In a Steamer Chair, and Other Stories

Miss Earle was evidently very much astonished at this revelation, but she said nothing. After waiting in vain for her to speak, Morris gazed off at the dim shore. When he looked around he noticed that Miss Earle was standing on his side of the flagstaff. There was no longer a barrier between them.

Seventh Day

If George Morris were asked to say which day of all his life had been the most thoroughly enjoyable, he would probably have answered that the seventh of his voyage from New York to Liverpool was the red-letter day of his life. The sea was as calm as it was possible for a sea to be. The sun shone bright and warm. Towards the latter part of the day they saw the mountains of Wales, which, from the steamer's deck, seemed but a low range of hills. It did not detract from Morris's enjoyment to know that Mrs. Blanche was now on the troubleless island of Ireland, and that he was sailing over this summer sea with the lady who, the night before, had promised to be his wife.

During the day Morris and Katherine sat together on the sunny side of the ship looking at the Welsh coast. Their books lay unread on the rug, and there were long periods of silences between them.

"I don't believe," said Morris, "that anything could be more perfectly delightful than this. I wish the shaft would break."

"I hope it won't," answered the young lady; "the chances are you would be as cross as a bear before two days had gone past, and would want to go off in a small boat."

"Oh, I should be quite willing to go off in a small boat if you would come with me. I would do that now."

"I am very comfortable where I am," answered Miss Katherine. "I know when to let well enough alone."

"And I don't, I suppose you mean?"

"Well, if you wanted to change this perfectly delightful day for any other day, or this perfectly luxurious and comfortable mode of travel for any other method, I should suspect you of not letting well enough alone."

"I have to admit," said George, "that I am completely and serenely happy. The only thing that bothers me is that to-night we shall be in Liverpool. I wish this hazy and dreamy weather could last for ever, and I am sure I could stand two extra days of it going just as we are now. I think with regret of how much of this voyage we have wasted."

"Oh, you think it was wasted, do you?"

"Well, wasted as compared with this sort of life. This seems to me like a rest after a long chase."

"Up the deck?" asked the young lady, smiling at him.

"Now, see here," said Morris, "we may as well understand this first as last, that unfortunate up-the-deck chase has to be left out of our future life. I am not going to be twitted about that race every time a certain young lady takes a notion to have a sort of joke upon me."

"That was no joke, George. It was the most serious race you ever ran in your life. You were running away from one woman, and, poor blind young man, you ran right in the arms of another. The danger you have run into is ever so much greater than the one you were running away from."

"Oh, I realise that," said the young man, lightly; "that's what makes me so solemn to-day, you know." His hand stole under the steamer rugs and imprisoned her own.

"I am afraid people will notice that," she said quietly.

"Well, let them; I don't care. I don't know anybody on board this ship, anyhow, except you, and if you realised how very little I care for their opinions you would not try to withdraw your hand."

"I am not trying very hard," answered the young woman; and then there was another long silence. Finally she continued—

"I am going to take the steamer chair and do it up in ribbons when I get ashore."

"I am afraid it will not be a very substantial chair, no matter what you do with it. It will be a trap for those who sit in it."

"Are you speaking of your own experience?"

"No, of yours."

"George," she said, after a long pause, "did you like her very much?"

"Her?" exclaimed the young man, surprised. "Who?"

"Why, the young lady you ran away from. You know very well whom I mean."

"Like her? Why, I hate her."

"Yes, perhaps you do now. But I am asking of former years. How long were you engaged to her?"

"Engaged? Let me see, I have been engaged just about—well, not twenty-four hours yet. I was never engaged before. I thought I was, but I wasn't really."

Miss Earle shook her head. "You must have liked her very much," she said, "or you never would have proposed marriage to her. You would never have been engaged to her. You never would have felt so badly when she—"

"Oh, say it out," said George, "jilted me, that is the word."

"No, that is not the phrase I wanted to use. She didn't really jilt you, you know. It was because you didn't have, or thought you didn't have, money enough. She would like to be married to you to-day."

George shuddered.

"I wish," he said, "that you wouldn't mar a perfect day by a horrible suggestion."

"The suggestion would not have been so horrible a month ago."

"My dear girl," said Morris, rousing himself up, "it's a subject that I do not care much to talk about, but all young men, or reasonably young men, make mistakes in their lives. That was my mistake. My great luck was that it was discovered in time. As a general thing, affairs in this world are admirably planned, but it does seem to me a great mistake that young people have to choose companions for life at an age when they really haven't the judgment to choose a house and lot. Now, confess yourself, I am not your first lover, am I?"

Miss Earle looked at him for a moment before replying.

"You remember," she said, "that once you spoke of not having to incriminate yourself. You refused to answer a question I asked you on that ground. Now, I think this is a case in which I would be quite justified in refusing to answer. If I told you that you were my first lover, you would perhaps be manlike enough to think that after all you had only taken what nobody else had expressed a desire for. A man does not seem to value anything unless some one else is struggling for it."

"Why, what sage and valuable ideas you have about men, haven't you, my dear?"

"Well, you can't deny but what there is truth in them."

"I not only can, but I do. On behalf of my fellow men, and on behalf of myself, I deny it."

"Then, on the other hand," she continued, "if I confessed to you that I did have half a score or half a dozen of lovers, you would perhaps think I had been jilting somebody or had been jilted. So you see, taking it all in, and thinking the matter over, I shall refuse to answer your question."

"Then you will not confess?"

"Yes, I shall confess. I have been wanting to confess to you for some little time, and have felt guilty because I did not do so."

"I am prepared to receive the confession," replied the young man, lazily, "and to grant absolution."

"Well, you talk a great deal about America and about Americans, and talk as if you were proud of the country, and of its ways, and of its people."

"Why, I am," answered the young man.

"Very well, then; according to your creed one person is just as good as another."

"Oh, I don't say that, I don't hold that for a moment. I don't think I am as good as you, for instance."