Across the Stream

by E. F. Benson

Helena found time to go to Victoria to meet the travellers that afternoon, and to reflect, as she waited for the boat-train to come in, that she in her cool pink blouse and her skirt of Poiret stuff would certainly present a very refreshing contrast to poor Jessie in dishevelled and dusty travelling-clothes. She did not in the least want Jessie to look bedraggled except in so far as she herself would gain by the contrast, for she was good-natured enough not to want any one to be at a disadvantage as long as that did not add to her own advantage. Jessie was a dreadfully bad sailor, too; but it was quite enough that she should have travelled for a night and a day, without hoping that she had had a bad crossing. Helena merely wanted to appear fresh and brilliant herself. At length the train came in, and, though she quite distinctly saw Archie step out, she continued searching for him with her eyes in the crowd, until he made his way up to her.

"Ah, my dear," she said, "how lovely to see you! And don't be cross with me for coming to meet you if it bores you to be met at the station. But I did want to welcome you. And where's Jessie? There she is! Jessie darling, what fun!"

Archie did not look as if he was at all bored to be met at the station.

"That's perfectly ripping of you," he said. "I am glad you came. We've been baked and boiled all the way from Silorno. And the crossing! I thought it was always calm in the summer."

"Archie, don't allude to it," said Jessie.

Helena took her sister's arm.

"Darling Jessie, I am so sorry," she said. "Archie's a wretch for mentioning it. Now you go straight to the motor and sit there quietly. Archie and I will see to your luggage."

If Archie, as is probable, drew the contrast he was intended to draw between the sisters, Helena on her side drew another between him and Lord Harlow. There he stood, looking eagerly at her as they waited the emergence of their trunks, face and neck and hands so tanned by the sun that every one else looked ill and anaemic by him. He was tall and lithe and slender, with the quick movements of some wild animal, and in his brown face his blue eyes shone like transparent turquoises. He seemed an incarnation of sun and sea and wholesome virility, and, as the thought of the rather heavy Kalmuck face of Lord Harlow, and staid aspect suitable to his forty years, she almost wondered whether, in her estimate made this morning, she had allowed enough for personal charm. But there had been other factors as well, and who knew whether below this engaging exterior there were not planted the seeds of tragic outcome? But it was certainly pleasant to reflect that his exuberance of young manhood would, she made no doubt, be all hers if she made up her mind to want it. In any case, was there another girl in London who had so attractive a second string to her bow?

Archie had, on the appearance of one of their pieces of luggage, insinuated himself into the crowd and Helena was left outside, when a sight odd to see at a station attracted her attention. Beyond, the platform lay empty, and out of some porter's shed there, there bounded a big tabby cat with a mouse in its mouth. Its tail switched, its eyes gleamed with the joy of the successful hunter; but it did not prepare to eat the mouse immediately. It trotted a little farther off, lay down, and, depositing its prey, dabbed at it softly with velvet paws and sheathed claws. It even let it run a few inches away from it, and then gently shepherded it back again. Once it let it seem to escape altogether, gave it a start of at least a couple of yards, while it watched it with quivering shoulders, and then playfully bounded in the air, and reminded it that it was not its own master. Then there came a dismal little squeak as from a slate-pencil; the poor mouse's troubles were over, and a pleased cat blinked in the sun and licked its lips.

Helena followed this gruesome little drama with an interest that surprised and even rather shocked her. She was altogether on the side of the cat; the cat, according to its lights, was not being cruel, it was merely doing the natural thing with a mouse. It happened to like teasing its prey, letting it think that it had escaped, sheathing the claws that had caught it, and playing with it. There was nothing horrible about it: the cat was doing as nature intended it to do. She was rather sorry for the mouse, but that is what came of being a mouse… And there was Archie, triumphant, with a porter and his rescued luggage. Archie had a way with officials: he smiled at them in a confident, friendly way, and they always did what he wanted and never searched his traps.