I
That journey homeward!
The backlash of a typhoon blown up from the China Sea made rough sailing the first two days of the voyage. Passengers kept to their staterooms. But the third evening Madelaine dressed for dinner.
She had a dinner gown in her trunk which had reposed in the Tokio Y. W. C. A. during her absence in Siberia. When she joined Nathan in the passageway after her toilet was complete, the man failed to recognize her for an instant. She actually had to speak to him as she approached. Then a thrill shot through him at sight of her loveliness that burned to the roots of his hair.
She was a sensation as she preceded her lover through the crowded saloon a moment later.
“’Sst! Get onto the peach!” Nathan overheard a little undersized Hebrew whisper swiftly to a fellow diner as he and Madelaine passed one of the door tables.
They walked afterward on the upper deck in the mellow starlit darkness, a light scarf about the girl’s bare shoulders. Those stars hung very luminous and close again. But now they were merely watchwords, hung over the sea.
Off by the tarpaulined lifeboats in the shadows cast by the massive ventilators, the two finally leaned over the rail. The moon was coming up. It came up while they stayed there.
The man’s arm stole around the girl’s waist. He drew her close. And she sighed contentedly in that embrace and relaxed against him.
“Happy, dear?” she whispered.
“Happy? Madelaine, there’s a dull, poignant ache way down inside—that I’m going to awaken soon and find it all a dream. I can’t explain it. The world is changed. To-night—this moment—I’m the happiest man in it and I’d go through it all again if I thought that in the end I’d reach the luxury of this moment.”
“We’re going to have a big church wedding, laddie, dear—if you’ll agree. There must be lights and flowers and laughter and music—a surfeit of it, because we’ve wanted it so long, both of us. Besides, it’s the last thing mother’ll be able to do for me. It would break her heart if she couldn’t.”
“You’ve written to her about—me?” Nathan asked thickly.
“Do you think I could keep it to myself, you foolish boy? And she’s going to meet us at the Springfield station and you’re to stay with us a few days before you go up to Vermont and close your position with your mill people.”
“When will it happen, dear—the lights and the laughter, the flowers and the music?”
“I’d like it to be the first of October, laddie. Mother will certainly want that much time to prepare. But never mind. The weeks will go quickly. And you’ll be right near-by in New York. You must come up every week-end. And I’ll be in New York to do my wedding shopping too, laddie. Also there’s the question of our house. We’ll want to settle that in the meantime.”
The man was silent. The moon came up out of a tropical sea and made a pathway of silver straight to their feet. His voice shaking with emotion, he finally said:
“Madelaine dear, there’s something I’ve been wanting to speak about for a long, long time. It’s about myself. In a way I’m glad you saw father. Maybe you can understand why I’ve wanted to be a little bigger and better than he has shown himself. But I haven’t had any one to coach me, dear. I’ve grown rather hit-or-miss and had to get the corners removed in a hard, rough way. And I’m afraid they’re not all removed—far from it.”
“Coach you?”
“I know I’m rough and crude. In a lot of ways Bernie was right. I know there are times when perhaps I shock you with those crudities. But it isn’t because I haven’t the desire to learn. If you’ll only be patient, I’ll try my best——”
“Let’s not talk about it, laddie. Of course I know you’ll try your best. I’ve seen you eager to do your best so many times it’s often brought tears to my eyes. You never knew. Of course there are old habits you’ve been almost thirty years forming that can’t be broken in a moment. They’re deeper than your conscious mind. Yes—I know all that! I guess it’s because you’re trying so hard that I’ve gone on loving you more and more. No man need despair of becoming a polished, courtly gentleman who has a basic love of beauty in his heart. All else is a matter of practice and contact. Anyway, you suit me, and if you keep on the way you’ve been going the past six months, at forty I’m going to drop right down on my bony old knees and worship you—the little tin god that I’ve made!”
“No woman ever talked to me as you do, Madelaine. It would be a pretty cheap fellow who couldn’t respond to your ‘handling.’ You don’t scold or preach, like all the rest, and make me more self-conscious than ever. There’s something you radiate that simply won’t let a fellow be a boor while you’re around. And I love you! Dear God, how I love you! What can I ever do to show it? I wonder what?”
“Well, dear, just now you might kiss me,” Madelaine responded, pinching his hard ruddy hand. “For the present that will be quite sufficient.”
Music started somewhere on the decks below.
“A waltz!” cried the girl. “Come on, Natie, let’s dance.”
“I can’t dance,” confessed Nathan bitterly.
“Well, what the stuff-and-nonsense difference does that make? I’m here to teach you, am I not? Come on, you horrible troglodyte! You’re going to get your first lesson in waltzing under the absolutely impersonal instruction of your Girl-Without-a-Name!”
And he did.