Jacob's Ladder Part 41

"Sorry," was the cheerful reply. "One has to drop into this sort of thing by degrees. I've a kind of naturally affectionate disposition, you know, when I'm with a pal."

"Get your typewriter and practise," Jacob directed. "I'll try and give you a letter."

"So to the daily toil," the young man chanted, as he turned away.

"I've got the little beauty in the saloon."

Jacob groaned and closed his eyes, for the motion of the steamer, two days out of Liverpool for New York, still awoke revolutionary symptoms in his interior. Presently Felixstowe returned, carrying a small typewriter. He arranged himself in the adjoining chair, drew up his knees, took out the typewriter from its case, and, with his pipe in the corner of his mouth, sat waiting.

"Ready," he announced.

"Oh, d.a.m.n!" Jacob groaned. "Write a letter to yourself."

"I'll write a line to you," the young man suggested soothingly.

He attacked his task very much as a child trying to spell out "The Bluebells of Scotland" on a piano with one finger. In a few minutes, with an air of pride, he drew out the sheet and pa.s.sed it to his companion. Jacob stretched out a feeble hand and read listlessly.

Dear Mr. Pratt,

I believe that a couple of dry Martini c.o.c.ktails would do us both good.

Faithfully yours, Felixstowe.

Sec. (Very sec!)

A weak smile parted Jacob's lips and he grunted a.s.sent. Felixstowe exchanged cabalistic signs with the deck steward, and in due course the latter appeared with a couple of gla.s.ses filled with frosted amber liquid. Jacob hesitated for a moment doubtfully.

"Try mental suggestion," the young man advised, looking lovingly at his gla.s.s. "Put it where the cat can't get it and say to yourself, 'This is going to do me good.' Cheerio!"

Two empty gla.s.ses were replaced upon the tray. Jacob raised himself a little in his chair.

"I believe I feel better already," he announced.

"Won't know yourself in an hour's time," his companion a.s.sured him. "I shall give you a pint of champagne and a sandwich at twelve o'clock, and you'll be taking me on at shuffleboard after lunch. Hullo, another wireless!"

"Read it for me," Jacob directed.

The young man tore open the envelope and read out the message:

Brother's condition unchanged. Your presence urgently needed. Will meet New York. Morse, Secretary.

"Poor old Sam!" Jacob murmured.

"He'll pull through, if he's got your const.i.tution," Felixstowe observed cheerfully. "I've never seen you under the weather yet."

"That's because I take care of myself," Jacob said a little severely.

"Great Caesar's ghost! Hi!"

The young secretary was sitting bolt upright in his chair. A man and a woman, pa.s.sing along the deck, turned in surprise at the challenge.

The surprise speedily became amazement, and the amazement universal.

"Sybil Bultiwell!" Jacob gasped, forgetting all about his seasickness.

"Maurice Penhaven!" Felixstowe exclaimed. "What in the name of thunder are you two doing here together?"

Sybil, being a woman, was the first to recover herself. She laughed softly.

"We do seem to come across one another in strange places and under strange conditions, don't we?" she said to Jacob. "This, perhaps, is the strangest of all. I am on my honeymoon."

"Married?" Jacob gasped, throwing off his rugs and sitting upright.

"But I was going to--you were--oh, d.a.m.n!"

She made a little grimace and drew him to one side.

"I can guess what is in your mind, Mr. Pratt," she said, "and I want to have a perfectly clear understanding with you. Tell me now, did I ever give you the slightest encouragement? Did I ever give you the faintest reason to hope that I should ever, under any circ.u.mstances, be willing to marry you?"

"I can't say that you did," Jacob admitted sadly, gripping at the rail against which they were standing. "I never left off hoping, though."

"Now that I have become unexpectedly a very happy woman," Sybil went on, with a new softness in her tone, "I will confess that I was perhaps unreasonable so far as regards your treatment of my father."

"Thank G.o.d for that, anyhow!" Jacob muttered.

"There were times," Sybil went on reflectively, "when I very nearly admired you."

"For example?"

"When you opened the door of the house in Russell Square for me and calmly took back your notes which I had been to fetch. That was one time, at any rate. But I never had the slightest feeling of affection for you, or the slightest intention of marrying you, however long you waited. Now I am going to tell you something else, if I may."

"Go on, please," Jacob begged, in a melancholy tone.

"I do not think that you have ever been really in love with me. You are rather a sentimental person, and you were in love with a girl in a white gown who walked with you in a rose garden one wonderful evening, and was very kind to you simply to atone for other people's rudeness.

It wasn't you I was being kind to at all. It was simply a sensitive guest who had been a little hurt."

"I see," he sighed.

"I had no idea," she went on reflectively, "that you were likely to misunderstand. It was one of my father's weaknesses that he sometimes forgot himself and did not sufficiently consider people's feelings.

He was rude to you that night, and I was ashamed and did my best to atone. I had no idea that you were going to take it all so seriously.

But I want you, Mr. Pratt," she went on earnestly, "to remember this.

It was no real person with whom you walked in the garden that night.

It was no real person the recollection of whom you have chosen to keep in your heart all this time, and with whom you have fancied yourself in love. It was just a creature of your own fancy. You are such a kind-hearted person really, and you ought to be happy. Can't you untwine all those sentimental fancies of yours and find some really nice, human girl with whom to bedeck them? There are so many women in the world, Jacob Pratt, who would like to have you for a husband, apart from your money."

"If it weren't for the money--" Jacob began sadly.

She interrupted him with a little peal of laughter.

"Faithless!" she exclaimed. "I can see that you have some one in your mind already. Don't think too much about your wealth. I am a very ordinary sort of girl, you know, and it didn't make any difference to me. Maurice hasn't as many hundreds a year as you have thousands, but I am quite content. Your money may make marriage more possible with a girl who has been extravagantly brought up, but that needn't prevent her really caring for you. So please cheer up, Mr. Jacob Pratt, and let us all be friends."

They turned back towards the others. The explanation between Lord Felixstowe and his sister's quondam fiance had been delayed by the intervention of the Captain, who had paused on his daily promenade to say a few words. Felixstowe was just then, however, undertaking his obvious duty.

"Seems to me, young fellow," he said, addressing Penhaven, "that a few words of explanation are due between us two."