Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

“ He was quivering in every nerve with the sense of what the Italian skipper had been saying. Polly, strange to say, was no less agitated than he, but the blush upon her cheek, which the clear dusk could not hide, was not yet free from embarrassment. The strong and bracing air and the vastness of the sky above calmed and soothed her. She was walking at his side with downcast eyes all aglow with the delicious sense of loving and being loved. ”

“ People ran against them, and would have knocked them down, if he had not with the same ruthlessness knocked against them. The captain's great voice rang through the fog; but it was not reassuring. A score of frightened women in night-dresses, with shawls and plaids flung over their shoulders, were pressing in a shivering group about the purser, who shook his head dismally but could give no information. After many collisions, entailing bumps and bruises, Pemberton reached the forward hatch, where there was a clear space, with a dim lantern swinging from the fore-yard. ”

“ But he observed, while looking at Polly Stanton, how utterly crude and untenable such generalization was.
It is always a difficult thing for a man of thirty-one to talk naturally and without patronage or condescension to a young lady under twenty. The years somehow interpose invisible obstacles which he has perpetually to be climbing, or to run his head against, if he does not suspect them. And in the case of Pemberton and Miss Stanton, there was the ghost of that embarrassing incident which rose up between them and refused to be laid. ”

“ The ship went at half speed; the distressing fog-whistle began to blow, and blue and red lanterns were swung from the spars and the mastheads. In the saloon the passengers were amused by an exhibition of living pictures, in the arrangement of which Pemberton easily outstripped the Honorable Algernon and the Yale youths, while Polly, variously draped in plain and gorgeous garments, represented a Spanish Infanta by Velasquez, the Duchess of Devonshire by Gainsborough, and a Dutch market-woman by Van Ostade. ”

“ Among the hundred and fifty odd passengers who had embarked at Southampton a goodly number were engaged in finding their steamer-chairs, securing the best seats at the table, and experimentally asserting all sorts of rights with a ruthlessness which made their more civilized countrymen ashamed of them. Amid all this confusion and occasional uncaging of beasts, which on shore are rarely seen at large, Pemberton saw his niece making her way toward him with tear-stained face and a much perturbed manner. ”

“ I do not believe that any Ariel could frame more favorable conditions for courtship than those of a great ocean steamer. You are reduced to a sort of paradisaical isolation with the girl who attracts you. You are detached from your environment; the great world has receded out of sight and out of hearing, and the vast blank of sea and sky has, somehow, the effect of projecting you and her against the background of eternity. Though she be as shy as a wren and as retiring as an oyster, she becomes, with every day that passes, a more absorbing phenomenon from whom there is no escape. ”

“ Through the dense darkness Pemberton groped his way to deck cabin No. 8, and to his astonishment found it locked. He thumped on the door with all his might, and presently heard a frightened voice asking what he wanted. "There has been an accident," he replied in his coolest accents; "dress as quickly as you can, and come out."
He had scarcely uttered the words when Valeria tore open the door, and both girls, wrapped in long, fur-lined cloaks, came rushing out. ”

“ In the hall he ran against a young woman in the lightest of negligés who clutched him desperately, and with a white face asked him if they had struck an iceberg, and implored him to assure her that there was no danger, and then, before he could give any sort of reply, hurried up the stairs to the saloon. Pemberton, remembering that Valeria and Polly occupied a deck cabin, rushed after her, encountering on the way scores of white wraiths of the elegant people from whom he had parted in the best of spirits an hour ago. ”

“ Perry himself retired in the most preposterously light-hearted mood to his state-room, and repeatedly surprised himself, while undressing, by bursting into unmelodious song. He had kissed Valeria good-night, simply because he had to kiss somebody, and Valeria had asked him, half reproachfully (though not à propos of the kiss) , why, if he could be so enchanting, he did not choose to let his amiability shine before men a little oftener. ”

“ Are you not comfortably fixed."
"No, I am most detestably fixed."
Valeria hastened to relate the tale of her woes, with dramatic touches and decorations, and a fresh burst of tears seemed imminent, when Pemberton, being consumed with a desire to talk with Polly Stanton, made an effort to stop her. But she would take no hints, and relentlessly persevered. Then it was that Polly was suddenly seized with a luminous idea.
"Why, Valeria," she cried in glee, "how perfectly lovely! I have a whole state-room to myself—and it is a deck cabin too. You are welcome to half of it." ”

“ She was presently joined by her uncle, Mr. Humphrey, who was attired from head to foot in coarse, grayish-brown tweed, of the most perfect fit. His cap matched his clothes, and his mustache very nearly matched his cap. He was artistically complete, single eye-glass, slight stoop, British drawl, and the rest. No one but an Englishman could possibly have mistaken him for an American. When Valeria presently came on deck, in equally stunning toggery, Pemberton was moved in pure self-defence to get up and promenade with her in the opposite direction. ”

