Her Weight in Gold and others Part 13

"And you're not Miss Frost?"

"One of them scrawny--I beg pardon, sir! Did you think I was--"

"Well, if that's the case, I can tell you what I said a moment ago. I said 'D--n it all!' Where am I?"

"At Mr. Gladding's, sir."

"Is Sago upstairs?"

"No, sir; they've gone to the matinee on their wedding trip, Mr.

Hamshaw."

"Oh!"

It was not what Mr. Hamshaw said but the way he said it.

THE GREEN RUBY

He was a very good-looking chap--this Cannable who lived in the civilised city of New Orleans. It is quite true that he came from an island in the sea, but as that island is known to geographers, great and small, as England, it is scarcely worth while to mention his migration as an achievement of civilisation. Moreover, it was known that he had eaten of human flesh, but it was not with the gusto of those ancient Fijis who banqueted on salubrious sailors and munchable ministers whenever they had the simultaneous chance and appet.i.te.

He was one of three survivors of the ill-fated Graceby polar expedition, and as such he had been obliged to subsist for some days on whatsoever was set before him by the cook, a discreet but overpowering person who certainly would have been the sole survivor if the relief expedition had been delayed a few days longer. But that portion of Mr.

Cannable's history sounds much better in whispers and it does not look pretty in print. He never repeated it of his own accord. The newspapers told it for him when he was too weak and exhausted to deny or affirm.

His uncle, Sir John Bolingbroke, sent him out from London soon after his return from the frozen North to represent great financial interests on the Cotton Exchange at New Orleans. For two years the young man stuck manfully to his post in the southern city, but it was an irksome restraint to one whose heart was turbulent with the love of travel and adventure. Just at the time when he was ready to resign his position and hie himself into the jungles of the Amazon on an exploring expedition two things happened, either of which was in itself sufficient to stay him for the while. In the first place, his uncle died and left him two hundred thousand pounds in good English money, and in the second place he met Agatha Holmes.

The two hundred thousand pounds, it is but just to say, might not have kept him from the equator, but it is doubtful if all, much less any specific portion of the globe, could have induced him to leave Agatha Holmes. And so it was that Mr. James Cannable--for short "Jimmy"--remained in New Orleans for many months, estimably employed in the business of evolving a plan that might permit him to journey to the world's end with two hundred thousand pounds in one hand and a certain girl's future in the other.

The months and the plans were profitable, it seems, for one splendid evening saw him at the altar-rail beside the fairest girl in all the Southland, the queen of a thousand hearts. Agatha Holmes became Mrs.

Cannable, and thereby hangs a tale. It would appear, from all the current but unpublished records of social Louisiana, that Agatha had gone about shattering hearts in a most unintentional but effective fas.h.i.+on up to the time Mr. Jimmy Cannable refused to be routed.

Certainly it is no blot upon this fair young coquette's fame to admit that she had plighted herself to at least four ardent suitors in days gone by, and it was equally her own affair if she took every woman's privilege of s.h.i.+fting her fancy before she was ready to marry.

Unluckily for Agatha, however, she neglected to disengage herself properly from the most recent suitor next before Mr. Cannable. So far as that worthy was concerned the engagement still obtained, for he, poor chap, was down in Patagonia somewhere surveying for railroads and did not have the slightest means of ascertaining her change of affection. How was he to know that she had married Jimmy Cannable, and how was he to know that she had forgotten his very existence without a single pang of remorse? He only knew that he had starved himself to give her a diamond ring, to say nothing of the wonderful old ruby heirloom that had been in the family for centuries.

He told her at parting that no power on earth could keep him from some day reclaiming the heirloom and with it the hand of the girl who was to wear it all her life.

One day, out of the past and up from the wilds, came the word that Harry Green was on his way home after an absence of three years. Agatha Holmes had been Mrs. Cannable for three months and she had forgotten young Mr. Green as completely as if he never had been a part of her memory. A cablegram addressed to Agatha Holmes one day was delivered to Agatha Cannable. It simply said: "Am coming back at last for the ruby.

Harry," and it was sent from London. She found herself wondering what he was doing in England and how long it would be before he could reach New Orleans, but it did not dawn upon her for three full days that he still imagined himself to be her tardy but accepted fiance. Then in the fulness of her joy she sat down and laughed over his amazement--perhaps his chagrin--when he learned that she was another man's wife.

At first thought she decided to tell Jimmy the news, permitting him to enjoy the fun as well, but the discretion which shapes woman's ends forestalled the impulse. There was much she could not explain in justice to herself, to say nothing of the other man who had gone away with her in his heart. True, it may not have been difficult to hold her immaculate in a heart surrounded by Patagonians, but there was something disturbing in the fact that he had been constant, after all.

She recalled, with a slight s.h.i.+ver (which grew with time, by the way), that she had sworn to kill herself rather than to marry any one but Harry Green. It also came back to her memory that the hot-blooded Harry had promised faithfully, though fiercely, that he would accomplish that end for her in case she violated her oath.

It is sufficient to say that she was the most wretched young woman in New Orleans by the time Harry Green landed in New York. He telegraphed to her, announcing his arrival and his hasty departure for the Southern metropolis. Somehow the slip of paper read like a death-warrant to her peace of mind.

"How annoying it is to have an old affair revived like this," she wailed to herself. "Why couldn't he, too, have married some one else?

How, in Heaven's name, will it end?" She thought of a thousand subterfuges through which she might avoid seeing him, but put them all aside with the recollection of his indomitable will. He would see her sooner or later; the inevitable could not be avoided.

She finally took to her bed with daily headaches, distractedly but stealthily studying a railroad time-table.

"He's leaving New York by this time. Good Heaven, he'll be in Mobile by one o'clock tomorrow, Pa.s.s Christian a few minutes later--oh, dear, I wonder if he will be terribly violent! Jimmy is noticing, too. He says I'm ill. He wants to take me to California, but I don't dare--I don't dare! Harry Green would be sure to follow. I know him--oh, how well I know him! He would--"

A servant came in to announce that Miss Carrithers was down stairs.

"Ask her to come up," sighed Agatha. "I'll tell her myself that I don't want to see her, but it won't mean anything to Betty. She'll stay all morning."

"Yes, ma'am," agreed the maid as she hurried away. A moment later Miss Carrithers fairly bounded into the darkened bed-chamber, her face full of excitement.

"Have you heard?" she gasped, dropping upon the side of the bed. "Harry Green's coming home. He's in New York now. Joe Pierce had a telegram."

"Yes, I know," said Agatha drearily.

"Have you heard from him--you?" demanded Miss Betty in amazement--and some little concern.

"Of course, Betty; why shouldn't I?" irritably.

"Oh, I suppose it's all right," said the other dubiously. "I was only thinking of the--of the old days."

"Betty," said Mrs. Cannable, sitting up suddenly and grasping her friend's hand, "I'm the most wretched creature on earth. I don't know what I'm to do."

"Is it about--about Harry Green?" "Yes. You see, dear, he--he doesn't know I'm married."

"Goodness, Agatha! You don't mean he--he still thinks you are engaged to marry him?"

"That's just it, Betty. I didn't tell him--in fact, I had forgotten all about him, away down there in Patagonia, wherever it is. He--"

"And, oh, he was so terribly in love with you--and you with him, too!"

"No, no; don't say that. It was so foolish. Besides, he's been gone nearly three years. How could he expect me to wait all that time? I haven't had a letter from him for more than a year. I counted it up today."

"Does Jimmy Cannable know about--him?"

"I don't know and I'm afraid to ask."

"Harry's a frightfully determined person," mused Betty Carrithers reflectively.

"He swore I should be his wife if we waited a thousand years."

"That's the one thing in your favour. When they swear such things as that they can't possibly mean all they say," said Miss Betty sagely.

She was the prettiest and most popular girl in town, but she was a wise body for all that. Her trim little figure was surcharged with a magnetism that thrilled one to the very core; her brown eyes danced ruthlessly through one's most stubborn defences; her smile and her frown were the thermometers by which masculine emotions could be gauged at a glance. "It will be rather difficult to face him, won't it?"

"Betty, it's simply impossible! Think of Harry Green waiting all these years, believing in me, as constant as the sun--and then to find I've married some one else. You know I love Jimmy Cannable with all my heart. I can't bear the thought of what might happen if he and Harry quarrelled about--about those old days."

"Don't cry--don't be a goose! It's the commonest thing in the world.

Every girl has had dozens of affairs."