe. That was what troubled me about
+you. I was afraid you had eaten nothing all day, and I wished to offer
+you some lunch when we were in the canoe, but scarcely liked to. I
+thought we would soon reach the settlement. I am very glad you have
+sandwiches with you."
+
+"How little you Americans really know of the great British nation, after
+all. Now, if there is one thing more than another that an Englishman
+looks after, it is the commissariat."
+
+After a moment's silence he said--
+
+"Don't you think, Miss Sommerton, that notwithstanding any accident or
+disaster, or misadventure that may have happened, we might get back at
+least on the old enemy footing again? I would like to apologise"--he
+paused for a moment, and added, "for the letter I wrote you ever so many
+years ago."
+
+"There seem to be too many apologies between us," she replied. "I shall
+neither give nor take any more."
+
+"Well," he answered, "I think after all that is the best way. You ought
+to treat me rather kindly though, because you are the cause of my being
+here."
+
+"That is one of the many things I have apologised for. You surely do not
+wish to taunt me with it again?"
+
+"Oh, I don't mean the recent accident. I mean being here in America.
+Your sketches of the Shawenegan Falls, and your description of the
+Quebec district, brought me out to America; and, added to that--I
+expected to meet you."
+
+"To meet me?"
+
+"Certainly. Perhaps you don't know that I called at Beacon Street, and
+found you were from home--with friends in Canada, they said--and I want
+to say, in self-defence, that I came very well introduced. I brought
+letters to people in Boston of the most undoubted respectability, and
+to people in New York, who are as near the social equals of the Boston
+people as it is possible for mere New York persons to be. Among other
+letters of introduction I had two to you. I saw the house in Beacon
+Street. So, you see, I have no delusions about your being a backwoods
+girl, as you charged me with having a short time since."
+
+"I would rather not refer to that again, if you please."
+
+"Very well. Now, I have one question to ask you--one request to
+make. Have I your permission to make it?"
+
+"It depends entirely on what your request is."
+
+"Of course, in that case you cannot tell until I make it. So I shall now
+make my request, and I want you to remember, before you refuse it, that
+you are indebted to me for supper. Miss Sommerton, give me a plug of
+tobacco."
+
+Miss Sommerton stood up in dumb amazement.
+
+"You see," continued the artist, paying no heed to her evident
+resentment, "I have lost my tobacco in the marine disaster, but luckily
+I have my pipe. I admit the scenery is beautiful here, if we could only
+see it; but darkness is all around, although the moon is rising. It can
+therefore be no desecration for me to smoke a pipeful of tobacco, and I
+am sure the tobacco you keep will be the very best that can be bought.
+Won't you grant my request, Miss Sommerton?"
+
+At first Miss Sommerton seemed to resent the audacity of this request.
+Then a conscious light came into her face, and instinctively her hand
+pressed the side of her dress where her pocket was supposed to be.
+
+"Now," said the artist, "don't deny that you have the tobacco. I told
+you I was a bit of a mind reader, and besides, I have been informed that
+young ladies in America are rarely without the weed, and that they only
+keep the best."
+
+The situation was too ridiculous for Miss Sommerton to remain very long
+indignant about it. So she put her hand in her pocket and drew out a
+plug of tobacco, and with a bow handed it to the artist.
+
+"Thanks," he replied; "I shall borrow a pipeful and give you back the
+remainder. Have you ever tried the English birdseye? I assure you it is
+a very nice smoking tobacco."
+
+"I presume," said Miss Sommerton, "the boatmen told you I always gave
+them some tobacco when I came up to see the falls?"
+
+"Ah, you will doubt my mind-reading gift. Well, honestly, they did tell
+me, and I thought perhaps you might by good luck have it with you now.
+Besides, you know, wasn't there the least bit of humbug about your
+objection to smoking as we came up the river? If you really object to
+smoking, of course I shall not smoke now."
+
+"Oh, I haven't the least objection to it. I am sorry I have not a good
+cigar to offer you."
+
+"Thank you. But this is quite as acceptable. We rarely use plug tobacco
+in England, but I find some of it in this country is very good indeed."
+
+"I must confess," said Miss Sommerton, "that I have very little interest
+in the subject of tobacco. But I cannot see why we should not have good
+tobacco in this country. We grow it here."
+
+"That's so, when you come to think of it," answered the artist.
+
+Trenton sat with his back against the tree, smoking in a meditative
+manner, and watching the flicker of the firelight on the face of his
+companion, whose thoughts seemed to be concentrated on the embers.
+
+"Miss Sommerton," he said at last, "I would like permission to ask you a
+second question.
+
+"You have it," replied that lady, without looking up. "But to prevent
+disappointment, I may say this is all the tobacco I have. The rest I
+left in the canoe when I went up to the falls."
+
+"I shall try to bear the disappointment as well as I may. But in this
+case the question is of a very different nature. I don't know just
+exactly how to put it. You may have noticed that I am rather awkward
+when it comes to saying the right thing at the right time. I have not
+been much accustomed to society, and I am rather a blunt man."
+
+"Many persons," said Miss Sommerton with some severity, "pride
+themselves on their bluntness. They seem to think it an excuse for
+saying rude things. There is a sort of superstition that bluntness and
+honesty go together."
+
+"Well, that is not very encouraging, However, I do not pride myself on
+my bluntness, but rather regret it. I was merely stating a condition of
+things, not making a boast. In this instance I imagine I can show that
+honesty is the accompaniment. The question I wished to ask was something
+like this: Suppose I had had the chance to present to you my letters
+of introduction, and suppose that we had known each other for some time,
+and suppose that everything had been very conventional, instead of
+somewhat unconventional; supposing all this, would you have deemed a
+recent action of mine so unpardonable as you did a while ago?"
+
+"You said you were not referring to smoking."
+
+"Neither am I. I am referring to my having kissed you. There's bluntness
+for you."
+
+"My dear sir," replied Miss Sommerton, shading her face with her hand,
+"you know nothing whatever of me."
+
+"That is rather evading the question."
+
+"Well, then, I know nothing whatever of you."
+
+"That is the second evasion. I am taking it for granted that we each
+know something of the other."
+
+"I should think it would depend entirely on how the knowledge influenced
+each party in the case. It is such a purely supposititious state of
+things that I cannot see how I can answer your question. I suppose you
+have heard the adage about not crossing a bridge until you come to
+it."
+
+"I thought it was a stream."
+
+"Well, a stream then. The principle is the same."'
+
+"I was afraid I would not be able to put the question in a way to make
+you understand it. I shall now fall back on my bluntness again, and with
+this question, are you betrothed?"
+
+"We generally call it engaged in this country."
+
+"Then I shall translate my question into the language of the country,
+and ask if----"
+
+"Oh, don't ask it, please. I shall answer before you do ask it by
+saying, No. I do not know why I should countenance your bluntness, as
+you call it, by giving you an answer to such a question; but I do so on
+condition that the question is the last."
+
+"But the second question cannot be the last. There is always the third
+reading of a bill. The auctioneer usually cries, 'Third and last time,'
+not 'Second and last time,' and the banns of approaching marriage are
+called out three times. So, you see, I have the right to ask you one
+more question."
+
+"Very well. A person may sometimes have the right to do a thing, and yet
+be very foolish in exercising that right."
+
+"I accept your warning," said the artist, "and reserve my right."
+
+"What time is it, do you think?" she asked him.
+
+"I haven't the least idea," he replied; "my watch has stopped. That case
+was warranted to resist water, but I doubt if it has done so."
+
+"Don't you think that if the men managed to save themselves they would
+have been here by this time?"
+
+"I am sure I don't know. I have no idea of the distance. Perhaps they
+may have taken it for granted we are drowned, and so there is one chance
+in a thousand that they may not come back at all."
+
+"Oh, I do not think such a thing is possible. The moment Mr. Mason heard
+of the disaster he would come without delay, no matter what he might
+believe the result of the accident to be."
+
+"Yes, I think you are right. I shall try to get out on this point and
+see if I can discover anything of them. The moon now lights up the
+river, and if they are within a reasonable distance I think I can see
+them from this point of rock."
+
+The artist climbed up on the point, which projected over the river. The
+footing was not of the safest, and Miss Sommerton watched him with some
+anxiety as he slipped and stumbled and kept his place by holding on to
+the branches of the overhanging trees.
+
+"Pray be careful, Mr. Trenton," she said; "remember you are over the
+water there, and it is very swift."
+
+"The rocks seem rather slippery with the dew," answered the artist; "but
+I am reasonably surefooted."
+
+"Well, please don't take any chances; for, disagreeable as you are, I
+don't wish to be left here alone."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Sommerton."
+
+The artist stood on the point of rock, and, holding by a branch of a
+tree, peered out over the river.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Trenton, don't do that!" cried the young lady, with alarm.
+"Please come back."
+
+"Say 'John,' then," replied the gentleman.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Trenton, don't!" she cried as he leaned still further over the
+water, straining the branch to its utmost.
+
+"Say 'John.'"
+
+"Mr. Trenton."
+
+"'John.'"
+
+The branch cracked ominously as Trenton leaned yet a little further.
+
+"John!" cried the young lady, sharply, "cease your fooling and come down
+from that rock."
+
+The artist instantly recovered his position, and, coming back, sprang
+down to the ground again.
+
+Miss Sommerton drew back in alarm; but Trenton merely put his hands in
+his pockets, and said--
+
+"Well, Eva, I came back because you called me."
+
+"It was a case of coercion," she said. "You English are too fond of
+coercion. We Americans are against it."
+
+"Oh, I am a Home Ruler, if you are," replied the artist. "Miss Eva, I am
+going to risk my third and last question, and I shall await the answer
+with more anxiety than I ever felt before in my life. The question is
+this: Will--"
+
+"Hello! there you are. Thank Heaven! I was never so glad to see anybody
+in my life," cried the cheery voice of Ed. Mason, as he broke through
+the bushes towards them.
+
+Trenton looked around with anything but a welcome on his brow. If Mason
+had never been so glad in his life to see anybody, it was quite evident
+his feeling was not entirely reciprocated by the artist.
+
+"How the deuce did you get here?" asked Trenton. "I was just looking for
+you down the river."
+
+"Well, you see, we kept pretty close to the shore. I doubt if you could
+have seen us. Didn't you hear us shout?"
+
+"No, we didn't hear anything. We didn't hear them shout, did we, Miss
+Sommerton?"
+
+"No," replied that young woman, looking at the dying fire, whose glowing
+embers seemed to redden her face.
+
+"Why, do you know," said Mason, "it looks as if you had been quarrelling.
+I guess I came just in the nick of time."
+
+"You are always just in time, Mr. Mason," said Miss Sommerton. "For we
+were quarrelling, as you say. The subject of the quarrel is which of us
+was rightful owner of that canoe."
+
+Mason laughed heartily, while Miss Sommerton frowned at him with marked
+disapprobation.
+
+"Then you found me out, did you? Well, I expected you would before the
+day was over. You see, it isn't often that I have to deal with two such
+particular people in the same day. Still, I guess the ownership of the
+canoe doesn't amount to much now. I'll give it to the one who finds it."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Mason," cried Miss Sommerton, "did the two men escape all
+right?"
+
+"Why, certainly, I have just been giving them 'Hail Columbia,' because
+they didn't come back to you; but you see, a little distance down, the
+bank gets very steep--so much so that it is impossible to climb it, and
+then the woods here are thick and hard to work a person's way through.
+So they thought it best to come down and tell me, and we have brought
+two canoes up with us."
+
+"Does Mrs. Mason know of the accident?"
+
+"No, she doesn't; but she is just as anxious as if she did. She can't
+think what in the world keeps you."
+
+"She doesn't realise," said the artist, "what strong attractions the
+Shawenegan Falls have for people alive to the beauties of nature."
+
+"Well," said Mason, "we mustn't stand here talking. You must be about
+frozen to death." Here he shouted to one of the men to come up and put
+out the fire.
+
+"Oh, don't bother," said the artist; "it will soon burn out."
+
+"Oh yes," put in Ed. Mason; "and if a wind should happen to rise in the
+night, where would my pine forest be? I don't propose to have a whole
+section of the country burnt up to commemorate the quarrel between you
+two."
