“That was a daisy,” Webster mumbled. “If you move before my head clears, I'll put four bullets into you before you reach the corridor.”
He waited about a minute; then with the gun he pointed to the car door, and the masher stepped out. Webster handed the porter his gun and followed; two minutes later he returned, dragging his assailant by the collar. Up the steps he jerked the big battered hulk and tossed it in the corner of the vestibule, just as the girl came through the car, making for the diner up ahead.
Again she favoured him with that calm, grave, yet vitally interested gaze, nodded appreciatively, made as if to pass on, changed her mind, and said very gravely: “You are—a very courtly gentleman, sir.”
He bowed. There was nothing else to do, nothing that he could say, under the circumstances; to use his chivalry as a wedge to open an acquaintance never occurred to him—but his whiskers did occur to him. Hastily he backed into his stateroom and closed the door; presently he rose and surveyed himself critically in the small mirror over the washstand.
“No, Johnny,” he murmured, “we can't go into the diner now. We're too blamed disreputable. We were bad enough before that big swine hung the shanty on our right eye, but whatever our physical and personal feelings, far be it from us to parade our iridescent orb in public. Besides, one look at that queen is enough to do us for the remainder of our natural life, and a second look, minus a proper introduction, would only drive us into a suicide's grave. That's a fair sample of our luck, Johnny. It rains duck soup—and we're there like a Chinaman—with chopsticks; and on the only day in the history of the human race, here I am with a marvellous black eye, a dislocated thumb, four skinned knuckles, and a grouch, while otherwise looking like a cross between Rip Van Winkle and a hired man.” He sighed, rang for the porter and told him to send a waiter for his order, since he would fain break his fast in the privacy of his stateroom. And when the waiter came for the order, such was Mr. Webster's mental perturbation that ham and eggs were furthest from his thoughts. He ordered a steak with French fried potatoes.
CHAPTER II
JOHN STUART WEBSTER passed a restless night. Sleep came to him in hourly installments, from which he would rouse to ask himself whether it was worth while to continue to go through the motions of living, or alight at the next station, seek a lonely and unfrequented spot and there surrender to outrageous fortune. He had lived every moment of his life; fair fortune and ill had been his portion so often that he had long since ceased to care which took precedence over the other; to quote Mr. Kipling, he had schooled himself to “treat those two impostors both the same”—not a very difficult task, if one be granted a breathing spell between the arrival of each impostor! Hitherto, in Webster's experience, there had always been a decent interval between the two—say a day, a week, a month or more; whereas in the present instance, two minutes had sufficed to make the journey from a heaven of contentment to the dungeons of despair.
It was altogether damnable. In a careless moment, Fate had accorded him a glimpse of the only woman he had ever met and desired to meet again—for Webster was essentially a man's man, and his profession and environment had militated against his opportunities for meeting extraordinary women; and extraordinary women were the only kind that could hope to challenge his serious attention. Had his luck changed there, he might have rested content with his lot—but it hadn't. Fate had gone farther. She had accorded him a signal opportunity for knightly combat in the service of this extraordinary woman; and in the absence of a formal introduction, what man could desire a finer opportunity for getting acquainted! If only their meeting had but been delayed two weeks, ten days, a week! Once free of his ugly cocoon of rags and whiskers, the butterfly Webster would not have hesitated one brief instant to inform himself of that young lady's name and address, following his summary disposal of her tormentor. Trusting to the mingled respect and confusion in his manner, and to her own womanly intuition to warn her that no rudeness or brazen familiarity was intended, he would have presented himself before her and addressed her in these words: