Words are futile things with which to attempt a description of the
feelings of the girl at the Carlton as she read this, the last letter
of seven written to her through the medium of her maid, Sadie Haight.
Turning the pages of the dictionary casually, one might enlist a
few--for example, amazement, anger, unbelief, wonder. Perhaps, to go
back to the letter a, even amusement. We may leave her with the solution
to the puzzle in her hand, the Saronia a little more than a day away,
and a weirdly mixed company of emotions struggling in her soul.
And leaving her thus, let us go back to Adelphi Terrace and a young man
exceedingly worried.
Once he knew that his letter was delivered, Mr. Geoffrey West took his
place most humbly on the anxious seat. There he writhed through the long
hours of Wednesday morning. Not to prolong this painful picture, let us
hasten to add that at three o'clock that same afternoon came a telegram
that was to end suspense. He tore it open and read: STRAWBERRY MAN: I shall never, never forgive, you. But we are sailing
tomorrow on the Saronia. Were you thinking of going home soon? MARIAN A.
LARNED.
Thus it happened that, a few minutes later, to the crowd of troubled
Americans in a certain steamship booking office there was added a
wild-eyed young man who further upset all who saw him. To weary clerks
he proclaimed in fiery tones that he must sail on the Saronia. There
seemed to be no way of appeasing him. The offer of a private liner would
not have interested him.
He raved and tore his hair. He ranted. All to no avail. There was, in
plain American, "nothing doing!"
Damp but determined, he sought among the crowd for one who had bookings
on the Saronia. He could find, at first, no one so lucky; but finally he
ran across Tommy Gray. Gray, an old friend, admitted when pressed that
he had a passage on that most desirable boat. But the offer of all the
king's horses and all the king's gold left him unmoved. Much, he said,
as he would have liked to oblige, he and his wife were determined. They
would sail.
It was then that Geoffrey West made a compact with his friend. He
secured from him the necessary steamer labels and it was arranged that
his baggage was to go aboard the Saronia as the property of Gray.
"But," protested Gray, "even suppose you do put this through; suppose
you do manage to sail without a ticket--where will you sleep? In chains
somewhere below, I fancy."