+
+The half-breed flung the biggest brand into the river, and speedily
+trampled out the rest, carrying up some water in his hat to pour on the
+centre of the fire. This done, they stepped into the canoe and were soon
+on their way down the river. Reaching the landing, the artist gave his
+hand to Miss Sommerton and aided her out on the bank.
+
+"Miss Sommerton," he whispered to her, "I intended to sail to-morrow. I
+shall leave it for you to say whether I shall go or not."
+
+"You will not sail," said Miss Sommerton promptly.
+
+"Oh, thank you," cried the artist; "you do not know how happy that makes
+me."
+
+"Why should it?"
+
+"Well, you know what I infer from your answer."
+
+"My dear sir, I said that you would not sail, and you will not, for this
+reason: To sail you require to catch to-night's train for Montreal, and
+take the train from there to New York to get your boat. You cannot catch
+to-night's train, and, therefore, cannot get to your steamer. I never
+before saw a man so glad to miss his train or his boat. Good-night, Mr.
+Trenton. Good-night, Mr. Mason," she cried aloud to that gentleman, as
+she disappeared toward the house.
+
+"You two appear to be quite friendly," said Mr. Mason to the artist.
+
+"Do we? Appearances are deceitful. I really cannot tell at this moment
+whether we are friends or enemies."
+
+"Well, not enemies, I am sure. Miss Eva is a very nice girl when you
+understand her."
+
+"Do _you_ understand her?" asked the artist.
+
+"I can't say that I do. Come to think of it, I don't think anybody
+does."
+
+"In that case, then, for all practical purposes, she might just as well
+not be a nice girl."
+
+"Ah, well, you may change your opinion some day--when you get better
+acquainted with her," said Mason, shaking hands with his friend. "And
+now that you have missed your train, anyhow, I don't suppose you care
+for a very early start to-morrow. Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+After Trenton awoke next morning he thought the situation over very
+calmly, and resolved to have question number three answered that day if
+possible.
+
+When called to breakfast he found Ed. Mason at the head of the table.
+
+"Shan't we wait for the ladies?" asked the artist.
+
+"I don't think we'd better. You see we might have to wait quite a long
+time. I don't know when Miss Sommerton will be here again, and it will
+be a week at least before Mrs. Mason comes back. They are more than
+half-way to Three Rivers by this time."
+
+"Good gracious!" cried Trenton, abashed; "why didn't you call me? I
+should have liked very much to have accompanied them."
+
+"Oh, they wouldn't hear of your being disturbed; and besides, Mr.
+Trenton, our American ladies are quite in the habit of looking after
+themselves. I found that out long ago."
+
+"I suppose there is nothing for it but get out my buckboard and get back
+to Three Rivers."
+
+"Oh, I dismissed your driver long ago," said the lumberman. "I'll take
+you there in my buggy. I am going out to Three Rivers to-day anyhow."
+
+"No chance of overtaking the ladies?" asked Trenton.
+
+"I don't think so. We may overtake Mrs. Mason but I imagine Miss
+Sommerton will be either at Quebec or Montreal before we reach Three
+Rivers. I don't know in which direction she is going. You seem to be
+somewhat interested in that young lady. Purely artistic admiration, I
+presume. She is rather a striking girl. Well, you certainly have made
+the most of your opportunities. Let's see, you have known her now for
+quite a long while. Must be nearly twenty-four hours."
+
+"Oh, don't underestimate it, Mason; quite thirty-six hours at least."
+
+"So long as that? Ah, well, I don't wish to discourage you; but I
+wouldn't be too sure of her if I were you."
+
+"Sure of her! Why, I am not sure of anything."
+
+"Well, that is the proper spirit. You Englishmen are rather apt to take
+things for granted. I think you would make a mistake in this case if
+you were too sure. You are not the only man who has tried to awaken the
+interest of Miss Sommerton of Boston."
+
+"I didn't suppose that I was. Nevertheless, I am going to Boston."
+
+"Well, it's a nice town," said Mason, with a noncommittal air. "It
+hasn't the advantages of Three Rivers, of course; but still it is a very
+attractive place in some respects."
+
+"In some respects, yes," said the artist.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days later Mr. John Trenton called at the house on Beacon Street.
+
+"Miss Sommerton is not at home," said the servant. "She is in Canada
+somewhere."
+
+And so Mr. Trenton went back to his hotel.
+
+The artist resolved to live quietly in Boston until Miss Sommerton
+returned. Then the fateful number three could be answered. He determined
+not to present any of his letters of introduction. When he came to
+Boston first, he thought he would like to see something of society,
+of the art world in that city, if there was an art world, and of the
+people; but he had come and gone without being invited anywhere, and
+now he anticipated no trouble in living a quiet life, and thinking
+occasionally over the situation. But during his absence it appeared
+Boston had awakened to the fact that in its midst had resided a real
+live artist of prominence from the other side, and nothing had been
+done to overcome his prejudices, and show him that, after all, the real
+intellectual centre of the world was not London, but the capital of
+Massachusetts.
+
+The first day he spent in his hotel he was called upon by a young
+gentleman whose card proclaimed him a reporter on one of the large daily
+papers.
+
+"You are Mr. Trenton, the celebrated English artist, are you not?"
+
+"My name is Trenton, and by profession I am an artist. But I do not
+claim the adjective, 'celebrated.'"
+
+"All right. You are the man I am after. Now, I should like to know what
+you think of the art movement in America?"
+
+"Well, really, I have been in America but a very short time, and during
+that time I have had no opportunity of seeing the work of your artists
+or of visiting any collections, so you see I cannot give an opinion."
+
+"Met any of our American artists?"
+
+"I have in Europe, yes. Quite a number of them, and very talented
+gentlemen some of them are, too."
+
+"I suppose Europe lays over this country in the matter of art, don't
+it?"
+
+"I beg your pardon."
+
+"Knocks the spots out of us in pictures?"
+
+"I don't know that I quite follow you. Do you mean that we produce
+pictures more rapidly than you do here?"
+
+"No, I just mean the whole _tout ensemble_ of the thing. They are 'way
+ahead of us, are they not, in art?"
+
+"Well, you see, as I said before--really, I am not in a position to make
+any comparison, because I am entirely ignorant of American painting. It
+seems to me that certain branches of art ought to flourish here. There
+is no country in the world with grander scenery than America."
+
+"Been out to the Rockies?"
+
+"Where is that?"
+
+"To the Rocky Mountains?"
+
+"Oh no, no. You see I have been only a few weeks in this country. I have
+confined my attention to Canada mainly, the Quebec region and around
+there, although I have been among the White Mountains, and the
+Catskills, and the Adirondacks."
+
+"What school of art do you belong to?"
+
+"School? Well, I don't know that I belong to any. May I ask if you are a
+connoisseur in art matters. Are you the art critic of your journal?"
+
+"Me? No--oh no. I don't know the first darn thing about it. That's why
+they sent me."
+
+"Well, I should have thought, if he wished to get anything worth
+publishing, your editor would have sent somebody who was at least
+familiar with the subject he has to write about."
+
+"I dare say; but, that ain't the way to get snappy articles written. You
+take an art man, now, for instance; he's prejudiced. He thinks one
+school is all right, and another school isn't; and he is apt to work in
+his own fads. Now, if our man liked the French school, and despised the
+English school, or the German school, if there is one, or the Italian
+school, whatever it happened to be, and you went against that; why,
+don't you see, he would think you didn't know anything, and write you up
+that way. Now, I am perfectly unprejudiced. I want to write a good
+readable article, and I don't care a hang which school is the best or
+the worst, or anything else about it."
+
+"Ah! I see. Well, in that case, you certainly approach your work without
+bias."
+
+"You bet I do. Now, who do you think is the best painter in England?"
+
+"In what line?"
+
+"Well, in any line. Who stands ahead? Who's the leader? Who tops them
+all? Who's the Raphael?"
+
+"I don't know that we have any Raphael? We have good painters each in
+his own branch."
+
+"Isn't there one, in your opinion, that is 'way ahead of all the rest?"
+
+"Well, you see, to make an intelligent comparison, you have to take into
+consideration the specialty of the painter. You could hardly compare
+Alma Tadema, for instance, with Sir John Millais, or Sir Frederic
+Leighton with Hubert Herkomer, or any of them with some of your own
+painters. Each has his specialty, and each stands at the head of it."
+
+"Then there is no one man in England like Old Man Rubens, or Van Dyke,
+or those other fellows, I forget their names, who are head and shoulders
+above everybody else? Sort of Jay Gould in art, you know."
+
+"No, I wouldn't like to say there is. In fact, all of your questions
+require some consideration. Now, if you will write them down for me, and
+give me time to think them over, I will write out such answers as occur
+to me. It would be impossible for me to do justice to myself, or to art,
+or to your paper, by attempting to answer questions off-hand in this
+way."
+
+"Oh, that's too slow for our time here. You know this thing comes out
+to-morrow morning, and I have got to do a column and a half of it.
+Sometimes, you know, it is very difficult; but you are different from
+most Englishmen I have talked with. You speak right out, and you talk to
+a fellow. I can make a column and a half out of what you have said now."
+
+"Dear me! Can you really? Well, now, I should be careful, if I were you.
+I am afraid that, if you don't understand anything about art, you may
+give the public some very erroneous impressions."
+
+"Oh, the public don't care a hang. All they want is to read something
+snappy and bright. That's what the public want. No, sir, we have catered
+too long for the public not to know what its size is. You might print
+the most learned article you could get hold of, it might be written by
+What's-his-name De Vinci, and be full of art slang, and all that sort of
+thing, but it wouldn't touch the general public at all."
+
+"I don't suppose it would."
+
+"What do you think of our Sunday papers here? You don't have any Sunday
+papers over in London."
+
+"Oh yes, we do. But none of the big dailies have Sunday editions."
+
+"They are not as big, or as enterprising as ours, are they? One Sunday
+paper, you know, prints about as much as two or three thirty-five cent
+magazines."
+
+"What, the Sunday paper does?"
+
+"Yes, the Sunday paper prints it, but doesn't sell for that. We give 'em
+more for the money than any magazine you ever saw."
+
+"You certainly print some very large papers."
+
+With this the reporter took his leave, and next morning Mr. Trenton saw
+the most astonishing account of his ideas on art matters imaginable.
+What struck him most forcibly was, that an article written by a person
+who admittedly knew nothing at all about art should be in general so
+free from error. The interview had a great number of head lines, and
+it was evident the paper desired to treat the artist with the utmost
+respect, and that it felt he showed his sense in preferring Boston to
+New York as a place of temporary residence; but what appalled him was
+the free and easy criticisms he was credited with having made on his own
+contemporaries in England. The principal points of each were summed
+up with a great deal of terseness and force, and in many cases were
+laughably true to life. It was evident that whoever touched up that
+interview possessed a very clear opinion and very accurate knowledge of
+the art movement in England.
+
+Mr. Trenton thought he would sit down and write to the editor of the
+paper, correcting some of the more glaring inaccuracies; but a friend
+said--
+
+"Oh, it is no use. Never mind. Nobody pays any attention to that. It's
+all right anyhow."
+
+"Yes, but suppose the article should be copied in England, or suppose
+some of the papers should get over there?"
+
+"Oh, that'll be all right," said his friend, with easy optimism. "Don't
+bother about it. They all know what a newspaper interview is; if they
+don't, why, you can tell them when you get back."
+
+It was not long before Mr. Trenton found himself put down at all the
+principal clubs, both artistic and literary; and he also became, with
+a suddenness that bewildered him, quite the social lion for the time
+being. He was astonished to find that the receptions to which he was
+invited, and where he was, in a way, on exhibition, were really very
+grand occasions, and compared favourably with the finest gatherings he
+had had experience of in London.
+
+His hostess at one of these receptions said to him, "Mr. Trenton, I want
+to introduce you to some of our art lovers in this city, whom I am sure
+you will be pleased to meet. I know that as a general thing the real
+artists are apt to despise the amateurs; but in this instance I hope you
+will be kind enough not to despise them, for my sake. We think they
+are really very clever indeed, and we like to be flattered by foreign
+preference."
+
+"Am I the foreign preference in this instance?"
+
+"You are, Mr. Trenton."
+
+"Now, I think it is too bad of you to say that, just when I have begun
+to feel as much at home in Boston as I do in London. I assure you I do
+not feel in the least foreign here. Neither do I maintain, like Mrs.