“ Pemberton lost no time in introducing himself to the two ladies and informing them that he had a carriage waiting for them. His niece, who was superbly stylish and handsome, gave him her cheek to kiss, in the cool and perfunctory way adapted toward elderly relatives; and he had an impression that she was subjecting him to a rather critical inspection, and concluding with a sense of relief that he would pass muster. "This is my uncle, Mr. Pemberton, madame," she said in French to her companion; "Mr. Pemberton—Madame Bournouville." ”

“ There is a jealousy in the masculine creature which resents even the suspicion of a predecessor in the affection of the beloved one, and there was to Pemberton something deeply comforting in the thought that Polly had spent six years within the cloistered walls of a French seminary. ”

“ As you are her own uncle, and her senior by no end of years, there could, of course, be no objection on the score of the proprieties. But the question is: Are you willing to ruffle the glossy plumage of your bachelor comfort ever so little for your sister's sake? I should dislike very much to give my daughter in charge of some German or English steamboat captain (the French, of course, are out of the question) , and have her shipped across the great pond with her name and address on a label, sewed on the collar of her dress. ”

“ You have no choice but to meet her twenty times a day, and fate takes a cruel pleasure in thwarting your half-hearted designs to eschew the desired rendezvous. The rest of the ship's company fade into insignificance ”

“ Valeria and half a dozen other ladies were likewise pressed into service as Madonnas, Judiths, Dianas, and what not, and an equal number of men posed as Mars, Moses, St. Peter, St. John, and other pagan and Christian dignitaries. The success of the entertainment was most pronounced, and everybody went to bed a little after midnight in an animated frame of mind and with Pemberton's praises on their lips. ”

“ They have no sort of reality to you, and their uncharitable comments on your behavior, which you suspect, are to you matters of sublime indifference. You begin to realize why Adam could not in that gloriously empty world have escaped falling in love with Eve, and what serious consequences would have resulted if he had resisted her attractions.
Perry Pemberton passed through all these moods, and a dozen more, during the first day of his sojourn on the Transylvania. He had fallen completely under the spell of Polly Stanton's eyes. ”

“ There is always a danger in being too gently reared, in having life bolstered and cushioned for you from the very cradle; and I shall not maintain that Perry Pemberton, with all his fastidious refinements, was as robust a personality as he would have been if he had known the discipline of hardship.
It was in no agreeable frame of mind that Perry walked up and down the digue at Ostend, considering the various aspects of the problem which his sister's letter had thrust upon him. It was all very well that the young lady was his niece ”

“ If it is not full of water there is no danger."
He released the two girls, and stooping down was about to pull up the hatch, when a strange pulsating sound struck his ear, and again that fierce gusty resonance swept through the air above him. His knees shook, and he felt wilted in his very marrow. Savagely he braced himself to overcome a disposition to shiver. He scarcely dared to lift the hatch. ”

“ The captain demands a sworn declaration of him as to exactly what happened, and how the accident occurred, before he has time to concoct a story and confer with his mate. It is therefore of the utmost importance to find two passengers who understand Italian, who can act as witnesses and interpreters."
Pemberton, being thus ruthlessly buttonholed, was in the plight of the Wedding Guest in "The Ancient Mariner," "who could not choose but hear." He gave himself up to reluctant meditation. He could not deny that he understood Italian and he therefore had to admit it. ”

“ It was all on account of that mistake," she added, with comical perplexity, as they sauntered toward the entrance to the saloon. "I knew it would be no use trying to correct it."
"It is vain to kick against Fate," Pemberton responded, with a happy laugh. "I verily believe that the collision, the fainting fit, and the Italian skipper's blunder were all incidents of the same conspiracy which has given me the loveliest girl in the world to have and to hold forevermore."
"I beg your pardon," Polly interposed, with a menacing light in her eves. ”

“ Mrs. Arlington had engaged her services for Valeria's chaperon to Brussels, paying her something over and above her expenses. And this led to a conversation on school-life in general, during which Pemberton asked the sort of questions that one asks little girls, to all of which his niece responded with cheerful amplitude, while he lost himself in abstraction, starting up every now and then with a spasmodic effort to be agreeable. The fact was, he was in a fever to elicit some information regarding Miss Stanton ”

“ The second officer met them with the assurance that there was no cause for alarm, and they thanked him as cordially as if they had had no previous information. The life-boats were now returning, having picked up all the survivors from the wrecked vessel, and the passengers leaned out over the bulwarks in their eagerness to catch a glimpse of the rescued men. It took a good while before the boats could heave alongside, and then fully fifteen minutes of shouting and swearing before anyone mounted the gangway-ladder. ”

“ He was a fairly good-looking man, and fairly well placed in the world, but as a compensating disadvantage he accounted his lack of dexterity, lack of feminine experience, and his comparative inconspicuousness as an artist. ”