The Dark Star

“Well, we haven’t so very long, then. There’s my bedroom – if you want to fix up.”

She rose wearily.

When she emerged from his room with her hat and gloves on, the taxicab was audible in the street below.

Together they descended the dark stairway up which she had toiled with trembling knees. He carried her suitcase, aided her into the taxi.

“Cunard Line,” he said briefly, and entered the cab.

Already in the darkness of early morning the city was awake; workmen were abroad; lighted tramcars passed with passengers; great wains, trucks, and country wagons moved slowly toward markets and ferries.

He had begun to tell her almost immediately all that he knew about Paris, the life there in the students’ quarters, methods of living economically, what to seek and what to avoid – a homily rather hurried and condensed, as they sped toward the pier.

She seemed to be listening; he could not be sure that she understood or that her mind was fixed at all on what he was saying. Even while speaking, numberless objections to her going occurred to him, but as he had no better alternatives to suggest he did not voice them.

In his heart he really believed she ought to go back to Brookhollow. It was perfectly evident she would not consent to go there. As for her remaining in New York, perhaps the reasons for her going to Paris were as good. He was utterly unable to judge; he only knew that she ought to have the protection of experience, and that was lacking.

“I’m going to remain on board with you,” he said, “until she sails. I’m going to try to find my very good friend, the Princess Mistchenka, and have you meet her. She has been very kind to me, and I shall ask her to keep an eye on you while you are crossing, and to give you a lot of good advice.”

“A – princess,” said Rue in a tired, discouraged voice, “is not very likely to pay any attention to me, I think.”

“She’s one of those Russian or Caucasian princesses. You know they don’t rank very high. She told me herself. She’s great fun – full of life and wit and intelligence and wide experience. She knows a lot about everything and everybody; she’s been everywhere, travelled all over the globe.”

“I don’t think,” repeated Rue, “that she would care for me at all.”

“Yes, she would. She’s young and warm-hearted and human. Besides, she is interested in art – knows a lot about it – even paints very well herself.”

“She must be wonderful.”

“No – she’s just a regular woman. It was because she was interested in art that she came to the League, and I was introduced to her. That is how I came to know her. She comes sometimes to my studio.”

“Yes, but you are already an artist, and an interesting man–”

“Oh, Rue, I’m just beginning. She’s kind, that’s all – an energetic, intelligent woman, full of interest in life. I know she’ll give you some splendid advice – tell you how to get settled in Paris – Lord! You don’t even know French, do you?”

“No.”

“Not a word?”

“No… I don’t know anything, Mr. Neeland.”

He tried to laugh reassuringly:

“I thought it was to be Jim, not Mister,” he reminded her.

But she only looked at him out of troubled eyes.

In the glare of the pier’s headlights they descended. Passengers were entering the vast, damp enclosure; porters, pier officers, ship’s officers, sailors, passed to and fro as they moved toward the gangway where, in the electric glare of lamps, the clifflike side of the gigantic liner loomed up.

At sight of the monster ship Rue’s heart leaped, quailed, leaped again. As she set one slender foot on the gangway such an indescribable sensation seized her that she caught at Neeland’s arm and held to it, almost faint with the violence of her emotion.

A steward took the suitcase, preceded them down abysmal and gorgeous stairways, through salons, deep into the dimly magnificent bowels of the ocean giant, then through an endless white corridor twinkling with lights, to a stateroom, where a stewardess ushered them in.

There was nobody there; nobody had been there.

“He dare not come,” whispered Neeland in Ruhannah’s ear.

The girl stood in the centre of the stateroom looking silently about her.

“Have you any English and French money?” he asked.

“No.”

“Give me – well, say two hundred dollars, and I’ll have the purser change it.”

She went to her suitcase, where it stood on the lounge; he unstrapped it for her; she found the big packet of treasury notes and handed them to him.

“Good heavens!” he muttered. “This won’t do. I’m going to have the purser lock them in the safe and give me a receipt. Then when you meet the Princess Mistchenka, tell her what I’ve done and ask her advice. Will you, Rue?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“You’ll wait here for me, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

So he noted the door number and went away hastily in search of the purser, to do what he could in the matter of foreign money for the girl. And on the upper companionway he met the Princess Mistchenka descending, preceded by porters with her luggage.

“James!” she exclaimed. “Have you come aboard to elope with me? Otherwise, what are you doing on the Lusitania at this very ghastly hour in the morning?”

She was smiling into his face and her daintily gloved hand retained his for a moment; then she passed her arm through his.

“Follow the porter,” she said, “and tell me what brings you here, my gay young friend. You see I am wearing the orchids you sent me. Do you really mean to add yourself to this charming gift?”

He told her the story of Ruhannah Carew as briefly as he could; at her stateroom door they paused while he continued the story, the Princess Mistchenka looking at him very intently while she listened, and never uttering a word.

She was a pretty woman, not tall, rather below middle stature, perhaps, beautifully proportioned and perfectly gowned. Hair and eyes were dark as velvet; her skin was old ivory and rose; and always her lips seemed about to part a little in the faint and provocative smile which lay latent in the depths of her brown eyes.

“Mon Dieu!” she said, “what a history of woe you are telling me, my friend James! What a tale of innocence and of deception and outraged trust is this that you relate to me! Allons! Vite! Let us find this poor, abandoned infant – this unhappy victim of your sex’s well-known duplicity!”

“She isn’t a victim, you know,” he explained.

“I see. Only almost – a – victim. Yes? Where is this child, then?”

“May I bring her to you, Princess?”

“But of course! Bring her. I am not afraid – so far – to look any woman in the face at five o’clock in the morning.” And the threatened smile flashed out in her fresh, pretty face.

When he came back with Rue Carew, the Princess Mistchenka was conferring with her maid and with her stewardess. She turned to look at Rue as Neeland came up – continued to scrutinise her intently while he was presenting her.