+Brown, that you are the foreigners."
+
+"How very nice of you to say so, Mr. Trenton. Now I hope you will say
+something like that to the young lady I want you to meet. She is really
+very charming, and I am sure you will like her; and I may say, in
+parenthesis, that she, like the rest of us, is perfectly infatuated with
+your pictures."
+
+As the lady said this, she brought Mr. Trenton in her wake, as it were,
+and said, "Miss Sommerton, allow me to present to you Mr. Trenton."
+
+Miss Sommerton rose with graceful indolence, and held out her hand
+frankly to the artist. "Mr. Trenton," she said, "I am very pleased
+indeed to meet you. Have you been long in Boston?"
+
+"Only a few days," replied Trenton. "I came up to Boston from Canada a
+short time since."
+
+"Up? You mean down. We don't say up from Canada."
+
+"Oh, don't you? Well, in England, you know, we say up to London, no
+matter from what part of the country we approach it. I think you are
+wrong in saying down, I think it really ought to be up to Boston from
+wherever you come."
+
+His hostess appeared to be delighted with this bit of conversation,
+and she said, "I shall leave you two together for a few moments to get
+acquainted. Mr. Trenton, you know you are in demand this evening."
+
+"Do you think that is true?" said Trenton to Miss Sommerton.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Well, that I am in demand."
+
+"I suppose it is true, if Mrs. Lennox says it is. You surely don't
+intend to cast any doubt on the word of your hostess, do you?"
+
+"Oh, not at all. I didn't mean in a general way, you know, I meant in
+particular."
+
+"I don't think I understand you, Mr. Trenton. By the way, you said you
+had been in Canada. Do you not think it is a very charming country?"
+
+"Charming, Miss Sommerton, isn't the word for it. It is the most
+delightful country in the world."
+
+"Ah, you say that because it belongs to England. I admit it is very
+delightful; but then there are other places on the Continent quite as
+beautiful as any part of Canada. You seem to have a prejudice in favour
+of monarchical institutions."
+
+"Oh, is Canada monarchical? I didn't know that. I thought Canada was
+quite republican in its form of government."
+
+"Well, it is a dependency; that's what I despise about Canada. Think
+of a glorious country like that, with hundreds of thousands of square
+miles, in fact, millions, I think, being dependent on a little island,
+away there among the fogs and rains, between the North Sea and the
+Atlantic Ocean. To be a dependency of some splendid tyrannical power
+like Russia wouldn't be so bad; but to be dependent on that little
+island--I lose all my respect for Canada when I think of it."
+
+"Well, you know, the United States were colonies once."
+
+"Ah, that is a very unfortunate comparison, Mr. Trenton. The moment the
+colonies, as you call them, came to years of discretion, they soon shook
+off their dependency. You must remember you are at Boston, and that the
+harbour is only a short distance from here."
+
+"Does that mean that I should take advantage of its proximity and
+leave?"
+
+"Oh, not at all. I could not say anything so rude, Mr. Trenton.
+Perhaps you are not familiar with the history of our trouble with
+England? Don't you remember it commenced in Boston Harbour practically?"
+
+"Oh yes, I recollect now. I had forgotten it. Something about tea, was
+it not?"
+
+"Yes, something about tea."
+
+"Well, talking of tea, Miss Sommerton, may I take you to the
+conservatory and bring you a cup of it?"
+
+"May I have an ice instead of the tea, if I prefer it, Mr. Trenton?"
+
+"Why, certainly. You see how I am already dropping into the American
+phraseology."
+
+"Oh, I think you are improving wonderfully, Mr. Trenton."
+
+When they reached the conservatory, Miss Sommerton said--
+
+"This is really a very great breach of good manners on both your part
+and mine. I have taken away the lion of the evening, and the lion has
+forgotten his duty to his hostess and to the other guests."
+
+"Well, you see, I wanted to learn more of your ideas in the matter of
+dependencies. I don't at all agree with you on that. Now, I think if
+a country is conquered, it ought to be a dependency of the conquering
+people. It is the right of conquest. I--I am a thorough believer in the
+right of conquest."
+
+"You seem to have very settled opinions on the matter, Mr. Trenton."
+
+"I have indeed, Miss Sommerton. It is said that an Englishman never
+knows when he is conquered. Now I think that is a great mistake. There
+is no one so quick as an Englishman to admit that he has met his match."
+
+"Why, have you met your match already, Mr. Trenton? Let me congratulate
+you."
+
+"Well, don't congratulate me just yet. I am not at all certain whether I
+shall need any congratulations or not."
+
+"I am sure I hope you will be very successful."
+
+"Do you mean that?"
+
+Miss Sommerton looked at him quietly for a moment.
+
+"Do you think," she said, "I am in the habit of saying things I do not
+mean?"
+
+"I think you are."
+
+"Well, you are not a bit more complimentary than--than--you used to be."
+
+"You were going to say than I was on the banks of the St. Maurice?"
+
+"Oh, you visited the St. Maurice, did you? How far away from Boston that
+seems, doesn't it?"
+
+"It is indeed a great distance, Miss Sommerton. But apparently not
+half as long as the round-about way we are traveling just now. Miss
+Sommerton, I waited and waited in Boston for you to return. I want to be
+a dependence. I admit the conquest. I wish to swear fealty to Miss Eva
+Sommerton of Boston, and now I ask my third question, will you accept
+the allegiance?"
+
+Miss Sommerton was a little slow in replying, and before she had spoken
+Mrs. Lennox bustled in, and said--
+
+"Oh, Mr. Trenton, I have been looking everywhere for you. There are a
+hundred people here who wish to be introduced, and all at once. May I
+have him, Miss Sommerton?"
+
+"Well, Mrs. Lennox, you know, if I said 'Yes,' that would imply a
+certain ownership in him."
+
+"I brought Miss Sommerton here to get her to accept an ice from me,
+which as yet I have not had the privilege of bringing. Will you
+accept--the ice, Miss Sommerton?"
+
+The young lady blushed, as she looked at the artist.
+
+"Yes," she said with a sigh; the tone was almost inaudible.
+
+The artist hurried away to bring the refreshment.
+
+"Why, Eva Sommerton," cried Mrs. Lennox, "you accept a plate of ice
+cream as tragically as if you were giving the answer to a proposal."
+
+Mrs. Lennox said afterward that she thought there was something very
+peculiar about Miss Sommerton's smile in reply to her remark.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HERALDS OF FAME
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Now, when each man's place in literature is so clearly defined, it seems
+ridiculous to state that there was a time when Kenan Buel thought J.
+Lawless Hodden a great novelist. One would have imagined that Buel's
+keen insight into human nature would have made such a mistake
+impossible, but it must be remembered that Buel was always more or
+less of a hero-worshipper. It seems strange in the light of our
+after-knowledge that there ever was a day when Hodden's books were
+selling by the thousand, and Buel was tramping the streets of London
+fruitlessly searching for a publisher. Not less strange is the fact
+that Buel thought Hodden's success well deserved. He would have felt
+honoured by the touch of Hodden's hand.
+
+No convict ever climbed a treadmill with more hopeless despair than Buel
+worked in his little room under the lofty roof. He knew no one; there
+were none to speak to him a cheering or comforting word; he was ignorant
+even of the names of the men who accepted the articles from his pen,
+which appeared unsigned in the daily papers and in some of the weeklies.
+He got cheques--small ones--with illegible and impersonal signatures
+that told him nothing. But the bits of paper were honoured at the bank,
+and this lucky fact enabled him to live and write books which publishers
+would not look at.
+
+Nevertheless, showing how all things are possible to a desperate and
+resolute man, two of his books had already seen the light, if it could
+be called light. The first he was still paying for, on the instalment
+plan. The publishers were to pay half, and he was to pay half. This
+seemed to him only a fair division of the risk at the time. Not a single
+paper had paid the slightest attention to the book. The universal
+ignoring of it disheartened him. He had been prepared for abuse, but not
+for impenetrable silence.
+
+He succeeded in getting another and more respectable publisher to take
+up his next book on a royalty arrangement. This was a surprise to him,
+and a gratification. His satisfaction did not last long after the book
+came out. It was mercilessly slated. One paper advised him to read
+"Hodden;" another said he had plagiarized from that popular writer. The
+criticisms cut him like a whip. He wondered why he had rebelled at the
+previous silence. He felt like a man who had heedlessly hurled a stone
+at a snow mountain and had been buried by the resulting avalanche.
+
+He got his third publisher a year after that. He thought he would never
+succeed in getting the same firm twice, and wondered what would happen
+when he exhausted the London list. It is not right that a man should go
+on for ever without a word of encouragement. Fate recognised that there
+would come a breaking-point, and relented in time. The word came from
+an unexpected source. Buel was labouring, heavy-eyed, at the last
+proof-sheets of his third book, and was wondering whether he would have
+the courage not to look at the newspapers when the volume was published.
+He wished he could afford to go to some wilderness until the worst was
+over. He knew he could not miss the first notice, for experience had
+taught him that Snippit & Co., a clipping agency, would send it to him,
+with a nice type-written letter, saying--
+
+  "DEAR SIR,
+
+  "As your book is certain to attract
+  a great deal of attention from the
+  Press, we shall be pleased to send you
+  clippings similar to the enclosed at the
+  following rates."
+
+It struck him as rather funny that any company should expect a sane man
+to pay so much good money for Press notices, mostly abusive. He never
+subscribed.
+
+The word of encouragement gave notice of its approach in a letter,
+signed by a man of whom he had never heard. It was forwarded to him by
+his publishers. The letter ran:--
+
+  "DEAR SIR,
+
+  "Can you make it convenient to lunch with me on Friday at the
+  Métropole? If you have an engagement for that day can you further
+  oblige me by writing and putting it off? Tell the other fellow you are
+  ill or have broken your leg, or anything, and charge up the fiction to
+  me. I deal in fiction, anyhow. I leave on Saturday for the Continent,
+  not wishing to spend another Sunday in London if I can avoid it. I
+  have arranged to get out your book in America, having read the
+  proof-sheets at your publisher's. All the business part of the
+  transaction is settled, but I would like to see you personally if you
+  don't mind, to have a talk over the future--always an interesting
+  subject.
+
+  "Yours very truly,
+  "L. F. BRANT,
+  "Of Rainham Bros., Publishers, New York."
+
+Buel read this letter over and over again. He had never seen anything
+exactly like it. There was a genial flippancy about it that was new to
+him, and he wondered what sort of a man the New Yorker was. Mr. Brant
+wrote to a stranger with the familiarity of an old friend, yet the
+letter warmed Buel's heart. He smiled at the idea the American evidently
+had about a previous engagement. Invitations to lunch become frequent
+when a man does not need them. No broken leg story would have to be
+told. He wrote and accepted Mr. Brant's invitation.
+
+"You're Mr. Buel, I think?"
+
+The stranger's hand rested lightly on the young author's shoulder. Buel
+had just entered the unfamiliar precincts of the Métropole Hotel. The
+tall man with the gold lace on his hat had hesitated a moment before he
+swung open the big door, Buel was so evidently not a guest of the hotel.
+
+"My name is Buel."
+
+"Then you're my victim. I've been waiting impatiently for you. I am
+L. F. Brant."
+
+"I thought I was in time. I am sorry to have kept you waiting."
+
+"Don't mention it. I have been waiting but thirty seconds. Come up in
+the elevator. They call it a lift here, not knowing any better, but it
+gets there ultimately. I have the title-deeds to a little parlour while
+I am staying in this tavern, and I thought we could talk better if we
+had lunch there. Lunch costs more on that basis, but I guess we can
+stand it."
+
+A cold shudder passed over the thin frame of Kenan Buel. He did not know
+but it was the custom in America to ask a man to lunch and expect him to
+pay half. Brant's use of the plural lent colour to this view, and
+Buel knew he could not pay his share. He regretted they were not in a
+vegetarian restaurant.
