"I have tried it; but it is too tedious for me," said Brand. "The sort of yachting I like is in a vessel of five thousand tons, going three hundred and eighty miles a day. With half a gale of wind in your teeth in the 'rolling Forties,' then there is some fun."
"I must go over to the States very soon," Mr. Lind said.
"Papa!"
"The worst of it is," her father said, without heeding that exclamation of protest, "that I have so much to do that can only be done by word of mouth."
"I wish I could take the message for you," Brand said, lightly. "When the weather looks decent, I very often take a run across to New York, put up for a few days at the Brevoort House, and take the next ship home. It is very enjoyable, especially if you know the officers. Then the bagman—I have acquired a positive love for the bagman."
"The what?" said Natalie.
"The bagman. The 'commy' his friends call him. The commercial traveller, don't you know? He is a most capital fellow—full of life and fun, desperately facetious, delighting in practical jokes: altogether a wonderful creature. You begin to think you are in another generation—before England became melancholy—the generation, for example, that roared over the adventures of Tom and Jerry."
Natalie did not know who Tom and Jerry were; but that was of little consequence; for at this moment they began to descry "the white chalk-line beyond the sea"—the white line of the English coast. And they went on chatting cheerfully; and the sunlight flashed its diamonds on the blue waters around them, and the white chalk cliffs became more distinct.
"And yet it seems so heartless for one to be going back to idleness," Natalie Lind said, absently. "Papa works as hard in England as anywhere else; but what can I do? To think of one going back to peaceful days, and comfort, and pleasant friends, when others have to go through such misery, and to fight against such persecution! When Vjera Sassulitch offered me her hand—"
She stopped abruptly, with a quick, frightened look, first at George Brand, then at her father.
"You need not hesitate, Natalie," her father said, calmly. "Mr. Brand has given me his word of honor he will reveal nothing he may hear from us."
"I do not think you need be afraid," said Brand; but all the same he was conscious of a keen pang of mortification. He, too, had noticed that quick look of fright and distrust. What did it mean, then? "You are beside us, you are near to us; but you are not of us, you are not with us."
He was silent, and she was silent too. She seemed ashamed of her indiscretion, and would say nothing further about Vjera Sassulitch.
"Don't imagine, Mr. Brand," said her father, to break this awkward silence, "that what Natalie says is true. She is not going to be so idle as all that. No; she has plenty of hard work before her—at least, I think it hard work—translating from the German into Polish."
"I wish I could help," Brand said, in a low voice. "I do not know a word of Polish."
"You help?" she said, regarding him with the beautiful dark eyes, that had a sudden wonder in them. "Would you, if you knew Polish?"
He met that straight, fearless glance without flinching; and he said "Yes," while they still looked at each other. Then her eyes fell; and perhaps there was the slightest flush of embarrassment, or pleasure, on the pale, handsome face.
But how quickly her spirits rose! There was no more talk of politics as they neared England. He described the successive ships to her; he called her attention to the strings of wild-duck flying up Channel; he named the various headlands to her. Then, as they got nearer and nearer, the little Anneli had to be sought out, and the various travelling impedimenta got together. It did not occur to Mr. Lind or his daughter as strange that George Brand should be travelling without any luggage whatever.
But surely it must have occurred to them as remarkable that a bachelor should have had a saloon-carriage reserved for himself—unless, indeed, they reflected that a rich Englishman was capable of any whimsical extravagance. Then, no sooner had Miss Lind entered this carriage, than it seemed as though everything she could think of was being brought for her. Such flowers did not grow in railway-stations—especially in the month of March. Had the fruit dropped from the telegraph-poles? Cakes, wine, tea, magazines and newspapers appeared to come without being asked for.
"Mr. Brand," said Natalie, "you must be an English Monte Cristo: do you clap your hands, and the things appear?"
But a Monte Cristo should never explain. The conjuror who reveals his mechanism is no longer a conjuror. George Brand only laughed, and said he hoped Miss Lind would always find people ready to welcome her when she reached English shores.
As they rattled along through those shining valleys—the woods and fields and homesteads all glowing in the afternoon sun—she had put aside her travelling-cloak and hood, for the air was quite mild. Was it the drawing off of the hood, or the stir of wind on board the steamer, that had somewhat disarranged her hair?—at all events, here and there about her small ear or the shapely neck there was an escaped curl of raven-black. She had taken off her gloves, too: her hands, somewhat large, were of a beautiful shape, and transparently white. The magazines and newspapers received not much attention—except from Mr. Lind, who said that at last he should see some news neither a week old nor fictitious. As for these other two, they seemed to find a wonderful lot to talk about, and all of a profoundly interesting character. With a sudden shock of disappointment George Brand found that they were almost into London.
His hand-bag was at once passed by the custom-house people; and he had nothing to do but say good-bye. His face was not over-cheerful.
"Well, it was a lucky meeting," Mr. Lind said. "Natalie ought to thank you for being so kind to her."
"Yes; but not here," said the girl, and she turned to him. "Mr. Brand, people who have travelled so far together should not part so quickly: it is miserable. Will you not come and spend the evening with us?"
"Natalie will give us something in the way of an early dinner," said Mr. Lind, "and then you can make her play the zither for you."
Well, there was not much hesitation about his accepting. That drawing-room, with its rose-and-green-shaded candles, was not as other drawing-rooms in the evening. In that room you could hear the fountains plashing in the Villa Reale, and the Capri fishermen singing afar, and the cattle-bells chiming on the Campagna, and the gondolas sending their soft chorus across the lagoon. When Brand left his bag in the cloak-room at the station he gave the porter half a crown for carrying thither, which was unnecessary. Nor was there any hopeless apathy on his face as he drove away with these two friends through the darkening afternoon, in the little hired brougham. When they arrived in Curzon Street, he was even good enough to assist the timid little Anneli to descend from the box; but this was in order that he might slip a tip into the hand of the coachman. The coachman scarcely said "Thank you." It was not until afterward that he discovered he had put half a sovereign into his breeches-pocket as if it were an ordinary sixpence.
Natalie Lind came down to dinner in a dress of black velvet, with a mob-cap of rose-red silk. Round her neck she wore a band of Venetian silver-work, from the centre of which was suspended the little old-fashioned locket she had received in Hyde Park. George Brand remembered the story, and perhaps was a trifle surprised that she should wear so conspicuously the gift of a stranger.
She was very friendly, and very cheerful. She did not seem at all fatigued with her travelling; on the contrary, it was probably the sea-air and the sunlight that had lent to her cheek a faint flush of color. But at the end of dinner her father said.
"Natalushka, if we go into the drawing-room, and listen to music, after so long a day, we shall all go to sleep. You must come into the smoking-room with us."
"Very well, papa."
"But, Miss Lind," the other gentleman remonstrated, "a velvet dress—tobacco-smoke—"
"My dresses must take their chance," said Miss Lind. "I