But all my searchings were vain. The girl seemed to have disappeared as if the Seine had swallowed her. I was wasting my life in vain regrets, so after six months had gone I put my affairs into the hands of a divorce lawyer, and having fulfilled all the requirements of French law, I sailed for America.
CHAPTER X
PRINCE OF DREAMERS
I was lucky in getting a state-room on the Garguantuan, and on reading over the list of passengers I saw a name that seemed vaguely familiar, Miss B. Tevandale. Where had I heard it before?
Then my memory sluggishly prompted me. Wasn’t there a Miss Boadicea Tevandale who had played some part in my life? Oh, Irony! when we recall our past loves and have difficulty in remembering their names!
For the first two days the weather was very unsettling and I decided that I would better sustain my dignity by remaining in my cabin. On the third, however, I ventured on deck, and there sure enough I saw a Junoesque female striding mannishly up and down. Yes, it was Boadicea. She was looking exasperatingly fit—I had almost written fat; but really, she seemed to have grown positively adipose.
“Miss Tevandale.”
“Mr. Madden.”
“Why, you look wretched,” she said, after the first greetings were over.
“Yes; I’m a little seedy,” I answered wanly. “Haven’t quite got my sea-legs yet. But you seem a good sailor?”
“Aggressively so. But where have you been all this time? What wild, strange land has been claiming you? All the world wondered. It seemed as if you had dropped off the earth.”