+
+The table in the centre of the room was already set for two, and the
+array of wine-glasses around each plate looked tempting. Brant pushed
+the electric button, drew up his chair, and said--
+
+"Sit down, Buel, sit down. What's your favourite brand of wine? Let's
+settle on it now, so as to have no unseemly wrangle when the waiter
+comes. I'm rather in awe of the waiter. It doesn't seem natural that any
+mere human man should be so obviously superior to the rest of us mortals
+as this waiter is. I'm going to give you only the choice of the first
+wines. I have taken the champagne for granted, and it's cooling now in a
+tub somewhere. We always drink champagne in the States, not because we
+like it, but because it's expensive. I calculate that I pay the expenses
+of my trip over here merely by ordering unlimited champagne. I save more
+than a dollar a bottle on New York prices, and these saved dollars count
+up in a month. Personally I prefer cider or lager beer, but in New York
+we dare not own to liking a thing unless it is expensive."
+
+"It can hardly be a pleasant place for a poor man to live in, if that is
+the case."
+
+"My dear Buel, no city is a pleasant place for a poor man to live in. I
+don't suppose New York is worse than London in that respect. The poor
+have a hard time of it anywhere. A man owes it to himself and family not
+to be poor. Now, that's one thing I like about your book; you touch on
+poverty in a sympathetic way, by George, like a man who had come through
+it himself. I've been there, and I know how it is. When I first struck
+New York I hadn't even a ragged dollar bill to my back. Of course every
+successful man will tell you the same of himself, but it is mostly brag,
+and in half the instances it isn't true at all; but in my case--well, I
+wasn't subscribing to the heathen in those days. I made up my mind that
+poverty didn't pay, and I have succeeded in remedying the state of
+affairs. But I haven't forgotten how it felt to be hard up, and I
+sympathise with those who are. Nothing would afford me greater pleasure
+than to give a helping hand to a fellow--that is, to a clever fellow who
+was worth saving--who is down at bed rock. Don't you feel that way too?"
+
+"Yes," said Buel, with some hesitation, "it would be a pleasure."
+
+"I knew when I read your book you felt that way--I was sure of it. Well,
+I've helped a few in my time; but I regret to say most of them turned
+out to be no good. That is where the trouble is. Those who are really
+deserving are just the persons who die of starvation in a garret, and
+never let the outside world know their trouble."
+
+"I do not doubt such is often the case."
+
+"Of course it is. It's always the case. But here's the soup. I hope you
+have brought a good appetite. You can't expect such a meal here as
+you would get in New York; but they do fairly well. I, for one, don't
+grumble about the food in London, as most Americans do. Londoners manage
+to keep alive, and that, after all, is the main thing."
+
+Buel was perfectly satisfied with the meal, and thought if they produced
+a better one in New York, or anywhere else, the art of cookery had
+reached wonderful perfection. Brant, however, kept apologising for the
+spread as he went along. The talk drifted on in an apparently aimless
+fashion, but the publisher was a shrewd man, and he was gradually
+leading it up to the point he had in view from the beginning, and all
+the while he was taking the measure of his guest. He was not a man to
+waste either his time or his dinners without an object. When he had once
+"sized up" his man, as he termed it, he was either exceedingly frank and
+open with him, or the exact opposite, as suited his purpose. He told
+Buel that he came to England once a year, if possible, rapidly scanned
+the works of fiction about to be published by the various houses in
+London, and made arrangements for the producing of those in America that
+he thought would go down with the American people.
+
+"I suppose," said Buel, "that you have met many of the noted authors of
+this country?"
+
+"All of them, I think; all of them, at one time or another. The
+publishing business has its drawbacks like every other trade," replied
+Brant, jauntily.
+
+"Have you met Hodden?"
+
+"Several times. Conceited ass!"
+
+"You astonish me. I have never had the good fortune to become acquainted
+with any of our celebrated writers. I would think it a privilege to know
+Hodden and some of the others."
+
+"You're lucky, and you evidently don't know it. I would rather meet
+a duke any day than a famous author. The duke puts on less side and
+patronises you less."
+
+"I would rather be a celebrated author than a duke if I had my choice."
+
+"Well, being a free and independent citizen of the Democratic United
+States, I wouldn't. _No_, sir! I would rather be Duke Brant any day in
+the week than Mr. Brant, the talented author of, etc., etc. The moment
+an author receives a little praise and becomes talked about, he gets
+what we call in the States 'the swelled head.' I've seen some of the
+nicest fellows in the world become utterly spoiled by a little success.
+And then think of the absurdity of it all. There aren't more than two
+or three at the most of the present-day writers who will be heard of a
+century hence. Read the history of literature, and you will find that
+never more than four men in any one generation are heard of after.
+Four is a liberal allowance. What has any writer to be conceited about
+anyhow? Let him read his Shakespeare and be modest."
+
+Buel said with a sigh, "I wish there was success in store for me. I
+would risk the malady you call the 'swelled head.'"
+
+"Success will come all right enough, my boy. 'All things come to him who
+waits,' and while he is waiting puts in some good, strong days of work.
+It's the working that tells, not the waiting. And now, if you will light
+one of these cigars, we will talk of you for a while, if your modesty
+will stand it. What kind of Chartreuse will you have? Yellow or green?"
+
+"Either."
+
+"Take the green, then. Where the price is the same I always take the
+green. It is the stronger, and you get more for your money. Now then, I
+will be perfectly frank with you. I read your book in the proof-sheets,
+and I ran it down in great style to your publisher."
+
+"I am sorry you did not like it."
+
+"I don't say I didn't like it. I ran it down because it was business. I
+made up my mind when I read that book to give a hundred pounds for the
+American rights. I got it for twenty."
+
+Brant laughed, and Buel felt uncomfortable. He feared that after all he
+did not like this frank American.
+
+"Having settled about the book, I wanted to see you, and here you are.
+Of course, I am utterly selfish in wanting to see you, for I wish you
+to promise me that we will have the right of publishing your books in
+America as long as we pay as much as any other publisher. There is
+nothing unfair in that, is there?"
+
+"No. I may warn you, however, that there has been no great competition,
+so far, for the privilege of doing any publishing, either here or in
+America."
+
+"That's all right. Unless I'm a Dutchman there will be, after your new
+book is published. Of course, that is one of the things no fellow can
+find out. If he could, publishing would be less of a lottery than it is.
+A book is sometimes a success by the merest fluke; at other times, in
+spite of everything, a good book is a deplorable failure. I think yours
+will go; anyhow, I am willing to bet on it up to a certain amount, and
+if it does go, I want to have the first look-in at your future books.
+What do you say?"
+
+"Do you wish me to sign a contract?"
+
+"No, I merely want your word. You may write me a letter if you like,
+that I could show to my partners, saying that we would have the first
+refusal of your future books."
+
+"I am quite willing to do that."
+
+"Very good. That's settled. Now, you look fagged out. I wish you would
+take a trip over to New York. I'll look after you when you get there. It
+would do you a world of good, and would show in the pages of your next
+book. What do you say to that? Have you any engagements that would
+prevent you making the trip?"
+
+Buel laughed, "I am perfectly free as far as engagements are concerned."
+
+"That's all right, then. I wish I were in that position. Now, as I said,
+I considered your book cheap at £100. I got it for £20. I propose to
+hand over the £80 to you. I'll write out the cheque as soon as the
+waiters clear away the _débris_. Then your letter to the firm would form
+the receipt for this money, and--well, it need not be a contract, you
+know, or anything formal, but just your ideas on any future business
+that may crop up."
+
+"I must say I think your offer is very generous."
+
+"Oh, not at all. It is merely business. The £80 is on account of
+royalties. If the book goes, as I think it will, I hope to pay you much
+more than that. Now I hope you will come over and see me as soon as you
+can."
+
+"Yes. As you say, the trip will do me good. I have been rather hard at
+it for some time."
+
+"Then I'll look out for you. I sail on the French line Saturday week.
+When will you come?"
+
+"As soon as my book is out here, and before any of the reviews appear."
+
+"Sensible man. What's your cable address?"
+
+"I haven't one."
+
+"Well, I suppose a telegram to your publishers will find you. I'll cable
+if anything turns up unexpectedly. You send me over a despatch saying
+what steamer you sail on. My address is 'Rushing, New York.' Just cable
+the name of the steamer, and I will be on the look-out for you."
+
+It was doubtless the effect of the champagne, for Buel went back to his
+squalid room with his mind in the clouds. He wondered if this condition
+was the first indication of the swelled head Brant had talked about.
+Buel worked harder than ever at his proofs, and there was some growling
+at head-quarters because of the numerous corrections he made. These
+changes were regarded as impudence on the part of so unknown a man.
+He sent off to America a set of the corrected proofs, and received a
+cablegram, "Proofs received. Too late. Book published today."
+
+This was a disappointment. Still he had the consolation of knowing that
+the English edition would be as perfect as he could make it. He secured
+a berth on the _Geranium_, sailing from Liverpool, and cabled Brant to
+that effect. The day before he sailed he got a cablegram that bewildered
+him. It was simply, "She's a-booming." He regretted that he had never
+learned the American language.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Kenan Buel received from his London publisher a brown paper parcel, and
+on opening it found the contents to be six exceedingly new copies of his
+book. Whatever the publisher thought of the inside of the work, he had
+not spared pains to make the outside as attractive as it could be made
+at the price. Buel turned it over and over, and could almost imagine
+himself buying a book that looked so tastefully got up as this one. The
+sight of the volume gave him a thrill, for he remembered that the Press
+doubtless received its quota at about the same time his parcel came, and
+he feared he would not be out of the country before the first extract
+from the clipping agency arrived. However, luck was with the young man,
+and he found himself on the platform of Euston Station, waiting for the
+Liverpool express, without having seen anything about his book in the
+papers, except a brief line giving its title, the price, and his own
+name, in the "Books Received" column.
+
+As he lingered around the well-kept bookstall before the train left, he
+saw a long row of Hodden's new novel, and then his heart gave a jump as
+he caught sight of two copies of his own work in the row labelled "New
+Books." He wanted to ask the clerk whether any of them had been sold
+yet, but in the first place he lacked the courage, and in the second
+place the clerk was very busy. As he stood there, a comely young woman,
+equipped for traveling, approached the stall, and ran her eye hurriedly
+up and down the tempting array of literature. She bought several of the
+illustrated papers, and then scanned the new books. The clerk, following
+her eye, picked out Buel's book.
+
+"Just out, miss. Three and sixpence."
+
+"Who is the author?" asked the girl.
+
+"Kenan Buel, a new man," answered the clerk, without a moment's
+hesitation, and without looking at the title-page. "Very clever work."
+
+Buel was astonished at the knowledge shown by the clerk. He knew that
+W.H. Smith & Son never had a book of his before, and he wondered how the
+clerk apparently knew so much of the volume and its author, forgetting
+that it was the clerk's business. The girl listlessly ran the leaves of
+the book past the edge of her thumb. It seemed to Buel that the fate of
+the whole edition was in her hands, and he watched her breathlessly,
+even forgetting how charming she looked. There stood the merchant eager
+to sell, and there, in the form of a young woman, was the great public.
+If she did not buy, why should any one else; and if nobody bought, what
+chance had an unknown author?
+
+She put the book down, and looked up as she heard some one sigh deeply
+near her.
+
+"Have you Hodden's new book?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, miss. Six shillings."
+
+The clerk quickly put Buel's book beside its lone companion, and took
+down Hodden's.
+
+"Thank you," said the girl, giving him a half sovereign; and, taking the
+change, she departed with her bundle of literature to the train.
+
+Buel said afterwards that what hurt him most in this painful incident
+was the fact that if it were repeated often the bookstall clerk would
+lose faith in the book. He had done so well for a man who could not
+possibly have read a word of the volume, that Buel felt sorry on the
+clerk's account rather than his own that the copy had not been sold. He
+walked to the end of the platform, and then back to the bookstall.
+
+"Has that new book of Buel's come out yet?" he asked the clerk in an
+unconcerned tone.
+
+"Yes, sir. Here it is; three and sixpence, sir."
+
+"Thank you," said Buel, putting his hand in his pocket for the money.
+"How is it selling?"
+
+"Well, sir, there won't be much call for it, not likely, till the
+reviews begin to come out."
+
+There, Mr. Buel, you had a lesson, if you had only taken it to heart, or
+pondered on its meaning. Since then you have often been very scornful of
+newspaper reviews, yet you saw yourself how the great public treats a
+man who is not even abused. How were you to know that the column of
+grossly unfair rancour which _The Daily Argus_ poured out on your book
+two days later, when you were sailing serenely over the Atlantic, would
+make that same clerk send in four separate orders to the "House" during
+the week? Medicine may have a bad taste, and yet have beneficial
+results. So Mr. Kenan Buel, after buying a book of which he had six
+copies in his portmanteau, with no one to give them to, took his place
+in the train, and in due time found himself at Liverpool and on board
+the _Geranium_.
