I summoned a district messenger, by a call in my room, and dispatched this to East Sixteenth Street, though why I did not put it in the mail I do not know. There was certainly no haste required. The steward of the club would send an answer, if one was received, without delay, for I had given him my pseudonym, and he was too wise to ask questions.
That night I dreamed I was at St. Thomas; that Marjorie had somehow changed into the Quarantine Keeper's daughter; and that Laps, the Danish dog, was proceeding to tear her in pieces, when I interfered and treated him as Samson did the Lion in the Hebrew tale. The girl had fainted in my arms and, I was calling wildly upon Heaven to restore her senses, when a servant, up late, woke me by knocking on my door and inquiring if I wished for anything.
I searched for a bootjack to throw at the fellow's head, and not finding it in the dark, I threw a few uncomplimentary expletives instead. But sleep had vanished for that night, and after taking a cold bath I threw myself on a sofa, where with a pipe in my mouth I spent the long hours till morning drawing pictures of the happiness so soon to be mine.
CHAPTER VIII.
"A WOMAN I LIKE VERY WELL."
The first thought that struck me when I was ready for breakfast was that my new secretary ought to terminate her arrangement with that disagreeably affectionate employer and keep open house during each entire day and evening for my benefit. The mornings that were to elapse before the sailing of the "Madiana" would be terribly dull. I had tried to make it clear to Miss May that her salary had already begun to be reckoned and I did not see why she should carry on two business engagements at the same time.
When I rose from the table on which my coffee and eggs had been spread, it was to receive a letter which had passed through the Lambs Club and was undoubtedly a reply to the one I had sent Miss Brazier on the previous day. It would at least entertain me for a few moments to know what that apparently lively young lady had to say:
Dear Sir:—[it began—coldly enough, I thought] Your communication has been duly received and its contents noted. Although it is unlikely, and certainly, on my part, not desired, that we shall ever meet, I must inform you that my answer to your advertisement was written purely in fun and without the least idea of accepting your remarkable proposition. I will add that I am surprised that you have succeeded in inducing any woman of the least respectability to undertake such a journey, and I fear that your impression of her high character will receive some severe wrenches before your return.
It must require unusual "nerve" to start off for several months with an unmarried man (or a married one, for that matter) putting ones self at his mercy, for that is what it amounts to. When the individual is wholly unknown to the woman who is to accompany him—when he may, for all she knows, be a "Jack, the Ripper"—the foolhardiness of the idea grows on one. I am sure I do not envy your companion, though it is by no means certain but you, and not she, will be the most swindled in the affair.