+
+The stewards being busy, Buel placed his portmanteau on the deck, and,
+with his newly bought volume in his hand, the string and brown paper
+still around it, he walked up and down on the empty side of the deck,
+noticing how scrupulously clean the ship was. It was the first time
+he had ever been on board a steamship, and he could not trust himself
+unguided to explore the depths below, and see what kind of a state-room
+and what sort of a companion chance had allotted to him. They had told
+him when he bought his ticket that the steamer would be very crowded
+that trip, so many Americans were returning; but his state-room had
+berths for only two, and he had a faint hope the other fellow would not
+turn up. As he paced the deck his thoughts wandered to the pretty girl
+who did not buy his book. He had seen her again on the tender in company
+with a serene and placid older woman, who sat unconcernedly, surrounded
+by bundles, shawls, straps, valises, and hand-bags, which the girl
+nervously counted every now and then, fruitlessly trying to convince the
+elderly lady that something must have been left behind in the train, or
+lost in transit from the station to the steamer. The worry of travel,
+which the elderly woman absolutely refused to share, seemed to rest with
+double weight on the shoulders of the girl.
+
+As Buel thought of all this, he saw the girl approach him along the
+deck with a smile of apparent recognition on her face. "She evidently
+mistakes me for some one else," he said to himself. "Oh, thank you," she
+cried, coming near, and holding out her hand. "I see you have found my
+book."
+
+He helplessly held out the package to her, which she took.
+
+"Is it yours?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, I recognised it by the string. I bought it at Euston Station. I am
+forever losing things," she added. "Thank you, ever so much."
+
+Buel laughed to himself as she disappeared. "Fate evidently intends her
+to read my book," he said to himself. "She will think the clerk has made
+a mistake. I must get her unbiased opinion of it before the voyage
+ends."
+
+The voyage at that moment was just beginning, and the thud, thud of the
+screw brought that fact to his knowledge. He sought a steward, and asked
+him to carry the portmanteau to berth 159.
+
+"You don't happen to know whether there is any one else in that room or
+not, do you?" he asked.
+
+"It's likely there is, sir. The ship's very full this voyage."
+
+Buel followed him into the saloon, and along the seemingly interminable
+passage; then down a narrow side alley, into which a door opened
+marked 159-160. The steward rapped at the door, and, as there was no
+response, opened it. All hopes of a room to himself vanished as Buel
+looked into the small state-room. There was a steamer trunk on the
+floor, a portmanteau on the seat, while the two bunks were covered
+with a miscellaneous assortment of hand-bags, shawl-strap bundles, and
+packages.
+
+The steward smiled. "I think he wants a room to himself," he said.
+
+On the trunk Buel noticed the name in white letters "Hodden," and
+instantly there arose within him a hope that his companion was to be
+the celebrated novelist. This hope was strengthened when he saw on the
+portmanteau the letters "J.L.H.," which were the novelist's initials. He
+pictured to himself interesting conversations on the way over, and hoped
+he would receive some particulars from the novelist's own lips of his
+early struggles for fame. Still, he did not allow himself to build too
+much on his supposition, for there are a great many people in this
+world, and the chances were that the traveller would be some commonplace
+individual of the same name.
+
+The steward placed Buel's portmanteau beside the other, and backed out
+of the overflowing cabin. All doubt as to the identity of the other
+occupant was put at rest by the appearance down the passage of a man
+whom Buel instantly recognised by the portraits he had seen of him in
+the illustrated papers. He was older than the pictures made him appear,
+and there was a certain querulous expression on his face which was also
+absent in the portraits. He glanced into the state-room, looked for a
+moment through Buel, and then turned to the steward.
+
+"What do you mean by putting that portmanteau into my room?"
+
+"This gentleman has the upper berth, sir."
+
+"Nonsense. The entire room is mine. Take the portmanteau out."
+
+The steward hesitated, looking from one to the other.
+
+"The ticket is for 159, sir," he said at last.
+
+"Then there is some mistake. The room is mine. Don't have me ask you
+again to remove the portmanteau."
+
+"Perhaps you would like to see the purser, sir."
+
+"I have nothing to do with the purser. Do as I tell you."
+
+All this time he had utterly ignored Buel, whose colour was rising.
+The young man said quietly to the steward, "Take out the portmanteau,
+please."
+
+When it was placed in the passage, Hodden entered the room, shut and
+bolted the door.
+
+"Will you see the purser, sir?" said the steward in an awed whisper.
+
+"I think so. There is doubtless some mistake, as he says."
+
+The purser was busy allotting seats at the tables, and Buel waited
+patiently. He had no friends on board, and did not care where he was
+placed.
+
+When the purser was at liberty, the steward explained to him the
+difficulty which had arisen. The official looked at his list.
+
+"159--Buel. Is that your name, sir? Very good; 160--Hodden. That is the
+gentleman now in the room. Well, what is the trouble?"
+
+"Mr. Hodden says, sir, that the room belongs to him."
+
+"Have you seen his ticket?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Then bring it to me."
+
+"Mistakes sometimes happen, Mr. Buel," said the purser, when the steward
+vanished. "But as a general thing I find that people simply claim what
+they have no right to claim. Often the agents promise that if possible a
+passenger shall have a room to himself, and when we can do so we let him
+have it. I try to please everybody; but all the steamers crossing to
+America are full at this season of the year, and it is not practicable
+to give every one the whole ship to himself. As the Americans say, some
+people want the earth for £12 or £15, and we can't always give it to
+them. Ah, here is the ticket. It is just as I thought. Mr. Hodden is
+entitled merely to berth 160."
+
+The arrival of the ticket was quickly followed by the advent of Mr.
+Hodden himself. He still ignored Buel.
+
+"Your people in London," he said to the purser, "guaranteed me a room to
+myself. Otherwise I would not have come on this line. Now it seems that
+another person has been put in with me. I must protest against this kind
+of usage."
+
+"Have you any letter from them guaranteeing the room?" asked the purser
+blandly.
+
+"No. I supposed until now that their word was sufficient."
+
+"Well, you see, I am helpless in this case. These two tickets are
+exactly the same with the exception of the numbers. Mr. Buel has just as
+much right to insist on being alone in the room as far as the tickets
+go, and I have had no instructions in the matter."
+
+"But it is an outrage that they should promise me one thing in London,
+and then refuse to perform it, when I am helpless on the ocean."
+
+"If they have done so--"
+
+"_If_ they have done so? Do you doubt my word, sir?"
+
+"Oh, not at all, sir, not at all," answered the purser in his most
+conciliatory tone. "But in that case your ticket should have been marked
+159-160."
+
+"I am not to suffer for their blunders."
+
+"I see by this list that you paid £12 for your ticket. Am I right?"
+
+"That was the amount, I believe. I paid what I was asked to pay."
+
+"Quite so, sir. Well, you see, that is the price of one berth only. Mr.
+Buel, here, paid the same amount."
+
+"Come to the point. Do I understand you to refuse to remedy the mistake
+(to put the matter in its mildest form) of your London people?"
+
+"I do not refuse. I would be only too glad to give you the room to
+yourself, if it were possible. Unfortunately, it is not possible. I
+assure you there is not an unoccupied state-room on the ship."
+
+"Then I will see the captain. Where shall I find him?"
+
+"Very good, sir. Steward, take Mr. Hodden to the captain's room."
+
+When they were alone again Buel very contritely expressed his sorrow at
+having been the innocent cause of so much trouble to the purser.
+
+"Bless you, sir, I don't mind it in the least. This is a very simple
+case. Where both occupants of a room claim it all to themselves, and
+where both are angry and abuse me at the same time, then it gets a bit
+lively. I don't envy him his talk with the captain. If the old man
+happens to be feeling a little grumpy today, and he most generally does
+at the beginning of the voyage, Mr. Hodden will have a bad ten minutes.
+Don't you bother a bit about it, sir, but go down to your room and make
+yourself at home. It will be all right."
+
+Mr. Hodden quickly found that the appeal to Caesar was not well timed.
+The captain had not the suave politeness of the purser. There may be
+greater and more powerful men on earth than the captain of an ocean
+liner, but you can't get any seafaring man to believe it, and the
+captains themselves are rarely without a due sense of their own
+dignity. The man who tries to bluff the captain of a steamship like the
+_Geranium_ has a hard row to hoe. Mr. Hodden descended to his state-room
+in a more subdued frame of mind than when he went on the upper deck.
+However, he still felt able to crush his unfortunate room-mate.
+
+"You insist, then," he said, speaking to Buel for the first time, "on
+occupying this room?"
+
+"I have no choice in the matter."
+
+"I thought perhaps you might feel some hesitation in forcing yourself in
+where you were so evidently not wanted?"
+
+The hero-worshipper in Buel withered, and the natural Englishman
+asserted itself.
+
+"I have exactly the same right in this room that you have. I claim no
+privilege which I have not paid for."
+
+"Do you wish to suggest that I have made such a claim?"
+
+"I suggest nothing; I state it. You _have_ made such a claim, and in a
+most offensive manner."
+
+"Do you understand the meaning of the language you are using, sir? You
+are calling me a liar."
+
+"You put it very tersely, Mr. Hodden. Thank you. Now, if you venture to
+address me again during this voyage, I shall be obliged if you keep a
+civil tongue in your head."
+
+"Good heavens! _You_ talk of civility?" cried the astonished man,
+aghast.
+
+His room-mate went to the upper deck. In the next state-room pretty
+Miss Carrie Jessop clapped her small hands silently together. The
+construction of staterooms is such that every word uttered in one above
+the breath is audible in the next room; Miss Jessop could not help
+hearing the whole controversy, from the time the steward was ordered
+so curtly to remove the portmanteau, until the culmination of the
+discussion and the evident defeat of Mr. Hodden. Her sympathy was all
+with the other fellow, at that moment unknown, but a sly peep past the
+edge of the scarcely opened door told her that the unnamed party in the
+quarrel was the awkward young man who had found her book. She wondered
+if the Hodden mentioned could possibly be the author, and, with a
+woman's inconsistency, felt sure that she would detest the story, as if
+the personality of the writer had anything whatever to do with his work.
+She took down the parcel from the shelf and undid the string. Her eyes
+opened wide as she looked at the title.
+
+"Well I never!" she gasped. "If I haven't robbed that poor, innocent
+young man of a book he bought for himself! Attempted eviction by his
+room-mate, and bold highway robbery by an unknown woman! No, it's worse
+than that; it's piracy, for it happened on the high seas." And the girl
+laughed softly to herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Kenan Buel walked the deck alone in the evening light, and felt that
+he ought to be enjoying the calmness and serenity of the ocean expanse
+around him after the noise and squalor of London; but now that the
+excitement of the recent quarrel was over, he felt the reaction, and his
+natural diffidence led him to blame himself. Most of the passengers
+were below, preparing for dinner, and he had the deck to himself. As he
+turned on one of his rounds, he saw approaching him the girl of Euston
+Station, as he mentally termed her. She had his book in her hand.
+
+"I have come to beg your pardon," she said. "I see it was your own book
+I took from you to-day."
+
+"My own book!" cried Buel, fearing she had somehow discovered his guilty
+secret.
+
+"Yes. Didn't you buy this for yourself?" She held up the volume.
+
+"Oh, certainly. But you are quite welcome to it, I am sure."
+
+"I couldn't think of taking it away from you before you have read it."
+
+"But I have read it," replied Buel, eagerly: "and I shall be very
+pleased to lend it to you."
+
+"Indeed? And how did you manage to read it without undoing the parcel?"
+
+"That is to say I--I skimmed over it before it was done up," he said in
+confusion. The clear eyes of the girl disconcerted him, and, whatever
+his place in fiction is now, he was at that time a most unskilful liar.
+
+"You see, I bought it because it is written by a namesake of mine. My
+name is Buel, and I happened to notice that was the name on the book; in
+fact, if you remember, when you were looking over it at the stall,
+the clerk mentioned the author's name, and that naturally caught my
+attention."
+
+The girl glanced with renewed interest at the volume.
+
+"Was this the book I was looking at? The story I bought was Hodden's
+latest. I found it a moment ago down in my state-room, so it was not
+lost after all."
+
+They were now walking together as if they were old acquaintances, the
+girl still holding the volume in her hand.
+
+"By the way," she said innocently, "I see on the passenger list that
+there is a Mr. Hodden on board. Do you think he can be the novelist?"
+
+"I believe he is," answered Buel, stiffly.
+
+"Oh, that will be too jolly for anything. I would _so_ like to meet him.
+I am sure he must be a most charming man. His books show such insight
+into human nature, such sympathy and noble purpose. There could be
+nothing petty or mean about such a man."
+
+"I--I--suppose not."
+
+"Why, of course there couldn't. You have read his books, have you not?"
+
+"All of them except his latest."
+
+"Well, I'll lend you that, as you have been so kind as to offer me the
+reading of this one."
+
+"Thank you. After you have read it yourself."
+
+"And when you have become acquainted with Mr. Hodden, I want you to
+introduce him to me."
+
+"With pleasure. And--and when I do so, who shall I tell him the young
+lady is?"
+
+The audacious girl laughed lightly, and, stepping back, made him a saucy
+bow.
+
+"You will introduce me as Miss Caroline Jessop, of New York. Be sure
+that you say 'New York,' for that will account to Mr. Hodden for any
+eccentricities of conduct or conversation he may be good enough to
+notice. I suppose you think American girls are very forward? All
+Englishmen do."
+
+"On the contrary, I have always understood that they are very charming."
+
+"Indeed? And so you are going over to see?"
+
+Buel laughed. All the depression he felt a short time before had
+vanished.
+
+"I had no such intention when I began the voyage, but even if I should
+quit the steamer at Queenstown, I could bear personal testimony to the
+truth of the statement."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Buel, that is very nicely put. I don't think you can improve on
+it, so I shall run down and dress for dinner. There is the first gong.
+Thanks for the book."
+
+The young man said to himself, "Buel, my boy, you're getting on;" and he
+smiled as he leaned over the bulwark and looked at the rushing water.
+He sobered instantly as he remembered that he would have to go to his
+state-room and perhaps meet Hodden. It is an awkward thing to quarrel
+with your room-mate at the beginning of a long voyage. He hoped Hodden
+had taken his departure to the saloon, and he lingered until the second
+gong rang. Entering the stateroom, he found Hodden still there. Buel
+gave him no greeting. The other cleared his throat several times and
+then said--
+
+"I have not the pleasure of knowing your name."
+
+"My name is Buel."
+
+"Well, Mr. Buel, I am sorry that I spoke to you in the manner I did,
+and I hope you will allow me to apologise for doing so. Various little
+matters had combined to irritate me, and--Of course, that is no
+excuse. But----"
+
+"Don't say anything more. I unreservedly retract what I was heated
+enough to say, and so we may consider the episode ended. I may add that
+if the purser has a vacant berth anywhere, I shall be very glad to take
+it, if the occupants of the room make no objection."
+
+"You are very kind," said Hodden, but he did not make any show of
+declining the offer.
+
+"Very well, then, let us settle the matter while we are at it." And Buel
+pressed the electric button.
+
+The steward looked in, saying,--
+
+"Dinner is ready, gentlemen."
+
+"Yes, I know. Just ask the purser if he can step here for a moment."
+
+The purser came promptly, and if he was disturbed at being called at
+such a moment he did not show it. Pursers are very diplomatic persons.
+
+"Have you a vacant berth anywhere, purser?"
+
+An expression faintly suggestive of annoyance passed over the purser's
+serene brow. He thought the matter had been settled. "We have several
+berths vacant, but they are each in rooms that already contain three
+persons."
+
+"One of those will do for me; that is, if the occupants have no
+objection."
+
+"It will be rather crowded, sir."
+
+"That doesn't matter, if the others are willing."
+
+"Very good, sir. I will see to it immediately after dinner."
+
+The purser was as good as his word, and introduced Buel and his
+portmanteau to a room that contained three wild American collegians who
+had been doing Europe "on the cheap" and on foot. They received the
+new-comer with a hilariousness that disconcerted him.
+
+"Hello, purser!" cried one, "this is an Englishman. You didn't tell us
+you were going to run in an Englishman on us."
+
+"Never, mind, we'll convert him on the way over."
+
+"I say, purser, if you sling a hammock from the ceiling and put up a cot
+on the floor you can put two more men in here. Why didn't you think of
+that?"
+
+"It's not too late yet. Why did you suggest it?"
+
+"Gentlemen," said Buel, "I have no desire to intrude, if it is against
+your wish."
+
+"Oh, that's all right. Never mind them. They have to talk or die. The
+truth is, we were lonesome without a fourth man."
+
+"What's his name, purser?"
+
+"My name is Buel."
+
+One of them shouted out the inquiry, "What's the matter with Buel?" and
+all answered in concert with a yell that made the steamer ring, "_He's_
+all right."
+
+"You'll have to sing 'Hail Columbia' night and morning if you stay in
+this cabin."
+
+"Very good," said Buel, entering into the spirit of the occasion.
+"Singing is not my strong point, and after you hear me at it once, you
+will be glad to pay a heavy premium to have it stopped."
+
+"Say, Buel, can you play poker?"
+
+"No, but I can learn."
+
+"That's business. America's just yearning for men who can learn. We have
+had so many Englishmen who know it all, that we'll welcome a change. But
+poker's an expensive game to acquire."
+
+"Don't be bluffed, Mr. Buel. Not one of the crowd has enough money left
+to buy the drinks all round. We would never have got home if we hadn't
+return tickets."
+
+"Say, boys, let's lock the purser out, and make Buel an American citizen
+before he can call for help. You solemnly swear that you hereby and
+hereon renounce all emperors, kings, princes, and potentates, and more
+especially--how does the rest of it go!"
+
+"He must give up his titles, honours, knighthoods, and things of that
+sort."
+
+"Say, Buel, you're not a lord or a duke by any chance? Because, if you
+are, we'll call back the purser and have you put out yet."
+
+"No, I haven't even the title esquire, which, I understand, all American
+citizens possess."
+
+"Oh, you'll do. Now, I propose that Mr. Buel take his choice of the four
+bunks, and that we raffle for the rest."
+
+When Buel reached the deck out of this pandemonium, he looked around for
+another citizen of the United States, but she was not there. He wondered
+if she were reading his book, and how she liked it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Next morning Mr. Buel again searched the deck for the fair American, and
+this time he found her reading his book, seated very comfortably in her
+deck chair. The fact that she was so engaged put out of Buel's mind
+the greeting he had carefully prepared beforehand, and he stood there
+awkwardly, not knowing what to say. He inwardly cursed his unreadiness,
+and felt, to his further embarrassment, that his colour was rising. He
+was not put more at his ease when Miss Jessop looked up at him coldly,
+with a distinct frown on her pretty face.
+
+"Mr. Buel, I believe?" she said pertly.
+
+"I--I think so," he stammered.
+
+She went on with her reading, ignoring him, and he stood there not
+knowing how to get away. When he pulled himself together, after a few
+moments' silence, and was about to depart, wondering at the caprice of
+womankind, she looked up again, and said icily--
+
+"Why don't you ask me to walk with you? Do you think you have no duties,
+merely because you are on shipboard?"
+
+"It isn't a duty, it is a pleasure, if you will come with me. I was
+afraid I had offended you in some way."
+
+"You have. That is why I want to walk with you. I wish to give you a
+piece of my mind, and it won't be pleasant to listen to, I can assure
+you. So there must be no listener but yourself."
+
+"Is it so serious as that?"
+
+"Quite. Assist me, please. Why do you have to be asked to do such a
+thing? I don't suppose there is another man on the ship who would see a
+lady struggling with her rugs, and never put out his hand."
+
+Before the astonished young man could offer assistance the girl sprang
+to her feet and stood beside him. Although she tried to retain her
+severe look of displeasure, there was a merry twinkle in the corner of
+her eye, as if she enjoyed shocking him.
+
+"I fear I am very unready."
+
+"You are."
+
+"Will you take my arm as we walk?"
+
+"Certainly not," she answered, putting the tips of her fingers into the
+shallow pockets of her pilot jacket. "Don't you know the United States
+are long since independent of England?"
+
+"I had forgotten for the moment. My knowledge of history is rather
+limited, even when I try to remember. Still, independence and all, the
+two countries may be friends, may they not?"
+
+"I doubt it. It seems to be natural that an American should hate an
+Englishman."
+
+"Dear me, is it so bad as that? Why, may I ask? Is it on account of the
+little trouble in 1770, or whenever it was?"
+
+"1776, when we conquered you."
+
+"Were we conquered? That is another historical fact which has been
+concealed from me. I am afraid England doesn't quite realise her
+unfortunate position. She has a good deal of go about her for a
+conquered nation. But I thought the conquering, which we all admit, was
+of much more recent date, when the pretty American girls began to come
+over. Then Englishmen at once capitulated."
+
+"Yes," she cried scornfully. "And I don't know which to despise most,
+the American girls who marry Englishmen, or the Englishmen they marry.
+They are married for their money."
+
+"Who? The Englishmen?"
+
+The girl stamped her foot on the deck as they turned around.
+
+"You know very well what I mean. An Englishman thinks of nothing but
+money."
+
+"Really? I wonder where you got all your cut-and-dried notions about
+Englishmen? You seem to have a great capacity for contempt. I don't
+think it is good. My experience is rather limited, of course, but, as
+far as it goes, I find good and bad in all nations. There are Englishmen
+whom I find it impossible to like, and there are Americans whom I find
+I admire in spite of myself. There are also, doubtless, good Englishmen
+and bad Americans, if we only knew where to find them. You cannot sum
+up a nation and condemn it in a phrase, you know."
+
+"Can't you? Well, literary Englishmen have tried to do so in the case of
+America. No English writer has ever dealt even fairly with the United
+States."
+
+"Don't you think the States are a little too sensitive about the
+matter?"
+
+"Sensitive? Bless you, we don't mind it a bit."
+
+"Then where's the harm? Besides, America has its revenge in you. Your
+scathing contempt more than balances the account."
+
+"I only wish I could write. Then I would let you know what I think of
+you."
+
+"Oh, don't publish a book about us. I wouldn't like to see war between
+the two countries."
+
+Miss Jessop laughed merrily for so belligerent a person.
+
+"War?" she cried. "I hope yet to see an American army camped in London."
+
+"If that is your desire, you can see it any day in summer. You will
+find them tenting out at the Métropole and all the expensive hotels. I
+bivouacked with an invader there some weeks ago, and he was enduring the
+rigours of camp life with great fortitude, mitigating his trials with
+unlimited champagne."
+
+"Why, Mr. Buel," cried the girl admiringly, "you're beginning to talk
+just like an American yourself."
+
+"Oh, now, you are trying to make me conceited."
+
+Miss Jessop sighed, and shook her head.
+
+"I had nearly forgotten," she said, "that I despised you. I remember now
+why I began to walk with you. It was not to talk frivolously, but to
+show you the depth of my contempt! Since yesterday you have gone down in
+my estimation from 190 to 56."
+
+"Fahrenheit?"
+
+"No, that was a Wall Street quotation. Your stock has 'slumped,' as we
+say on the Street."
+
+"Now you are talking Latin, or worse, for I can understand a little
+Latin."
+
+"'Slumped' sounds slangy, doesn't it? It isn't a pretty word, but it is
+expressive. It means going down with a run, or rather, all in a heap."
+
+"What have I done?"
+
+"Nothing you can say will undo it, so there is no use in speaking any
+more about it. Second thoughts are best. My second thought is to say no
+more."
+
+"I must know my crime. Give me a chance to, at least, reach par again,
+even if I can't hope to attain the 90 above."
+
+"I thought an Englishman had some grit. I thought he did not allow any
+one to walk over him. I thought he stood by his guns when he knew he
+was in the right. I thought he was a manly man, and a fighter against
+injustice!"
+
+"Dear me! Judging by your conversation of a few minutes ago, one would
+imagine that you attributed exactly the opposite qualities to him."
+
+"I say I thought all this--yesterday. I don't think so to-day."
+
+"Oh, I see! And all on account of me?"
+
+"All on account of you."
+
+"Once more, what have I done?"
+
+"What have you done? You have allowed that detestably selfish specimen
+of your race, Hodden, to evict you from your room."
+
+The young man stopped abruptly in his walk, and looked at the girl
+with astonishment. She, her hands still coquettishly thrust in her
+jacket-pockets, returned his gaze with unruffled serenity.
+
+"What do you know about it?" he demanded at last.
+
+"Everything. From the time you meekly told the steward to take out your
+valise until the time you meekly apologised to Hodden for having told
+him the truth, and then meekly followed the purser to a room containing
+three others."
+
+"But Hodden meekly, as you express it, apologised first. I suppose you
+know that too, otherwise I would not have mentioned it."
+
+"Certainly he did. That was because he found his overbearing tactics did
+not work. He apologised merely to get rid of you, and did. That's what
+put me out of patience with you. To think you couldn't see through his
+scheme!"
+
+"Oh! I thought it was the lack of manly qualities you despised in me.
+Now you are accusing me of not being crafty."
+
+"How severely you say that! You quite frighten me! You will be making me
+apologise by-and-by, and I don't want to do that."
+
+Buel laughed, and resumed his walk.
+
+"It's all right," he said; "Hodden's loss is my gain. I've got in with
+a jolly lot, who took the trouble last night to teach me the great
+American game at cards--and counters."
+
+Miss Jessop sighed.
+
+"Having escaped with my life," she said, "I think I shall not run any
+more risks, but shall continue with your book. I had no idea you could
+look so fierce. I have scarcely gotten over it yet. Besides, I am very
+much interested in that book of yours."
+
+"Why do you say so persistently 'that book of mine'?"
+
+"Isn't it yours? You bought it, didn't you? Then it was written by your
+relative, you know."
+
+"I said my namesake."
+
+"So you did. And now I'm going to ask you an impudent question. You will
+not look wicked again, will you?"
+
+"I won't promise. That depends entirely on the question."
+
+"It is easily answered."
+
+"I'm waiting."
+
+"What is your Christian name, Mr. Buel?"
+
+"My Christian name?" he repeated, uncomfortably.
+
+"Yes, what is it?"
+
+"Why do you wish to know?"
+
+"A woman's reason--because."
+
+They walked the length of the deck in silence.
+
+"Come, now," she said, "confess. What is it?"
+
+"John."
+
+Miss Jessop laughed heartily, but quietly.
+
+"You think John commonplace, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh, it suits _you_, Mr. Buel. Goodbye."
+
+As the young woman found her place in the book, she mused, "How blind
+men are, after all--with his name in full on the passage list." Then she
+said to herself, with a sigh, "I do wish I had bought this book instead
+of Hodden's."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+At first Mr. Hodden held somewhat aloof from his fellow-passengers; but,
+finding perhaps that there was no general desire to intrude upon him, he
+condescended to become genial to a select few. He walked the deck alone,
+picturesquely attired. He was a man who paid considerable attention to
+his personal appearance. As day followed day, Mr. Hodden unbent so far
+as to talk frequently with Miss Jessop on what might almost be called
+equal terms. The somewhat startling opinions and unexpected remarks of
+the American girl appeared to interest him, and doubtless tended to
+confirm his previous unfavourable impressions of the inhabitants of the
+Western world. Mr. Buel was usually present during these conferences,
+and his conduct under the circumstances was not admirable. He was
+silent and moody, and almost gruff on some occasions. Perhaps Hodden's
+persistent ignoring of him, and the elder man's air of conscious
+superiority, irritated Buel; but if he had had the advantage of mixing
+much in the society of his native land he would have become accustomed
+to that. People thrive on the condescension of the great; they like it,
+and boast about it. Yet Buel did not seem to be pleased. But the most
+astounding thing was that the young man should actually have taken it
+upon himself to lecture Miss Jessop once, when they were alone, for some
+remarks she had made to Hodden as she sat in her deck-chair, with Hodden
+loquacious on her right and Buel taciturn on her left. What right had
+Buel to find fault with a free and independent citizen of another
+country? Evidently none. It might have been expected that Miss Jessop,
+rising to the occasion, would have taught the young man his place, and
+would perhaps have made some scathing remark about the tendency of
+Englishmen to interfere in matters that did not concern them. But she
+did nothing of the kind. She looked down demurely on the deck, with the
+faint flicker of a smile hovering about her pretty lips, and now and
+then flashed a quick glance at the serious face of the young man. The
+attitude was very sweet and appealing, but it was not what we have a
+right to expect from one whose ruler is her servant towards one whose
+ruler is his sovereign. In fact, the conduct of those two young people
+at this time was utterly inexplicable.
+
+"Why did you pretend to Hodden that you had never heard of him, and make
+him state that he was a writer of books?" Buel had said.
+
+"I did it for his own good. Do you want me to minister to his
+insufferable vanity? Hasn't he egotism enough already? I saw in a paper
+a while ago that his most popular book had sold to the extent of over
+100,000 copies in America. I suppose that is something wonderful; but
+what does it amount to after all? It leaves over fifty millions of
+people who doubtless have never heard of him. For the time being I
+merely went with the majority. We always do that in the States."
+
+"Then I suppose you will not tell him you bought his latest book in
+London, and so you will not have the privilege of bringing it up on deck
+and reading it?"
+
+"No. The pleasure of reading that book must be postponed until I reach
+New York. But my punishment does not end there. Would you believe that
+authors are so vain that they actually carry with them the books they
+have written?"
+
+"You astonish me."
+
+"I thought I should. And added to that, would you credit the statement
+that they offer to lend their works to inoffensive people who may not be
+interested in them and who have not the courage to refuse? Why do you
+look so confused, Mr. Buel? I am speaking of Mr. Hodden. He kindly
+offered me his books to read on the way over. He has a prettily bound
+set with him. He gave me the first to-day, which I read ever so many
+years ago."
+
+"I thought you liked his books?"
+
+"For the first time, yes; but I don't care to read them twice."
+
+The conversation was here interrupted by Mr. Hodden himself, who sank
+into the vacant chair beside Miss Jessop. Buel made as though he would
+rise and leave them together, but with an almost imperceptible motion
+of the hand nearest him, Miss Jessop indicated her wish that he should
+remain, and then thanked him with a rapid glance for understanding. The
+young man felt a glow of satisfaction at this, and gazed at the blue sea
+with less discontent than usual in his eyes.
+
+"I have brought you," said the novelist, "another volume."
+
+"Oh, _thank_ you," cried Miss Duplicity, with unnecessary emphasis on
+the middle word.
+
+"It has been considered," continued Mr. Hodden, "by those whose opinions
+are thought highly of in London, to be perhaps my most successful work.
+It is, of course, not for me to pass judgment on such an estimate; but
+for my own part I prefer the story I gave you this morning. An author's
+choice is rarely that of the public."
+
+"And was this book published in America?"
+
+"I can hardly say it was published. They did me the honour to pirate
+it in your most charming country. Some friend--or perhaps I should say
+enemy--sent me a copy. It was a most atrocious production, in a paper
+cover, filled with mistakes, and adorned with the kind of spelling,
+which is, alas! prevalent there."
+
+"I believe," said Buel, speaking for the first time, but with his eyes
+still on the sea, "there is good English authority for much that we term
+American spelling."
+
+"English authority, indeed!" cried Miss Jessop; "as if we needed English
+authority for anything. If we can't spell better than your great English
+authority, Chaucer--well!" Language seemed to fail the young woman.
+
+"Have you read Chaucer?" asked Mr. Hodden, in surprise.
+
+"Certainly not; but I have looked at his poems, and they always remind
+me of one of those dialect stories in the magazines."
+
+Miss Jessop turned over the pages of the book which had been given her,
+and as she did so a name caught her attention. She remembered a
+problem that had troubled her when she read the book before. She cried
+impulsively--"Oh, Mr. Hodden, there is a question I want to ask you
+about this book. Was--" Here she checked herself in some confusion.
+
+Buel, who seemed to realise the situation, smiled grimly.
+
+"The way of the transgressor is hard," he whispered in a tone too low
+for Hodden to hear.
+
+"Isn't it?" cordially agreed the unblushing young woman.
+
+"What did you wish to ask me?" inquired the novelist.
+
+"Was it the American spelling or the American piracy that made you
+dislike the United States?"
+
+Mr. Hodden raised his eyebrows.
+
+"Oh, I do not dislike the United States. I have many friends there, and
+see much to admire in the country. But there are some things that do not
+commend themselves to me, and those I ventured to touch upon lightly
+on one or two occasions, much to the displeasure of a section of the
+inhabitants--a small section, I hope."
+
+"Don't you think," ventured Buel, "that a writer should rather touch on
+what pleases him than on what displeases him, in writing of a foreign
+country?"
+
+"Possibly. Nations are like individuals; they prefer flattery to honest
+criticism."
+
+"But a writer should remember that there is no law of libel to protect a
+nation."
+
+To this remark Mr. Hodden did not reply.
+
+"And what did you object to most, Mr. Hodden?" asked the girl.
+
+"That is a hard question to answer. I think, however, that one of the
+most deplorable features of American life is the unbridled license of
+the Press. The reporters make existence a burden; they print the most
+unjustifiable things in their so-called interviews, and a man has no
+redress. There is no escaping them. If a man is at all well known, they
+attack him before he has a chance to leave the ship. If you refuse to
+say anything, they will write a purely imaginative interview. The last
+time I visited America, five of them came out to interview me--they
+came out in the Custom House steamer, I believe."
+
+"Why, I should feel flattered if they took all that trouble over me,
+Mr. Hodden."
+
+"All I ask of them is to leave me alone."
+
+"I'll protect you, Mr. Hodden. When they come, you stand near me, and
+I'll beat them off with my sunshade. I know two newspaper men--real nice
+young men they are too--and they always do what I tell them."
+
+"I can quite believe it, Miss Jessop."
+
+"Well, then, have no fear while I'm on board."
+
+Mr. Hodden shook his head. He knew how it would be, he said.
+
+"Let us leave the reporters. What else do you object to? I want to
+learn, and so reform my country when I get back."
+
+"The mad passion of the people after wealth, and the unscrupulousness of
+their methods of obtaining it, seem to me unpleasant phases of life over
+there."
+
+"So they are. And what you say makes me sigh for dear old London. How
+honest they are, and how little they care for money there! _They_ don't
+put up the price 50 per cent. merely because a girl has an American
+accent. Oh no. They think she likes to buy at New York prices. And they
+are so honourable down in the city that nobody ever gets cheated. Why,
+you could put a purse up on a pole in London, just as--as--was it Henry
+the Eighth--?"
+
+"Alfred, I think!" suggested Buel.
+
+"Thanks! As Alfred the Great used to do."
+
+Mr. Hodden looked askance at the young woman.
+
+"Remember," he said, "that you asked me for my opinion. If what I have
+said is offensive to one who is wealthy, as doubtless you are, Miss
+Jessop, I most sincerely--"
+
+"Me? Well, I never know whether I'm wealthy or not. I expect that before
+long I shall have to take to typewriting. Perhaps, in that case, you
+will give me some of your novels to do, Mr. Hodden. You see, my father
+is on the Street."
+
+"Dear me!" said Mr. Hodden, "I am sorry to hear that."
+
+"Why? They are not all rogues on Wall Street, in spite of what the
+papers say. Remember your own opinion of the papers. They are not to be
+trusted when they speak of Wall Street men. When my father got very
+rich once I made him give me 100,000 dollars, so that, should things go
+wrong--they generally go wrong for somebody on Wall Street--we would
+have something to live on, but, unfortunately, he always borrows
+it again. Some day, I'm afraid, it will go, and then will come the
+typewriter. That's why I took my aunt with me and saw Europe before it
+was too late. I gave him a power of attorney before I left, so I've had
+an anxious time on the Continent. My money was all right when we left
+Liverpool, but goodness knows where it will be when I reach New York."
+
+"How very interesting. I never heard of a situation just like it
+before."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The big vessel lay at rest in New York Bay waiting for the boat of the
+health officers and the steamer with the customs men on board. The
+passengers were in a state of excitement at the thought of being so near
+home. The captain, who was now in excellent humour, walked the deck and
+chatted affably with every one. A successful voyage had been completed.
+Miss Jessop feared the coming of the customs boat as much as Hodden
+feared the reporters. If anything, he was the more resigned of the two.
+What American woman ever lands on her native shore without trembling
+before the revenue laws of her country? Kenan Buel, his arms resting on
+the bulwarks, gazed absently at the green hills he was seeing for the
+first time, but his thoughts were not upon them. The young man was in a
+quandary. Should he venture, or should he not, that was the question.
+Admitting, for the sake of argument, that she cared for him, what had he
+to offer? Merely himself, and the debt still unpaid on his first book.
+The situation was the more embarrassing because of a remark she had made
+about Englishmen marrying for money. He had resented that on general
+principles when he heard it, but now it had a personal application that
+seemed to confront him whichever way he turned. Besides, wasn't it all
+rather sudden, from an insular point of view? Of course they did things
+with great rapidity in America, so perhaps she would not object to the
+suddenness. He had no one to consult, and he felt the lack of advice. He
+did not want to make a mistake, neither did he wish to be laughed at.
+Still, the laughing would not matter if everything turned out right.
+Anyhow, Miss Jessop's laugh was very kindly. He remembered that if he
+were in any other difficulty he would turn quite naturally to her for
+advice, although he had known her so short a time, and he regretted that
+in his present predicament he was debarred from putting the case before
+her. And yet, why not? He might put the supposititious case of a friend,
+and ask what the friend ought to do. He dismissed this a moment later.
+It was too much like what people did in a novel, and besides, he could
+not carry it through. She would see through the sham at once. At this
+point he realised that he was just where he began.
+
+"Dear me, Mr. Buel, how serious you look. I am afraid you don't approve
+of America. Are you sorry the voyage is ended?"
+
+"Yes, I am," answered Buel, earnestly. "I feel as if I had to begin life
+over again."
+
+"And are you afraid?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"I am disappointed in you. I thought you were not afraid of anything."
+
+"You were disappointed in me the first day, you remember."
+
+"So I was. I had forgotten."
+
+"Will your father come on board to meet you?"
+
+"It depends altogether on the state of the market. If things are dull,
+he will very likely meet me out here. If the Street is brisk, I won't
+see him till he arrives home to-night. If medium, he will be on the
+wharf when we get in."
+
+"And when you meet him I suppose you will know whether you are rich or
+poor?"
+
+"Oh, certainly. It will be the second thing I ask him."
+
+"When you know, I want you to tell me. Will you?"
+
+"Are you interested in knowing?"
+
+"Very much so."
+
+"Then I hope I shall be rich."
+
+Mr. Buel did not answer. He stared gloomily down at the water lapping
+the iron side of the motionless steamer. The frown on his brow was deep.
+Miss Jessop looked at him for a moment out of the corners of her eyes.
+Then she said, impulsively--
+
+"I know that was mean. I apologise. I told you I did not like to
+apologise, so you may know how sorry I am. And, now that I have begun,
+I also apologise for all the flippant things I have said during the
+voyage, and for my frightful mendacity to poor Mr. Hodden, who sits
+there so patiently and picturesquely waiting for the terrible reporters.
+Won't you forgive me?"
+
+Buel was not a ready man, and he hesitated just the smallest fraction of
+a second too long.
+
+"I won't ask you twice, you know," said Miss Jessop, drawing herself up
+with dignity.
+
+"Don't--don't go!" cried the young man, with sudden energy, catching her
+hand. "I'm an unmannerly boor. But I'll risk everything and tell you
+the trouble. I don't care a--I don't care whether you are rich or poor.
+I----"
+
+Miss Jessop drew away her hand.
+
+"Oh, there's the boat, Mr. Buel, and there's my papa on the upper deck."
+
+She waved her handkerchief in the air in answer to one that was
+fluttering on the little steamer. Buel saw the boat cutting a rapid
+semicircle in the bay as she rounded to, leaving in her wake a long,
+curving track of foam. She looked ridiculously small compared with the
+great ship she was approaching, and her deck seemed crowded.
+
+"And there are the reporters!" she cried; "ever so many of them. I guess
+Mr. Hodden will be sorry he did not accept my offer of protection. I know
+that young man who is waving his hand. He was on the _Herald_ when I
+left; but no one can say what paper he's writing for now."
+
+As the boat came nearer a voice shouted--
+
+"All well, Carrie?"
+
+The girl nodded. Her eyes and her heart were too full for speech. Buel
+frowned at the approaching boat, and cursed its inopportune arrival. He
+was astonished to hear some one shout from her deck--
+
+"Hello, Buel!"
+
+"Why, there's some one who knows you!" said the girl, looking at him.
+
+Buel saw a man wave his hand, and automatically he waved in return.
+After a moment he realised that it was Brant the publisher. The customs
+officers were first on board, for it is ordained by the law that no
+foot is to tread the deck before theirs; but the reporters made a good
+second.
+
+Miss Jessop rushed to the gangway, leaving Buel alone. "Hello, Cap!"
+cried one of the young men of the Press, with that lack of respect for
+the dignitaries of this earth which is characteristic of them. "Had a
+good voyage?"
+
+"Splendid," answered the captain, with a smile.
+
+"Where's your celebrity? Trot him out."
+
+"I believe Mr. Hodden is aft somewhere."
+
+"Oh,--Hodden!" cried the young man, profanely; "he's a chestnut. Where's
+Kenan Buel?"
+
+The reporter did not wait for a reply, for he saw by the crowd around a
+very flushed young man that the victim had been found and cornered.
+
+"Really, gentlemen," said the embarrassed Englishman, "you have made a
+mistake. It is Mr. Hodden you want to see. I will take you to him."
+
+"Hodden's played," said one of the young men in an explanatory way,
+although Buel did not understand the meaning of the phrase. "He's
+petered out;" which addition did not make it any plainer. "You're the
+man for our money every time."
+
+"Break away there, break away!" cried the belated Brant, forcing his way
+through them and taking Buel by the hand. "There's no rush, you know,
+boys. Just let me have a minute's talk with Mr. Buel. It will be all
+right. I have just set up the champagne down in the saloon. It's my
+treat, you know. There's tables down there, and we can do things
+comfortably. I'll guarantee to produce Buel inside of five minutes."
+
+Brant linked arms with the young man, and they walked together down the
+deck.
+
+"Do you know what this means, Buel?" he said, waving his hand towards
+the retreating newspaper men.
+
+"I suppose it means that you have got them to interview me for business
+purposes. I can think of no other reason."
+
+"I've had nothing to do with it. That shows just how little you know
+about the American Press. Why, all the money I've got wouldn't bring
+those men out here to interview anybody who wasn't worth interviewing.
+It means fame; it means wealth; it means that you have turned the
+corner; it means you have the world before you; it means everything.
+Those young men are not reporters to you; they are the heralds of fame,
+my boy. A few of them may get there themselves some day, but it means
+that you have got there _now_. Do you realise that?"
+
+"Hardly. I suppose, then, the book has been a success?"
+
+"A success? It's been a cyclone. I've been fighting pirates ever since
+it came out. You see, I took the precaution to write some things in the
+book myself."
+
+Buel looked alarmed.
+
+"And then I copyrighted the whole thing, and they can't tell which is
+mine and which is yours until they get a hold of the English edition.
+That's why I did not wait for your corrections."
+
+"We are collaborators, then?"
+
+"You bet. I suppose some of the English copies are on this steamer? I'm
+going to try to have them seized by the customs if I can. I think I'll
+make a charge of indecency against the book."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Buel, aghast. "There is nothing of that in it."
+
+"I am afraid not," said Brant, regretfully. "But it will give us
+a week more at least before it is decided. Anyhow, I'm ready for the
+pirates, even if they do come out. I've printed a cheap paper edition,
+100,000 copies, and they are now in the hands of all the news
+companies--sealed up, of course--from New York to San Francisco. The
+moment a pirate shows his head, I'll telegraph the word 'rip' all over
+the United States, and they will rip open the packages and flood the
+market with authorised cheap editions before the pirates leave New York.
+Oh, L. F. Brant was not born the day before yesterday."
+
+"I see he wasn't," said Buel, smiling.
+
+"Now you come down and be introduced to the newspaper boys. You'll find
+them jolly nice fellows."
+
+"In a moment. You go down and open the champagne. I'll follow you. I--I
+want to say a few words to a friend on board."
+
+"No tricks now, Buel. You're not going to try to dodge them?"
+
+"I'm a man of my word, Mr. Brant. Don't be afraid."
+
+"And now," said the other, putting his hands on the young man's
+shoulders, "you'll be kind to them. Don't put on too much side, you
+know. You'll forgive me for mentioning this, but sometimes your
+countrymen do the high and mighty act a little too much. It doesn't
+pay."
+
+"I'll do my best. But I haven't the slightest idea what to say. In fact,
+I've nothing to say."
+
+"Oh, that's all right. Don't you worry. Just have a talk with them,
+that's all they want. You'll be paralysed when the interviews come out
+to-morrow; but you'll get over that."
+
+"You're sure the book is a success in its own merits, and not through
+any newspaper puffing or that sort of thing, you know?"
+
+"Why, certainly. Of course our firm pushed it. We're not the people to
+go to sleep over a thing. It might not have done quite so well with any
+other house; but I told you in London I thought it was bound to go. The
+pushing was quite legitimate."
+
+"In that case I shall be down to see the reporters in a very few
+minutes." Although Buel kept up his end of the conversation with Brant,
+his mind was not on it. Miss Jessop and her father were walking near
+them; snatches of their talk came to him, and his attention wandered in
+spite of himself. The Wall Street man seemed to be trying to reassure
+his daughter, and impart to her some of the enthusiasm he himself felt.
+He patted her affectionately on the shoulder now and then, and she
+walked with springy step very close to his side.
+
+"It's all right, Carrie," he said, "and as safe as the bank."
+
+"Which bank, papa?"
+
+Mr. Jessop laughed.
+
+"The Chemical Bank, if you like; or, as you are just over from the other
+side, perhaps I should say the Bank of England."
+
+"And did you take out every cent?"
+
+"Yes; and I wished there was double the amount to take. It's a sure
+thing. There's no speculation about it. There isn't a bushel of wheat in
+the country that isn't in the combination. It would have been sinful not
+to have put every cent I could scrape together into it. Why, Carrie,
+I'll give you a quarter of a million when the deal comes off."
+
+Carrie shook her head.
+
+"I've been afraid of wheat corners," she said, "ever since I was a baby.
+Still, I've no right to say anything. It's all your money, anyway, and
+I've just been playing that it was mine. But I do wish you had left a
+hundred dollars for a typewriter."
+
+Mr. Jessop laughed again in a very hearty and confident way.
+
+"Don't you fret about that, Carrie. I've got four type machines down at
+the office. I'll let you have your choice before the crash comes. Now
+I'll go down and see those customs men. There won't be any trouble. I
+know them."
+
+It was when Mr. Jessop departed that Buel suddenly became anxious to get
+rid of Brant. When he had succeeded, he walked over to where the girl
+leaned on the bulwark.
+
+"Well?" he said, taking his place beside her.
+
+"Well!" she answered, without looking up at him.
+
+"Which is it? Rich or poor?"
+
+"Rich, I should say, by the way the reporters flocked about you. That
+means, I suppose, that your book has been a great success, and that you
+are going to make your fortune out of it. Let me congratulate you, Mr.
+Buel."
+
+"Wait a minute. I don't know yet whether I am to be congratulated or
+not; that will depend on you. Of course you know I was not speaking of
+myself when I asked the question."
+
+"Oh, you meant me, did you? Well, I can't tell for some time to come,
+but I have my fears. I hear the click of the typewriter in the near
+future."
+
+"Caroline, I am very serious about this. I don't believe you think, or
+could think, that I care much about riches. I have been on too intimate
+terms with poverty to be afraid of it. Of course my present apparent
+success has given me courage, and I intend to use that courage while it
+lasts. I have been rather afraid of your ridicule, but I think, whether
+you were rich or poor, or whether my book was a success or a failure, I
+would have risked it, and told you I loved you."
+
+The girl did not look up at him, and did not answer for a moment. Then
+she said, in a voice that he had to bend very close to hear--
+
+"I--I would have been sorry all my life if you hadn't--risked it."
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of One Day's Courtship, by Robert Barr
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